But...but...Coasting Richly??

Coasting Richly was always more than a reference to my status as a long-term resident of Costa Rica.

From the moment it occurred to me as a nom de blog, I recognized the truth of the phrase.

Coasting.

Richly, to be sure. But...coasting.

Well, I'm not doing that anymore, and it's time for a new name.

I'm making very conscious choices now, and I need a title that reflects that. And, hey. If it happens to place me near the top of folks' blogrolls? Well, I'll just have to live with that ;)

* * *
So.

I am in the process of separating from my husband of 14 years. Early in the process. It's been two weeks and one day, in fact. That's pretty early.

I've had a lot of different reactions from the people I've spoken to about it. Some are immediately "on my side" - those who know me better than they know us. Others have gone, understandably, into "save the marriage" mode, in various ways.

I've heard horror stories. I've heard success stories.

And that's fine. The stories are...anecdotal. Each person, each couple, each relationship, is a world unto itself and, while the stories are interesting, they're not terribly applicable to my own situation; just as my experience may be interesting, or even instructive, to someone else. But more as a story than anything else.

* * *
I am doing something I don't think a lot of people do. I am choosing to step away from a marriage that is...not bad.

It's never been bad, in any sense of the word. It's never, and this is the important part; it's never--ever--been really, really good either. I have, for years, recognized it consciously as "not bad." It was only recently--and, in the eyes of my friends and family, precipitously--that I decided that "not bad" was, sadly, not good enough.

What did it take to make me really, really reexamine my life, and my marriage? To actually take (and to keep taking - it's a daily decision...hourly, even) a step I had never done more than skirt in the most superficial levels of my mind, even as I recognized more consciously that that my marriage was not what I would have wished for myself?

It took something big. Very big. To coalesce these quasi-conscious awarenesses into a single, conscious recognition. And to acknowledge it. And act on it.

It took something as marvelous, and as devastating, as falling in love with someone who is not my husband.

You all know Bob.

Yes, that Bob. Phydeaux. That's right, it's an Internet thing. Go ahead. Raise your eyebrows. Shake your head. Say whatever you've a mind to. I can wait, and you certainly won't be the first. It's fine.

Humans will reach out to other humans and connect with them through any medium that is available, because that is human nature. Even if neither of them has the remotest intention of entering into a deep and meaningful relationship; these things, they do happen. We don't get to choose. Little gifts from the Universe. Some of them are decidedly double-edged.

But here's the thing.

It's not about Bob. If--as has been pointed out to me, pointedly, by more than one caring soul--if, as I say, this relationship with Bob is "the real thing," then it will still be there in the future.

Its purpose in the present was to jar me. And jar me it did; to the extent that I really, truly acknowledged the things that I had been aware of for years--from the outset, really.

* * *
So what now?

Well, right now, Alex and I are simply living with the new reality. Giving it some time to sink in. I am standing beside him as he reels. We comfort each other as best we can. We have talked and shared more in the past two weeks than we had in entire years past.

Strikingly, working together to make this separation a gentle process by which the inevitable harm to all involved is reduced as far as humanly possible...may be our finest moment; the most wondrous thing we do as a couple, before parting.

I'm proud of both of us for the way we have handled the situation thus far, and I believe that we will have a strong relationship far into the future.

* * *
Updated to add:

Thank you, Mom and Dad. They arrived less than half an hour after I posted this. They're beautiful. And kind of quirky. Which is just right.