Some Things Aren’t Meant To Be

Have you ever been in a coffee shop or on a bus and seen a couple so happy you just had to smile? They’re holding hands or giggling or deep in conversation. Did you ever wonder what happened to them?

Seth was slow to give his heart. His girlfriend had been brutally murdered and he was traumatized. At first he filled up the loneliness with one-night stands. Then, gradually, he was able to sustain more fulfilling relationships. Not love, just friendship, companionship, caring.

And then he met Marcy. Seth was a flight instructor and she wanted flying lessons. “Showing her the training airplane, I stumbled over my words like a blushing 10-year-old.” There was only one problem, she was engaged.

A few months later, Seth began teaching a course in basic aviation and Marcy was one of his students. After class, they talked and walked along the runway until 4 a.m. “We never touched, but we both knew her engagement was off.”

They began to date. For the first time since his girlfriend’s death, Seth was in love - happily, completely in love. After six months, he asked Marcy to move in with him. She said yes.

“We thrived. I hurried home after work. I woke early to watch her sleep. I feared we would have problems, but it didn’t happen.”

Seth continued to work as a flight instructor, but his career was stalled. He worked nights as a waiter to augment his income.

Between his jobs, Seth was working 10 to 15 hours a day, five, six and sometimes seven days a week. He’d come home at 1 a.m. from waiting tables, knowing he’d have to be up early. It didn’t help his mood or his personality.

“I was often silent and uncommunicative. I would come home drained and find it easier to play computer games then spend time with Marcy. Promised vacations slipped by and our time together became marked by silence.”

Silence can be a hard habit to break. It’s also contagious. Instead of that happy couple that everyone loves to watch, Seth and Marcy became that sullen couple that never had a word to say to one another. They pulled farther and farther apart. Seth began to stay late at the restaurant, even later than he had to. He started flirting with his customers “shamelessly to get attention.” He says it was because of “the lack of success in my career.”

And then one night, the flirting got out of control and Seth was with another woman. It shocked him back to reality. He drove home, determined to make a fresh start with Marcy. He told her he had cheated. She told him she had cheated, too.

“We laid our relationship on the table, discussing the restlessness in our lives, the frustration in not moving ahead with our careers. It was agreed we would separate. In 15 minutes, it was all over. We had discussed everything except if we still loved each other.”

“That night, we slept in the same bed. I drifted in and out of sleep, listening to her quiet crying. I wanted to grab her and scream, ‘Why are we doing this?’ but the same fear that kept me alone for so long kept my lips pressed shut, my back turned to hers.”

Seth and Marcy were polite as they separated their belongings and their lives. There were boxes to pack, mail to be forwarded, details to be worked out. They took care of all of them. They made a final check of the apartment to be sure all traces of their life together was gone. Then they said goodbye.

That’s what happened to one of those happy couples.