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The Long Goodbye

You give and you give. You work yourself hard and strive to be the best. Your boss is inflexible and demanding as hell. Once in a while, if you’re lucky, your boss gives you a little free time. If you are terribly lucky, you might get a small bonus or at least a pat on the back. You are exhausted, but you remain in a position that slowly, is beginning to kill you.

Only, it’s not a job. It’s your relationship. Your boss is the person you believed would fill your life with love and laughter. Now they only leave you feeling underappreciated and very tired.

Now most people would say, “Why would you stay with someone like that? If my honey doesn’t see and appreciate what I do, I’m so out of there!” But unfortunately once “love” is involved, it gets harder and harder to leave.

Amber, 26, and her fiancé Todd, 30, have been living together for over a year and plan on getting married this summer. They share all household duties and expenses, and take care of Amber’s young sons. This sounds like a perfect relationship, but unfortunately, it is not.

Amber, somewhere along the way, lost the desire to actually give anything to their relationship. She doesn’t want to go out with Todd and friends. She doesn’t want to hang out in her own home with friends. Amber fights with Todd for mundane reasons. To her, everything Todd does is against her or affects her in a major way. She is also what we like to call a “sexual camel.” She has sex with him once or twice a month, and that’s enough to keep her going for a while. She doesn’t care whether he’s satisfied. Slowly she is breaking up their relationship.

Only… they are getting married in six months.

Or at least, Amber says they are. She is very busy planning her wedding and has been since the day she made Todd get down on one knee and propose to her with the ring that she made him buy. Since the proposal, she’s thrown the ring away and broken off the engagement a few times, but she says they are still getting married. She never wears her engagement ring, but yes, they are getting married. Amber doesn’t realize that a wedding lasts a day. A marriage lasts (or should last) forever.

Todd, on the other hand, is taking very little part in this wedding business. He breaks away any time he can and runs to his friend’s place to drink and laugh. He is not a bad looking guy and could get any girl he wanted. But Todd is emotionally lonely. He believes that he loves Amber, but he talks about breaking up with her, and even looks at small one-bedroom apartments he could get if he left her. Todd chats with other women online and even went to meet up with one. He called it a mistake…but in my opinion, he just wanted to be near someone who appreciated him for being who he is. Amber seems to appreciate that he takes care of her kids.

So what we have here is a “long goodbye.” Todd knows that he should leave because this relationship is not working out. Amber, deep inside, knows that they should break it off before they seriously hurt each other, but who would take care of her and her kids? Amber and Todd both know that no matter what, they will always push each other’s buttons and bring out the worst in each other. Their friends and co-workers see this. Anyone who spends ten minutes with them sees it. They will eventually split up…but when?

The hardest thing in the world is to tell someone that his or her relationship is basically crap. You have to use gentle language and even then, they may get mad at you for pointing out the truth. You may not see what they are getting out of a relationship, but for some reason, he or she will find the smallest possible thing. In the case of Amber and Todd, he stays because her kids love him, and because he is basically poisoned with her. She stays because he takes care of her and she is badly obsessed with him.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is not enough

If you find yourself in the middle of a “long goodbye” or in a relationship that leaves you lonely, even when you spend all your time with your partner, find the strength to get help or get out. In the long run, it will be better for everyone.