Heroes and Heroines

Recently my husband said something that I just haven't been able to get out of my head. It was during one of those painfully honest, tear you to pieces conversations we were long overdue for...



On days like today, it occurs to me that I am amazed that any marriages ever survive at all. The element of attraction is crucial, and yet I find myself weak in the knees for a person who is capable of, and routinely is, utterly cruel to me. And that's just attraction. And I don't just mean the 'damn he looks good' type of attraction, I'm talking about that certain lure that 'makes me ache to be with you' kind of attraction. The thing that allows me to see past the man that is utterly cruel to the one that I love. But here's my dirty little secret: I believe that each of us truly believes in two innate fallacies about relationships:

First, we believe that the person we love perceives the world in the same way we do. That the events in our life, their meanings, and our needs are mutually understood, or at least that our partner is capable of understanding them. But this is not true. The truth is, we cannot imagine it any other way; our reality is so real to us. But what you know to be the truth is really only your view of the truth. And there are a million others out there, some just like yours and some drastically different. You just can't see them, let alone understand them. And most of us are not thinking about this when our knees are weak from just being near someone.

Second, we truly, in that secret place in our hearts, believe that our partner will eventually change their view of the world, come around to our truth, see things as they are. This is not nearly as malicious as it sounds. We simply can't help but believe it. But it also is not true.

My husband has come to the conclusion that he married me for the wrong reasons, that he did so because it was what he thought he was supposed to do; because he knew he needed to marry me to keep me. And because he knew that no one else would ever love him the way that I loved him. And it never occurred to him how unfair that was to me, how self-serving this might be. And I truly (and naively) believed that his love for me would mature, that he would mature, and of course, change.

We have come to this conclusion while diagnosing the breakdown of our marriage, after admitting that we just don't love each other enough to compromise anymore. And it's come down to a simple thing: where we are going to live. Where we are going to live is going to end our marriage. It's one of those tragic moments of realization I can't move past. And then it comes, that phrase, which was actually quite inspired, that I can't get out of my head:

"I think I just need to be somebody's hero."
Again.

He didn't say the second part, but of course he was referring to the time not so long ago when he could do no wrong in my eyes; when I loved him more than anyone else ever would.

And it only occurred to me later, my inherent truth; which is this: so do I. I need to be somebody's hero too! And that's the missing piece, the constant disappointment. I want to be somebody's hero too. I want you to look at me the way I've always looked at you. Because I adored you unconditionally for so long that my heart aches for someone to look at me that way. Because I'm tired of you always being the star, because I want to shine too. I have always known this secret about you, how special you are. But now I know that I'm special too, that I, too, have extraordinary qualities to offer the world. But I had to move out of our home and live apart from you to realize it. And my heart knows that there is something very wrong with that, even if my knees don't.

I think I just need to be somebody's hero. But maybe, just for a little while, I will have to learn to be my own.