If I don't look at you, you don't exist. Right?

It’s a special kind of pain to sit across from someone at the table that you’ve been married to for a decade and a half, while eating the dinner that you’ve prepared for the family that he is enjoying, and not be looked at or spoken to. It’s an empty, vacant, deep hurt to not be seen…to not be considered a human being. The sadness of being ignored and discounted creates, for me anyway, an ache in my chest, the weight of which threatens to overwhelm me in the moment.

But, I catch myself, because the other side of that pain is the recognition that the thoughtlessness of him is what brought us here to begin with. The familiarity of this feeling of being invisible reminds me that this is not new. “Ah, yes, we’ve been here before. Many, many times.” It doesn’t arrest my incredulity, however. It astounds me how someone can become detached emotionally and socially from the person who has been their so-called partner for so long. I can’t understand it. I really can’t. He does not want to speak to me. He does not want me to speak. “What’s the point?” “We’re not pals.”, and the biggest kicker “I’m not mad, and I’m not hurting.”

I just want to pretend that you don’t exist. Basically. And he can. He does. It’s baffling to me.