This isn't easy for anyone

I was thinking of trying to write a blog entry to try and balance the obvious bias here and try to point out how things look from my wife's point of view. I may try and sit down and do that later this week but for now I just wanted to try and get across that this really isn't fun for anyone at the moment, least of all my wife.

I just spoke to my wife today since I'd noticed she was online and was concerned that she or my son were ill (half term was last week they should have both been back at school/work). It turns out my wife (I think I'll refer to her as 'B' from now on since I guess that's more appropriate) doesn't go back until Wednesday.

So anyway we then talked about various things like holidays, birthdays, Christmas and the timetable for when I can see my son. All the time B's voice was on the point of cracking and she sounded upset and cried a few times, particularly when she said about going up to see my parents this weekend - they had a key to the house that she, understandably, wanted back. I didn't think she would take the, rather brave, step of travelling up to see them.

B also took two paintings up to my parents house both of which she had bought for me, one when we were first going out (it hung in the bathroom of our first house), and the other when we got married (it was my wedding present from B). I had said I would leave these pictures in the house, the second one was in the dining room and was covering a rather uneven bit of plaster on the wall, but they must have been too painful for B to keep there so she took the opportunity to remove them.

I guess I've been a bit ambivalent about reminders of our life together, I've not actively kept lots of pictures and keep-sakes nor dotted them round the flat. On the other hand I have a photo-book that B made after our anniversary 2 years ago and I don't feel that I want to throw anything like that away even though it does make me feel sad to look at such things.

When talking to B today I did feel that I wanted to help her and try to make her feel better and not so sad and upset, and it reminded me that I do still have feelings for her and care alot about her; I know that I said I didn't love her anymore before we split up but I always thought that was more of a decision I made with my head rather than my heart (sorry, that sounds terribly corny but it was either that or some really impersonal way of putting it).

I just didn't feel I could say I loved B because the next question would have been "If you love me then why do what you do?" and I don't think it was right to say one thing which implied I would stop exploring being Fiona - well it's not even that, it's exploring being me!

Just as an aside I wonder now whether naming the 'other' person you may want to become isn't part of the problem with partners accepting things. It seems that by making that part of your personality into a separate identity you're creating more problems than you solve. I'm me, every part of my personality is just me, there aren't two separate people it's just that I look strikingly different when dressed as 'Fiona'. I don't really act much different and I'm trying to avoid doing that as well.

I still care deeply about B, and of course my son as well, and I don't want to see either of them hurt or upset, but I guess that is unfortunately what is going to happen for all of us, there aren't any magic ways to avoid the pain of separation. Maybe I don't show it as much or even admit it as much to myself or others but I still can't escape feeling that I have lost a great deal.

I just hope that, with time, the pain will become less for all of us and that we can all go on to find some happiness in life - again I'm sorry this sounds so corny but it's very hard to put all of this into words.