She sat on their bedroom floor (a floor that would later become ours) and cried, her head in her hands. He sat across from her. I stood by the door, behind them both, paralyzed.
He had told his parents what was happening. That his wife had fallen in love with a woman, a woman they’d met several times, and they were separating.
It was the most real anything had been since the day I broke off my engagement, over 2 months prior. We’d all been scared of this step, none of us knew how it would go, and none of us knew what it meant about how we’d be moving forward. He assured both of us that his family would be ok, and that if they weren’t, he wouldn’t let them speak badly of us. That he was on our side. That as heartbroken as he was, he knew we hadn’t planned this, hadn’t looked for it, hadn’t meant for it to happen. He was on our side, he told us as he hugged us and left the room earlier in the evening to make the call.
That’s how we were back then. The Good Crew, we called ourselves. Trying to figure out this crazy, beautiful mess we’d landed in, one day at a time. Trying to cause as little hurt as we could, trying to help each other heal and grow as best we were able. Knowing that the outside world didn’t understand how we could be so close. Some days, we didn’t understand it either. We put the kids first, always, but we tried to protect each other too. We celebrated birthdays just the three of us. Called on each other in case of emergency, like a flat tire when you’re home alone with no spare. Asked each other questions and actually listened to the answers. Celebrated major milestones, like making partner. We knew that it didn’t make a whole lot of sense to anyone else. And it’s why taking the next step to tell anyone else felt so scary, for all of us.
Reactions from other people always make things more real, they make us question our own choices, consider other perspectives. This was no different. We had found some sort of strange, nontraditional groove in the way we operated in those first two months. It was painful at times and yet full of complete joy at others. We knew bonds were breaking and others were forming and we knew from the outside it seemed like someone wasn’t being honest with themselves. We talked about it endlessly, but we always came up with the same conclusion – we were the only three that understood what was happening between us, under this roof, and for that we had to rely on each other on some fundamental level. So we did.
When it was time to share our story with the next tier of people, it changed everything. We knew that it would, on some level, but you can’t really prepare yourself for what you have no experience with. There wasn’t anger, as so many were waiting for from the start. There was deeper sadness now, as more people’s lives were being affected, more recognition of the hurt our choice was causing. And at the very root of it all, was the loss. We finally had to admit that there were parts we were all losing now, parts we couldn’t get back.
And yet, I remember when his sister told me that she didn’t feel like she was losing a sister-in-law, but rather gaining one, as we sat around talking and watching all the kids play together. I remember hugs from his mother and questions directed at me about what her grandchildren were into these days. I remember feeling a level of gratitude I had not experienced in this lifetime, as our Good Crew was included in a way I never, ever expected. Holidays, birthdays, school events, family experiences. It was better for the kids this way, we all agreed. But no one would have blamed them if they felt otherwise.
And some did, feel otherwise. And we never blamed them. We always recognized that it was their reaction that we anticipated, they were what we thought the norm would be, what we were ready to face. Our explanations for how we ended up in this situation were rarely good enough for them, but that was never our intention anyway. We weren’t looking to win anyone over, we were just trying to move forward in uncharted territory, one day at a time.
When I stood there by the doorway, watching them – her crying, him silent – it felt like in an instant our world was collapsing. He looked at me and motioned to sit next to her, and so we all sat there, not saying much, just holding space for this moment of change. We couldn’t pretend anymore that everything was fine, that this was normal, that we were just figuring it out. And yet, on some level, that’s exactly what it was. I knew those tears were questioning if his family hated her, if she’d ever be able to see them again, if they’d ever want to see her again, if any of this could ever really be ok. We didn’t know then that it would be, we only knew what we knew – that we had been through hell in the past two months and somehow could still sit so close to each other now. So we did, for as long as it felt right, and maybe even a little longer after that.