I'm tired.  I feel like I'm treading water without getting anywhere.  She and I talked at length last night, mostly about our son, and how this whole split has affected him and how me spending more time with him would help.  All I can think about is what kind of life we could enjoy right now with a two income household and a busy, but enjoyable, schedule of seeing him off to this practice, that game, a family day at the pool.  And how beautiful she is.  She's intoxicating to look at. 

Have you ever seen AI?  Once a final code is spoken the boy is forever bonded to his new mother.  The analogy isn't a 1:1 fit (no mother issues here) but I feel like a code was spoken and I'm doomed to be in love with her till the end.  This is no longer a freshly broken heart speaking... it has been years, and I would still make very nearly any sacrifice to make her love me.  But she doesn't, and she won't.

I feel like life is a bitter compromise now.  My son is the reason I'm still here, but the boyfriend and her are shacking up soon, so they'll forge a "family unit."  I feel, predictably, like the odd man out x10.  I'm growing accustomed to that, too.  He has spent the past two Christmases with my son and her family (whom I love and miss) in my place.  They have traveled together a lot, and all I remember from my last real vacation (four years ago and counting) is the shame of not having enough money to contribute or buy her much.

I had a dream about her a couple nights ago, and I woke up so sad and lonely at 5am I could barely stand it.  I feel like I could have been happy having never met her, but at this point, after falling so deeply in love with her and marrying her and seeing our son grow up, I don't feel like I can be happy without her.  It is painful insult to injury that she instantly moved on to someone else and is decidedly happy and far better off than I.  I'm growing very weary of this aching feeling.

At the crux of my decision to stay or go is my faith.  Joyce Meyer said "Hope is the platform that Faith has to stand on."  I have very little hope left at this point.  More often than I'd like my faith is wavering.  I pray that God would increase it on a regular basis but I feel like the only way to keep this up is to stick my proverbial head in the sand by throwing myself into work and basically ignoring the life around me.  Every once in a while I'll come to, and when that happens it only takes a short glance around for the weight of just how bad it is to hit me.  Nobody's chasing you, Tanner.

Sometimes I feel like I have a lot to offer, that I would be a great husband and a wonderful father, but I suppose I didn't deliver or prove it when I needed to so she picked up and moved on, just like that.  I wish I could have another chance, but she's already moved on.  I'm only 27, and I've already lost my family and the love of my life.  How quickly I became disposable.  All I feel is loss.  It surrounds me, envelopes me, and permeates everything I do.  I feel like my effort at work is in vain, like the miles I run are in vain, and sometimes like the prayers I pray are in vain. 

A very strong part of me feels like my prayers will never be in vain, but I'm so challenged by my reality and the sheer longevity of this pain that I have little hope, and wavering faith.

I'm sad about our son, because I love him very, very much.  I know he hurts inside about the whole ordeal, and the realization that I'm making him feel guilty or ashamed by my own inability to come to terms with his mother's decisions only makes me feel more sure that I should give them a chance to be normal and happy one day without me.  I want him to be happy, to have a normal life, to have that family unit. 

I don't have the ability to process this hurt and bitterness.  I wish I was strong enough, but I'm simply not equipped.  Maybe I'm incapable of venting because I quickly do the mental jiu-jitsu around the fact that it won't change anything, that it won't change her heart, and it won't change my hurt.  And I'm tired of hurting.  I'm tired.