What would you do?

So what would you do if the man you ardently love couldn’t identify what he wanted in a relationship after two years of dedicated romantic entanglement, a great deal of fun, and wonderfully few arguments? What if you had already asked him and he had formerly stated that he loved you, was in love with you, and indeed wanted to marry you? And if he told your family that he wanted to marry you? And he met your close friends? And if you truly, genuinely believed it?

Would you be sad and conflicted? What if you were both in your forties and you really regarded him as The One? And if you got along with his family, and he with yours, and if your parents liked his parents? And if he knew it, because you had disclosed that good news. Would you just walk away, or would you want to work it out somehow?

Would you suggest a break, for him to figure it out? Would you express your love for him and your desire to make him happy but describe your inability to do so until he told you what would make him happy? Would you tell him it was imperative to you to be certain you weren’t pushing him into something he didn’t want? Would you explain that this decision has made you ill but the only way for him to determine his needs would be for him to first be free? Would you confess that you don’t want the ride to be over, but there have been too many excuses – would you begin to list them? – and would you be interrupted? 

Would you listen openly to his repeated responses and attempt to understand his belief that a one-hour drive is a long-distance relationship? Why he never really moved in (part-time, of course) to the large condo you own even though he had agreed to? That it was the drop in the country's interest rate eight years ago that caused him to decide to not buy his own home then, and since then? Would you ponder his commute and understand, for crying out loud, that one hour each direction would kill his spirit? Would you suggest a home together halfway from each other’s workplaces, since an hour commute for you would be unfair too?

Would you remember that when he truly wanted to do something he would run with it, as with his numerous projects and ventures? Would you flash back to a conversation several months ago when you asked him if you were doing anything wrong and he had said “no”? And when you asked if he was the one doing something wrong, that he really never answered? Would you feel like kicking yourself then, just a little?

And might you quite possibly lose your shit for thirty seconds at his willful ignorance and blatant disregard for commitment after he accuses you of wanting him to go broke by living in a home of his own? You, the type to seldom raise your voice? Would you tell him you had to get off the phone right now? 

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Would you expect that you were still together until you finished the conversation in person the next day, as you two had discussed earlier?

Would you expect he would show up? Or might you begin to suspect that he would cop out? Would you wonder if everything was ok, and call but not receive an answer? Would you begin to worry that something happened to him or to his parents (because you still care) and text him with the absurd “hope” that perhaps they were in the hospital, or worse? Or would you rethink it and decide that maybe he was just being petty?

Would you go to sleep wondering?

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Would you try once again in the morning?

Would you believe his ability to do absolutely nothing? Would you be awestruck at his inaction, gob smacked by his show of disrespect for you and your time, stunned at his small-mindedness, dumbfounded by his cruelty, disgusted at his lies, and astonished at his lack of balls cowardly disposition?  

Would you lose all respect for him?

You might. I know I did.

Would you become bitter? Or would you simply pity him, and take the high road? I took the high road, because manners do still count these days.

Finally, would you ask yourself if you made the right decision?

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Would you be right?

I was.*

*And I certainly hope he’ll stay warm at night, sleeping as he has for many years alone, on a mattress set on the floor in his parents’ house with his purportedly gigantic pile of invisible money.