Today, calm. A quiet night last night. Spoke to Frank on the phone. We're not doing anything drastic yet. He's pulled away and seems to be sitting inside himself a little more. Said he felt sad, that he's never felt connected to anyone in his whole life.

He's got two therapists he's going to check out.

He wants to call me, even when he doesn't know what to say.

I say that's okay, I'll sit in silence with him if he wants, or I'll chatter and fill up the spaces, whichever he wants, it doesn't matter to me.

He tells me repeatedly that he loves me, and he always wants me in his life.

Even when we first started going out, Frank was pessimistic. He believed I was going to leave at any minute, and kept trying to get some sort of agreement out of me that I would always be his friend.

I think, truly, I will, but if he leaves me, I will not be able to be in his presence for a long, long time. It would be too heartbreaking to be near him, and have the hope that things could change. It only works for the person that's initiated the break-up, that. Because they want the other out of their life on one front but to remain in their life on another. They want it all, and they want it in the least painful way possible for themselves. And for the other, the dump-ee, the whole thing is too much to bear. Hope springs eternal, and you find yourself grasping for any connection, trying to find meaning in encounters that the dumper classifies as "friend things". Till it gets too painful, and you realize you've been fooling yourself, and your magic isn't working, and this person is never going to want you that way again.

And then you leave. Because to see them, speak to them, is like stabbing yourself in the heart anew each time, in the same old wound.

From my experience.

But hell, I'm just projecting. Nothing like this has happened. It might not. Maybe the therapist will suggest a separation, I don't know. Maybe not.

I don't know if I should be grave and serious, if I should pick up where we left off, if I should try to find the good in things. How do you support someone who seems to be having a breakdown that you might possibly be complicating in one way or another? Just stay out of their way? Ease up on it a little bit?

I'm out of my element.

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