A little over 13 years ago my buddy Erik “Ibby” Ibsen and I went to a new game store in Chillwack, bringing along our Legend of the Five Rings (‘L5R’) decks.  Though the store was small they had tables set up for card gaming and were open late to encourage people to do so.  They had already attracted a decent-sized group of Magic: The Gathering players.

Among that group was a young beautiful strawberry-blonde girl named Melany.  After several game-store visits and watching us play L5R she asked if I’d teach her how to play.  I gladly did.  She was happy, wickedly-smart, fun and super-geeky.  She was too young for me — 17 to my 28 — but I couldn’t help but being attracted to her.

After lots of L5R gaming we became friends.  I invited her to play in my role-playing group (I think it was In Nomine) and she asked if her boyfriend could play too.  Surprised that one of the gamers at the store who treated her no differently from any other was her boyfriend I said it was fine.  After all, she was too young for me.

I remember that Halloween, she dressed in a homemade Borg costume.  It was adorable, awesome, and geektastic.

I couldn’t help it, I was falling for this girl.  But she was too young, and had a boyfriend.  Sure, he never did public displays of affection and often outright ignored her.  I remember being at the game store (a bigger, newer one — game stores appear and disappear like sunlight on rippling water) on New Year’s Eve and she came in looking for him.  They were supposed to celebrate the new year together but she couldn’t find him anywhere and nobody knew where he was.  She was dressed up in a gorgeous black leather skirt (she was 18 by this time, so I didn’t feel bad appreciating it) and was obviously upset.  She ended up staying at the game store with us, waiting to find out where he was.  Later we found out he’d gone to a friend’s and played video games there all night, having forgotten about her completely.

By now my heart was almost fully engaged.  Her boyfriend ignored her so much she had taken to hanging out at my place.  We’d stay up late into the night just talking and geeking out about stuff.  I made her watch my videos of Prisoners of Gravity and read my Sandman comics.

I can also remember, early-on when she was visiting talking about “this movie my brother & I would rent over and over.  I can’t remember the name but it was post-apocalyptic and was about this sport with a dog skull…”  I smiled and reached behind me, pulling out a VHS tape and said “Oh, you mean ‘The Blood of Heroes‘?”  She freaked out because nobody else had ever heard of it, much less owned a copy.

One time, outside the game store in the car after after a munchie run I told her about being cheated on by a previous girlfriend and how awful it was and how it still hurt.  She looked me right in the eye and said “I would never cheat on you.”  I was taken aback by her conviction and fell for her a bit more.

This friendship went on for months.  Sometimes we’d end up lying in my bed (I had moved back home after closing my business so my bedroom was my socializing area) just talking and she’d fall asleep against me.  No, nothing happened.  Well, nothing except me falling even harder for her.  But I couldn’t do anything about it, and that hurt.

After one such night I was just stricken with emotion for her and as I was saying goodbye at the front door she turned and looked at me and I just blurted out “Does it hurt for you too?”  She opened her mouth slightly, taken aback, and said “What? Uh.. no.” but I knew the answer was yes.  Much later she admitted it was and that night was the night she realized it.  But I’m getting ahead of myself…

Another night when her boyfriend had stood her up, young Randy at the game store was fed up and shouted “You should just dump that bum!  You should go out with someone else who’ll treat you right… like…” he looked around randomly, “like Joe!”  He stopped for a second, hearing what he himself had just said and realized how right he was.  ”Yeah!  You should go out with Joe!”  I just grinned and shrugged.

We hung out constantly.  Her boyfriend was an emotionless no-show.  I don’t know why she stayed with him so long, but at the time I started to worry I was the emotional crutch that was letting her do it.  After several discussions about it I told her I couldn’t do it any more.  She was furious, but I explained how much it hurt to know she was so close with me and then just went back to him.

I had to cut her out of my life, let her try to stay with him with the crutch.

It took a month, but it worked.  A long, painful month.  It took her another month to forgive me for what I did, but eventually we were friends again, and very shortly after that we were dating.  Just after we made it official I went to GenCon for the very first time.  I took my then-new digital camera and sickened EVERYONE showing them this photo of  my awesome geeky girlfriend on its tiny screen.  I was deliriously happy, and everyone there knew it.  I had a great time at GenCon, but couldn’t wait to get back home.

What followed were hands-down the best years of my life.  After two years together calling her my “girlfriend” just wasn’t cutting it any more.  As a child of a broken marriage I never thought I’d get married.  ”What’s the point?  Just stay together!” I’d exclaim.  But Mel was more than just a girlfriend, and I needed people to know that.  In 2000 Mel accompanied me back to GenCon in Milwaukee.  During the Legend of the Five Rings LARP we were brought up to act out a tale of samurai from different families who overcame their differences to work together.  Mel had no idea this had been planned in advance.  At the conclusion of the story I dropped to one knee and pulled out a diamond ring and said “Melany, will you marry me?”  She covered her mouth and hyperventilated so badly she forgot to say “Yes” but she hugged and kissed me enough that I knew the answer anyway.  We both agreed it should be a long engagement.  I was in no rush — telling everyone she was “my fiancée” was absolutely better than “my girlfriend”.

Mel had been taking Chemistry at UCFV in Chilliwack and eventually transferred to UBC to study Chemical Engineering.  I drove out every Friday night to visit or pick her up and then drive back or bring her back on Sunday night.

