Haunted:

I have been quiet for the last couple of weeks, mainly because I have not been in a particularly good head space regarding Jenny, but also because I have taken time out from online activities to focus on real life. The job hunt goes ever on, with a few interviews and many applications ... none of which have drawn a positive result. I now see in the news that Restormel has the highest ratio of jobseekers per head of any area in the UK ... that makes me feel 100% better!

With Jenny there has been an impending sense of doom, like a dark storm approaching, and I have been in some seriously black depressive pits over the last fortnight. I had a visit to the counsellor last week, and she was slightly concerned that I had taken a backwards step, but also she was reassured that I am able to recognise this, and that I can grip fast to reality, even when reality is taking me places I would much rather not go to. However, last night I had a serious panic attack, brought on by a subconscious wave assailing me in my sleep ...

The spell with Jen is finally broken, the magic has just vanished and what we once had that was special ... that will never again be. This is not some presumption or belief, and nor is it some perverse element of wishful thinking, but I just know, as you sometimes do in these situations, and indeed I felt that last night Jenny breached that final trust, the one of physical fidelity. Jen has often tried to portray me as emotionally obtuse, lacking in empathy and awareness, and despite my protestations to the contrary we parted with her still believing this to be true. She could not have been more wrong in this regard, indeed it is my intense empathy and understanding that has allowed me to continue loving her through our travails, and to realise that she has been travelling a path beyond her control.

That empathy comes at a heavy price, one that I paid last night. I am in tune with Jenny emotionally and spiritually, so much so that sometimes I just feel her feelings. Last night I was hit by a shockwave of subconscious energy in my sleep, one of frustration and despair, defiance and anger, sadness and loss, spite and bitterness ... all of this just overwhelmed me for about three hours, and shocked me into a wakeful state. As I say, I know this to be the case, I felt this to be the case, and it is not necessary for any confirmation or reassurance to clarify things in my mind.

We are still married, she has a husband who constantly thinks of her, worries over her and loves her dearly, and she tramples over all that by doing this. I can't think of a word to describe how I feel, because betrayal is not the right word at all ... haunted might be a better way to describe my emotional and mental state right now. It took three hours to calm down from the psychic panic attack that gripped me.

For the last six months I have not realistically believed that things could go back to how they were, indeed they were obviously wrong, so I wouldn't want to go back to how things were. However, I had a passionate belief in the innate goodness that we had, that we shared, and also believed that the two people who we were may one day be able to make something new out of the wreckage of what we had. That can never happen now, because we are not those two people anymore, the special bond has now been tainted right across the spectrum.

Oh crap, all I want to do is cry ... and now I can think about it a bit more ... and that makes me even sadder, and makes me understand why I feel so haunted. For the last three or four weeks I have been feeling rather upbeat about life, with a dedicated approach to searching for work, looking towards, and making tentative plans for the future (the near future at least) and generally coming to convince myself that after six months of torment I am starting to get Jenny out of my system.

It isn't that my feelings for her are any less, or my love for her diminished in any way, but I have been able to feel around me, and I have come to understand that there is some world for me of which she is not an integral part. In short I have started to pull myself back together ... and then this. This inextricable connection to Jen, physical, emotional, spiritual ... even abstract, this binding of two into one just seeks to drag me right back into the heart of the maelstrom ... where will it all end?

It is clear that this has happened because there has been no closure, no settling of matters, and no final understanding and parting of the ways between us. The separation has been an interruption in the course of events, and this hiatus will not be resolved by a judge's decision and a piece of paper. This needs dealing with between the two of us, in private, and in our own way. I can't pretend to know just where Jenny is in all of this, but the flood of awareness that came to me last night ... well, clearly it isn't yet closed for Jenny either, because I can still feel her feelings, and can still feel her presence in the threads of what remains. She sent that to me, she was trying to tell me something, whatever that is, and I am unable to answer her in any way at all.

Haunted, yup, that just about sums it up for me right now.