He was my knight in shining armor.

He was my knight in shining armor.  

When I saw him standing there, holding his bicycle, among a sea of other strangers just beyond the grassy knoll, I knew.  He was the man I was waiting for.  He was the man who was going to save me.

I never would have admitted that I needed (or wanted) saving.  I was 3 years widowed, and I was just fine.  I had lost a husband, raised a toddler on my own through infancy, purchased my first home, and moved from California to Colorado to start again.  I was doing well, making a life for us, and playing strong, on the outside.  

On the inside, I was lonely.  I wanted companionship.  I wanted to feel like a woman again.  To be kissed, admired, held, loved.  I wanted to not be alone.  I wanted the dream of a family that hadn’t been fulfilled, and I wanted to feel that I deserved it.  I wanted a different life.

Tony dipped his toe into our lives and before we knew it he was swimming like a champ.  His 10 a.m. mornings became 7 a.m.  He learned the ins and outs of preschool drop off and pick up, and planned his work days around caring for Nova so that I could finish my acupuncture degree.  He traded golf dates for playdates and football Sundays for household chores.  He re-homed his dog and moved into our small townhome, leaving most of his possessions behind.  He gave up his space, his privacy, his autonomy, his freedom.  

He gained a family.

Some of the hardest times in our relationship centered around him taking that next step and moving in with us.  I could feel his resistance and instead of backing off, I got louder.  I made my needs clear, and I failed to acknowledge his.  This was adulting, I thought.  If he wanted me and Nova, he would have to make some changes.  I never considered how afraid he must have been.  I never considered that he wasn’t ready.  

Over the course of four years, I pulled him deeper into a relationship that he was neither ready or equipped for.  He surrendered to me and played the part as well as he knew how.  He never complained or expressed a desire to leave.  I laid out my expectations and he followed them.  

With a few exceptions.

When those exceptions came to light, when I was finally ready to admit that something wasn’t right and ready to hear his truth, he stammered.  He denied.  He deflected.  He wanted to keep pretending.  

I was furious at his pretending.  I was furious that he wouldn’t tell me the truth.  I made it mean something about his character.  I told him he didn’t love me enough to be honest.  I told him his fear was greater than his love.  I made him wrong.  I made him leave.  

But all those years, he had done what I asked.  He had given me companionship, played father figure to Nova, championed me through the next phase of my career, and fulfilled my dream of family.  If I had known he wasn’t ready, would I have wanted to hear it?  Would I have accepted the truth?  Would I have asked him to pretend?

What would these past four years have been like without Tony?  How would I have survived?

Perhaps there was an unspoken rule.  I needed him to pretend, so he did.  I wanted the fairytale dream, so he created one for me.  If there was deception or dishonesty, perhaps it was because I didn’t make space for the truth.  It didn’t fit into my mythology.  

He was my knight in shining armor.  I wanted him to save me, and he did.  When I decided that his way of doing it wasn’t good enough, I let him go.  Sometimes we don’t get to choose how we are saved.  Sometimes the things we don’t know allow us to get to where we are.