Too much to ask

Niall Horan's Too Much to Ask is a typical breakup song. I gravitated to it as my divorce neared about a year ago. After 20 years with the same woman, and my "heart dancing" without her, I was met with a potent mix of emotions of which I could scarcely make sense.

Somewhere in our heads, so many of us think when we break up with someone that our rift could be easily repaired. "If they would only (fill in the blank)," we tell ourselves, we'd be inclined to give them another chance. When I told Kate, my ex-wife, I was leaving her the first time, she clearly wasn't listening. I can still see the room we were in as clearly as this one. I can see my anger in the air. I can feel that moment like it was yesterday and not more than five years ago. 

After trying and failing to make our marriage work over the next few years, I again told her I was going to leave her. A great storm was in me for the longest time as I struggled with that possibility, and once I decided I was done, the storm broke. 

She laughed at me. She said she wasn't worried. As usual, she failed to grasp the seriousness of the situation. As usual, she laughed at my feelings. I had run out of tears for us. All that was left was anger. Was it too much to ask for the woman in my life listen to me? 

She always did whatever she wanted to do. Maybe her behavior was rooted in her childhood. Her therapist said she had "daddy issues," which I could have told her for free. She lacked male attention when she was little because she went to live with her mom after her parents divorced. She made up for it in adulthood, only it was never enough. Typical. Psychology 101. 

It's one thing to make a mistake. It's quite another to keep making a mistake at the expense of someone's feelings. She did the latter. It seems unfair to be the one to decide to divorce your mate, as I was simply responding to her actions and words through our many years together. So, I'm the bad guy. Why not? What's one more indignity? 

All I know is she's incapable of change, and my heart cannot suffer being in her life. So, here's another sad song, another breakup song, another song in a queue of sad songs that makes me wonder how things could have been had she only listened.