You’d Think It Would Be Different, But It Isn’t

I work with a difficult client. I’ve been AWOL this past week dealing with issue upon issue upon issue.

The client company is large, demanding, and sometimes unreasonable in its demands. My company is no small potato and has provided a dedicated work force to handle the issues and challenges of this client. And even with that, the work is sometimes overwhelming.

One of my coworkers recently made a shift off of our team and onto another project servicing multiple clients. I had to contact him after about a month to clarify some procedure he used to handle. On a whim, I asked him how his new position was going since he “gnawed through the chains” holding him to our team. His answer surprised me:

You’d think it would be different, but it isn’t.

The truth of his words struck me. In a world where we think the grass is always greener on the other side, here was proof that it wasn’t. Without a change in geography, people in the same temperate zone end up growing the same species of grass. What we do with the grass and the soil we’re given is what really makes the difference.

Husband #2 told me about a service offered to farmers where they can get soil samples taken from all areas of their tillable fields. The company comes in and takes little dabs of soil from set intervals to give a complete picture of what is going on in a large field. By making minute adjustments to the amount of fertilizer, water, or herbicide, the farmer can target problem areas in the same field and increase the crop yield.

Hello, Science.

I’ve noticed an increase in recent web articles (like this one) that have boiled down to a simple theme: Before you decide to divorce, make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons. Boredom isn’t one of them. Physical abuse? Yes. Feelings of meh? No.

The funny thing is, as Husband #2 approach the end of our relationship, our conversations with each other have been calmer, more loving, and more intimate than anything we have presented to each other prior to this point. It’s sad that at the end is where we have achieved the level of vulnerability and closeness that most people strive for in their relationships.

You’d think it would be different, but it isn’t.

Even with our newly established honestly and openness, we’re still worlds apart. We fear each other. He fears that I will control him. I fear that he will withdraw and abandon me. He admits this. I admit this. Neither one of us is at the point of giving the other a no holds barred commitment to give it a try again.

You see, he recognizes that he is still a mess. I recognize that as well. So he won’t commit to me out of the fear of changing his mind. I won’t commit to moving to him out of that same fear. It makes me very sad but it is not my job to convince Husband #2 to give us another chance.

It may be only by losing me that he will realize the importance of what I meant to him.

I’m not kidding myself and I’m certainly not that arrogant. In my mind, I’ll slip quietly away and there won’t be even the whisper of a breeze to indicate the space that I occupied in his life. He’s independent and very much into his own self-sufficiency. I can’t say what lessons he needs to learn from life, I only know that I won’t be involved as he travels his own roads.