Antediluvian Man

My wife and I recently separated.

After years of living together, I moved into a small apartment a few miles away. The first few days were strange. There was some contact, but not much. Then the reality began to settle in.

I was alone.

What surprised me wasn’t the practical side of living alone. I can cook. I can clean. I can manage a household.

What surprised me was the anxiety.

There are moments when I want to call her just to hear her voice. Moments when I want to text and ask how she’s doing. Moments when the loneliness feels so sharp that reaching out seems like the only thing that will make it stop.

But I’ve learned something important.

Sometimes the desire to contact someone isn’t about them at all.

Sometimes it’s about trying to escape our own discomfort.

If I text her and she responds with “fine” or “okay,” I know I’ll probably feel worse. Not because she did anything wrong, but because I was hoping for something she wasn’t offering. Reassurance. Comfort. Connection.

The uncomfortable truth is that those are things I have to learn to provide for myself right now.

So I’m keeping my distance.

Not out of anger.

Not as punishment.

Not as a strategy.

Out of respect.

When communication is necessary, I communicate. When it isn’t, I sit with the urge instead of acting on it.

Some days that feels impossible.

Some days I get panic attacks.

Some days I walk around my apartment wondering what happened to the life I thought I would have.

But every time I resist the urge to seek relief through contact, I learn something.

I learn that anxiety rises and falls.

I learn that loneliness doesn’t kill me.

I learn that I can survive uncertainty.

For men who are trying to recover from anger, control, or abusive behavior, this may be one of the hardest lessons of all. We often want immediate relief from difficult emotions. We want reassurance. We want certainty. We want connection on demand.

Recovery teaches us something different.

Recovery teaches us that another person is not responsible for regulating our emotions.

Sometimes growth looks less like saying the perfect thing and more like remaining silent when silence is the healthier choice.

Today, I still miss my wife.

I still wonder how she’s doing.

I still have moments when I want to pick up the phone.

But today I also know something I didn’t know before:

I can survive the urge.