"I gave you everything you ever wanted; it wasn't what you wanted."

A cliche is only a cliche when it's not happening to you:  "All is fair in love and war."  Blah blah blah.  I prefer these U2 lyrics though.  They say it better.  And even though I'm almost always at the receiving end when things end (and not the other way around), the words of this song are kind of scolding me right now, saying, "You're so cruel."

I guess I deserve that.

Maybe it would have been less painful if I'd been better versed at delivering this kind of news.  I would have liked that. I don't like to cause pain.  But I guess it doesn't matter.  The truth would be cruel for you to hear either way:  "I can't change the way I feel."  Yada yada yada.   And for that, I am sorry.

When my ex-husband and I were in marriage counseling, I remember being told (by the therapist? or maybe I read it in something my own therapist recommended to me?), "If afterwards you feel regret, then you know that going your separate ways was a mistake.  If, on the other hand, you feel a tremendous sense of relief..."

Could this really have been the first time in my life when I knew exactly what it was that would bring me relief and did it?

***

I want to add that, quite by coincidence, my husband I watched Moulin Rouge -- from which the scenes in the attached video are taken -- together in a foreign country, without subtitles.  I like to imagine I know what it all meant, but I don't.