Jill has added you as a friend.

Jill added me as a friend on Facebook today. It's something I've wanted but I knew it would be a while and I knew I could't ask her. I would just have to give her time. We've been talking more and I think she's been down the last few days and maybe she's seeing that I can be her friend. While that is good I'm worried about her. We talked yesterday and she seemed somewhat despondent. She's taken a lot of punishment the last few years both physically and emotionally and it's wearing on her. She's a great person who doesn't deserve the trials she's faced. While her leaving hurt me more than she will ever realize she deserves to be happy. I wasn't expecting that being her friend would be so hard. I'm just as worried and concerned about her as when we were together but I have so many less options for helping her. Before I could just hold her hand but now all I can do is type words onto a screen and words are not my thing. (you might have figured that out by now)

On brighter news she has agreed to have dinner with me for my birthday. This will be the first time we've been face to face since the divorce. I hope I don't lose it and start sobbing right there in the restaurant. Ah who am I kidding? I just hope I don't sob too much. Its going to be tough for both of us emotionally but I think it will help us deal with things and breakdown some of the barriers between us. I'm frightened and excited at the same time. I just want to hold her hand and hear her voice again. I may be forced to give up on her as a love but I will never give up on her as a friend.

heavy load

Heavy talk with Jill tonight. I had to ask a question I worried would upset her. I needed to ask if she had been with her boyfriend that had passed away before she had filed for divorce. I assumed the answer was  yes and it was. Jill had filed for divorce a few months after my dad died. We had been talking a lot as my mother had taken a serious turn after that and we had to put her in a nursing home (this being related to Jill's profession). When we had talked things seemed much better between us. She seemed much happier then she had been I quite a while. I didn't now then that it was her boyfriend making her happy so I assumed our relationship was improving. When she filed for divorce I felt blindsided. I wish she had told me she was seeing someone. Then I would have known there was a reason for her to move on at that point. Unfortunatly I saw it not as her moving on but her deciding to cut me out of her life. My mother passed away a few weeks before the hearing and I was a total mess at that time I couldn't talk to Jill then I was so afraid of what I might say. I told her tonight that I wish she had told me It would have still hurt like hell but it would have made sense.

In the course of the conversation I told her, what I have come to believe, that she never really loved me. I don't mean that as an accusation or an attack but as a sad fact. I think she liked me and still does and I think she wanted to love me but it just never happened. I think we were both lonely when we met and we both loved having someone else in our lives so much that we wanted to make it work so bad we ignored the truth. I loved her and she liked me. That, I think, did upset her. She never responded. It hurts like hell but I think if we can be honest with ourselves about what our relationship was and wasn't maybe we can build a new one with the parts that worked. Maybe she never did love me but I want her to still like me.

Loss

It's been a long week. Lots of time spent packing and moving. Been giving Jill some space this week. She finally opened up to me about a very close boyfriend of hers that passed away. I had seen her Facebook posts about him and I knew she was devastated by his loss. She had planned on moving out of state to be with him but he died suddenly two years ago this week. I know that was unbelievably hard for her. She lost her grandmother when we were together and it hit her hard but this was much more personal. She didn't share this loss with her entire family. She had to face this mostly alone and once again I find myself hating the fact that we were disconnected and I wasn't able to be there for her. Funny thing is it just points out to me how distant we are. She morns his loss openly but you would be hard pressed to know that we were ever married. We were together almost every day for six years and experienced so much together but it doesn't seem that she has ever missed me at all or what I thought we had. Maybe it was all an illusion. Maybe she never really loved me at all. Maybe she just liked that I loved her. I know now that she's never felt about me in the same way I do about her. I know she feels something for me but I don't know what it is or was. I want her to be happy even if its with someone else and I want her life to be free of the pain that has followed her for so long. All I can do is try to be her friend and be there if she needs me. I guess that's all we can ever do.