In 2002 she graduated and we set the date for our wedding. “My fiancée” wasn’t good enough any more. The ceremony was held outside at her parents’ house in Greendale.  The weather was perfect, the ceremony short, secular, and casual, and people were drinking beer as she walked down the aisle.  Mel was absolutely stunning and I’d managed to shave off that stupid goatee and lose a bit of weight.  Everyone loved it, and many proclaimed that if they got married they’d try to do something similar.

Mel started working for a tech-support company while looking for a Chemical Engineering job, but was quickly promoted and then head-hunted away to Ebay in Burnaby.  She commuted at first and then we moved closer.  Just before that we got Loki, our Boston Terrier.  Neither of us wanted children, but we both loved dogs.

The years flew by and we were ridiculously happy. Mel was now making more money than an entry-level Chem-Eng job and was starting to enjoy the management side of things.  Our relationship was a thing of envy among our friends.  We were lovers and best friends and seemed to be perfect.  We were.

But then money became tight.  The US dollar collapsed (most of my clients were in the US) and then their economy, causing client budgets to shrink.  On top of that, I admit, I too readily coast my way through things.  Where I should have been busting my ass to get ahead I simply accepted less success as the price I paid to avoid working too hard.  We were together, that’s all that mattered to me.  But the financial uncertainty bothered Mel.  I tried to adapt and work harder but years of having success handed to me made that difficult, and my laissez-faire attitude annoyed Mel.  I’m great at what I do, success will come, I thought.

It didn’t.

For the past few years Mel hasn’t been happy.  Depressed, even, and it wasn’t just financial.  I had begun to coast in our relationship — perhaps it was too easy for me to be happy in it. A few months ago it came to a head and she drove home that she wasn’t happy with ME.  I freaked out, begged forgiveness, swore I’d do better.  I asked that we go to couples counselling together to work on it.  I knew I needed to figure out how to work harder but that we had other problems to deal with too.  I got better.  I worked harder, helped around the house more, tried to be more attentive to her needs and followed through on every suggestion of our counselor gave us.

Apparently it wasn’t enough.  Or maybe there are other circumstances — perhaps history is repeating itself and there’s some guy she hangs out with and talks to that she’s fallen for.  Or maybe the problems went on too long and she can no longer stand me no matter what I do to make things better.

On Thursday night Mel came downstairs and with tears in her eyes told me to sit down.  Despite the problems I had no idea what was coming.  We were doing better, I thought.

“I can’t do this any more.”
“Do what?”
“Us.”

After twelve years together, eight years of marriage, it’s over.  She says there’s nothing to be done and she can’t take it any more.

I’m devastated.  I can’t really function.  She was my life — the thing that made me happy, the one thing I could rely on.  I can’t even process not being with her.  My brain can’t accept it.  The future without her is unthinkable.  I’d just be passing time waiting for the end, and that she can not only think of such a future but ensure one is breaking my brain.  I was doing better.  I did what she asked and was improving myself, and would continue to do so until I was worthy of her.

The next day we had a talk.  She was still adamant that it’s over and there’s no way she can get past the years of disappointment and sadness she’s built up.  She had told me about this over the past few years and I tried to be supportive but couldn’t understand.  I thought, perhaps overconfidently, that it was depression and not me.

I begged her for a chance, even if it was while we were apart.  She said she can’t get over it and I rebutted that she can’t know that.  We never would have guessed she’d end up this way after the amazing first eight years of our relationship, so anything can happen, I pointed out.

She still says it can’t happen, but we’ve got until March left on our lease, and a fairly big debt built up to deal with.  I asked that we simply be “separated” and she keep an open mind about us.  I, in turn, will bust my ass making myself worthy and making up for years of unintentional pain.  I’ll further my career, get my finances in order and be a better person.  All while we’re not together but my aim is to prove to her that I really can do it.  Even after this she’s certain she won’t change her mind and I’m fully aware that the odds are tremendously stacked against me.  In her eyes, we’re done.  In my mind I’ve got one long-shot to get her back.

So one way or another, my life is changing, big-time.  I’m not confident, I’m not at all happy.  In fact, I’m miserable.  But I’m determined.  I have a goal, and even if Mel doesn’t or can’t change her mind, being a better and stronger person is worthy in and of itself.  But I know I wouldn’t do it for any other reason but her.  Without her I’d probably just retreat to Chilliwack where it’s cheap to live and coast my way to a boring, meaningless, sad and lonely life.

If you’re a friend, I need your help in this.  I’m not asking you to “side” with me — this isn’t me-or-Mel in a fight to be together or not.  Help me be a man worthy of her.  Kick my ass to be better.  Find me jobs (and a good and understanding accountant).  Try to keep my spirits up too, but don’t let me spend too much time on that and not enough on long-term goals.  Help me be awesome.  And help Mel be happy.  She deserves it.

And please, I know a lot of you care and want to ask me personally if I’m ok but it’ll hurt more if I get a ton of phone calls reminding me of this.  I want to concentrate on my goal of being better.

To answer the question:  I’m doing awful.  This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me, ever.  Despite our problems I never thought this could be even possible, and to have it be over with such dedicated finality from the woman I love hurts me more than anyone could possibly know.  But I have a plan, and it’ll at least keep me busy through the hurt.

PLEASE don’t call me and bring this up — you’ll just hurt me and distract me from my goal.  Comments on this blog or Facebook are fine, but be nice, be gentle and be supportive of both of us.