Double Unhappiness

Something's been bothering me for more than a week.

I met Dear Husband last week at the restaurant where he now works to collect some of the money he owes me. I came to the trendy new restaurant's kitchen door near the end of his shift and he came outside to talk to me. Feeling uncommonly charitable, I gave him a hug and asked him how he was doing.

He replied that things were going great - he loves his new job. He looked very happy. When he asked me how I was doing, I started to cry. I could tell it was the beginning of a marathon weeping session, so I ran to my car before I embarrassed myself any further.

The next day, I received an email from DH assuring me that he is, in fact, very unhappy. He said in the email that while his career is thriving, his personal life is miserable. But he looked overjoyed that day behind the restaurant.

I'm not sure what prompted his rare email. Does he think that I'm unhappy that he's happy? Am I unhappy that he's happy?

My heart says no. My bleeding broken heart still cares about him in a way that I'm mostly unwilling to examine or even acknowledge.

But my mind, that evil organ that someone once described as my 'beady little brain,' wants him to be miserable. My head wants him to suffer half as much as I have suffered. My heart sometimes tells my head to shut up, but my head rarely listens.

I want my head to listen up, though. Although anger has been very useful throughout this ordeal for staving off despair, I want to let go of it. I want to learn how to forgive him. I want to learn how to be kind to him. I want to learn how to be kind to myself.

Should I hope my heart will overpower my head in some kind of cosmic world wrestling federation smackdown? Or just wait until my brain gets tired of churning out caustic chemicals and moves on to something else?

Maybe the answer is the one I hate the most - maybe I just have to wait. Nothing is more nauseating to me than the prospect of sitting in my feelings. But that's what has to happen.

When I think back on past heartbreak, things that seemed like they had the power to destroy my life have no emotional hold over me now. Someday that will happen with DH. But that's a future that's hard to imagine right now.