It was 5 years ago today that Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play...

Wait no. It was 5 years ago today that I stood dressed in velvety tights with see-through lace up the sides, bleached blond hair, thigh high leather boots, leather gauntlets, a cloak and a swept hilt rapier and pledged my eternal love and commitment to one of the most beautiful women on the planet, Jessica Sara Downs who wore a maroon dress and a garland in her hair. We were married at the Texas Renaissance Festival. We had many friends and family from England there, as well as plenty of Americans. Her family, her ex-boyfriend as her "mUrt of Honor", my band, one of my best friends since elementary school as my Best Man, people from the internet posting board where we met including our friend Karma who later passed away leaving our wedding day as the only time we ever actually met her in person. It was one of, if not the most amazing day of my life.

Obviously, at the moment it's a bit of a bittersweet day. I can only hope with all my heart and soul that 5 years from now I'll be celebrating my 10th anniversary under very different circumstances. I love you, Jess. I'm sorry.

I shall now take this moment to give Jess the chance to stop reading if she so wishes. What follows is nothing negative or bad but I think that she doesn't really like to hear, discuss or deal with anything related to our relationship any more so I wanted to give her fair warning that what follows is about us and my feelings about us.

I republished a couple of my old entries that I had taken down because I felt they were more factual or positive (well relatively). I didn't feel they had the anger or resentment of some of my later posts which shall remain banished. Also, that way I don't have to completely re-explain everything from the beginning.

I think I told most of the story in this post. I feel I have more to add now. Since that post we've had our ups and downs. We've had good times and some good talks (from my perspective any way) and we've had times when she definitely wanted to move out and probably hated me. I'm trying to find that happy balance of giving her space, making comfortable, fun and happy living conditions and yet not giving up on my hopes for us and trying to channel my energies into positive things. Trying to be the best person I can be, the best friend to her I can be but trying to express my feelings and follow my heart without smothering her or pressuring her. Obviously I don't just want her back because it's what I want. What I really want is for her to want to be with me and to want to work it out. I don't want her to come back out of some guilt or obligation.

First, a little recap. When we initially started discussing our problems she really wanted to work things out but I didn't know what I wanted or if I thought it could be worked out. At the time I thought we might have had some fundamental incompatibilities. After we separated I really spent all my time and energy soul searching and sorting my head out. I definitely came to the conclusion that I wanted to work it out and thought that we could but one problem remained. I didn't know why we had fallen into our rut, why we were both unfulfilled, why I had acted like an ass-hat at times and been less than a perfect mate. I knew I had reacted badly at times to her needs and had not supported her and given her what she needed but I wasn't sure why. I just knew that I felt different now, clear headed and could now see clearly my deficits in the past.

Then my friend, Hillary, really wanted me to read this book called "The 5 Love Languages". It was a self-help book written by a couples counselor guy. Like many people, I kind of took the book with some skepticism and a bit of prejudice. However Hillary is one of my dearest friends and she really wanted me to read it. I figured, "Why not?" The worst thing that could happen was that I would waste some time and end up thinking "what a bunch of crap that was."

As I started reading the book, as I suspected I didn't find anything revelatory or ground breaking. It was all sort of stuff I think everyone knows to some degree but somehow having it all laid out was helpful. Then I started finding that a lot of the stories of other couples and the whole concept he was outlining made a whole lot of sense to me. As I read on, I suddenly found myself getting more and more into it and really starting to understand what had happened in our relationship.

The basic concept is that there are 5 different "languages" people use to express love and everyone has a "primary" language (thought there are "dialects" within each language also). Everyone also has a "love tank" like a gas tank. If you are not being spoken to in your primary language you will find your tank emptying and eventually you feel unhappy and unfulfilled even if you're getting plenty of love expressed in other ways. Naturally, when you feel unfulfilled you tend to not be the happiest person to be around and you probably don't have much to give back to someone else which ends up being a vicious circle. You each end up exacerbating each other's unhappiness.

The more I read, the more I realized what had been going on with us. I had always known what Jess had wanted and needed so wasn't I able to give it? I finally realized why I had acted why I had and why I had felt I didn't have anything to give back. I am most affected by words and tone. Whenever Jess I would have an argument, many times she would take on a sarcastic tone or say hurtful things. Now to her, these kinds of interactions aren't a big deal. She can have a nasty verbal fight, work it all out and 10 minutes later everything is fine, however these verbal barbs and snaps would sit with me for a long time. Sometimes days, even when we worked things out quickly (which we usually did). When she would go into her "red mist" I would retreat into the corner like a hurt, frightened puppy. When all she needed was a hug and some compassion I would be sulking silently with nothing to say, pulling away from her.

