The Swimming Pool

My wife and I separated, and she has found her happiness away from the marriage. I was happy in the marriage. Last conversation, she admitted she was never happy during our 12 years together. She won’t discuss why she stuck it out other than to say, “I’m a bitch. What can I say?” I have both good and bad memories from those 12 years, and now I feel I don’t know how to cope with them. If I thought it was good and she thought it was bad, how do I remember our time together? How do I get rid of those memories? I am in the second month of a yearlong wait for a divorce, and I am struggling with being alone. I feel like a fool for being tricked all these years. At this point I don’t see myself ever trying another relationship, but I am so lonely each day is 100 hours long. I haven’t found a way to reinvent myself into a social creature who makes friends. Do you have any suggestions? Luke Luke, your wife married you with a list of reasons she thought added up to love. It was only a matter of time before her list failed her, and she told you the truth. Don’t bash yourself over this. Her secrets don’t change your memories. When you leave a child’s plastic swimming pool in one place too long, it squashes the grass. When you finally move the pool, the grass below is yellow, damp, and sparse. But once the pool is moved, the sun shines on the grass, the air flows over the grass, and the rain waters the grass. In time the grass lifts toward the sun and becomes lush and green. You are like the grass under the pool. In time you will grow once again. Start with the basics. If you can’t remember or figure out what makes you feel good, what you are interested in, then you need to reconnect with yourself. Perhaps for now, all you can see is that one thing feels a little better (or maybe not quite as bad) as something else. Always pick the better over the worse. Choose what seems like the better course for yourself. Eventually following the path of greater awareness will get you where you want to go and give you the happiness you deserve. Tamara Night And Day How do you know when you’ve crossed the boundary between liking and loving someone? What is the difference? Kirby Kirby, it’s hard to talk about this boundary without using example and comparison. They don’t give an exact picture, but they suggest and give you a sense of the reality. If you say, “I love my dog,” but look at an apartment that doesn’t allow pets, you only liked the dog. Whoever said, “You can fall in love with a rich man as easily as a poor man,” never loved. Whoever thinks love can be measured by a bathroom scale or diminished by age, never loved. Love is like the answer to a riddle. Other answers may seem good or clever, but only this one answer is perfect. Love is like the right job. The job inspires you and feels like play. You crave the work, you are passionate about it. It lifts you up and drives you to new levels. Love is the color which connects with the deepest level of your being. It is the music which speaks to you. When you love someone, you are totally yourself with them. Nothing can drive a wedge between you. Whatever life throws at you, you deal with together. When you reach the boundary between like and love, you know you are entering another country. You are beyond newness and infatuation. You know what Shakespeare meant when he called love “an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken.” Wayne Wayne & Tamara write: Directanswers@WayneAndTamara.com