This revelation came into play the other night. We had an argument and I wanted to explain myself and clear the air but she just wanted me to go away and leave her alone. In the past, I would have just gotten angry in return and kept pushing her but his time I realized that she was unknowingly pushing my most hurtful button and I caught myself and stopped the escalation. She said that the next morning, she woke up and realized that she thought she had misunderstood and owed me an apology. There was nothing I could have done that night that would have helped except to leave her alone. Knowing my Achilles heel helped me catch myself and stop a bad reaction before it happened.

Obviously, trying to explain all this probably oversimplifies it a bit but I feel like I see so clearly now. I am so sure that we could work it out now and have a far happier and healthier relationship than ever before, even in our best times. The things that I thought were fundamental incompatibilities were not that at all. Things I thought were negative aspects of her personality I now realize aren't even really core traits of her personality at all. They were manifestations of unhappiness and me not giving her the things she needed from a partner.

On top of this I think that we have both grown during our separation in ways that make us even more compatible than ever. I feel (just like she did before the separation) that we really haven't given this a chance at all. We haven't even tried to fix things. I can see a relationship and a future so clearly, one that is so full of love and happiness, fun and silliness, passion and intimacy, bonding and support. It's so real to me. I know what we have and what we could have and how unique, rare and wonderful it is. I can give her what she needs and wants and I want to. It all seems so clear and easy now.

Which is why my mind has kind of snapped and just can't process reality. I can't understand why she won't give me a chance, give us a chance. How can she be so completely opposed to trying to save our marriage? Did her love for me which seemed so limitless, real and unconditional really disappear so completely? Did I really do so much damage that I killed it and now it's just a carcass filled with maggots of negativity to her (sorry, but I amused myself with that phrase)? Yes I do realize how hypocritical this is of me to say.

Obviously I want to respect her wants and desires but being apart just seems so wrong now. I just don't know how I can prove my case without being given a chance. I know she can't force herself to want something she doesn't, nor would I want her to force it. I just can't understand why she wouldn't want to at least try it out. Our bond was so deep and strong, our love was so complete and powerful. I know I have non power over this and that all I can do is give her the time and the space she needs and hope that maybe at some point she will remember and re-discover her love for me. Maybe it's still buried under layers of hurt and rejection which are further buried under the shiny, new, exciting, fulfilling and nourishing things in her new life.

This is like the hardest test of my life. Letting things lie is what I'm worst at and yet it's what I must do or else I just push her further away. I'm someone who has to "fix things" immediately. When something goes wrong with one of our computers or our websites, I can't think or concentrate on anything else until it's fixed and working again. If I have to go out or do something else, all I'm thinking about is when I can get back and fix the problem. When I have something on my mind or a problem with someone I have to talk about it or straighten it out immediately. I constantly fluctuate between blindly hopeful, convinced that we belong together and will be the most awesome couple history has ever known, and blinded by hopelessness that I'm just deluding myself and that our love is dead to her. She has given me no reason to think that there is any hope (that's not meant as a dig at her, she obviously doesn't want to lead me on or give me mixed signals) but yet I've never believed in anything in my life as strongly as I believe that we could be insanely, disgustingly, enviously happy and have the most love-filled fulfilling lives imaginable. If all she needs is time, I can do that. I guess I just wish I knew for a fact that there was some hope, some chance, some light. I just wish I could know that I'm not Don Quixote tilting at windmills and blindly holding onto something that will definitely never be. All I know is what we had between us and it was real and powerful and rare and magical. It was just clouded by things that I now see are totally fixable. Even at it's worst, the good things we had were completely worth fighting for. They were things so rare that most people spend their whole lives in search of them and few ever find them even once, much less more than once. Our history together is worth at least trying to salvage but it's our possible future that is the best reason to try and work this out. I love my wife. Marrying her was the smartest thing I ever did. Screwing it all up was the dumbest.

I never feel like I'm done talking about this. As much as I've written, I could easily write twice as much more. I don't want to end this post but I know I must at some point, so this feels like a good point. To anyone who actually read this entire post, I am impressed and grateful.