Once upon a time…

…there was a young man that met a young girl. The girl was pretty, smart, and married to a man that didn’t appreciate her. She knew at the first instant that he was “the one.” The pair began to see each other, and soon she left her husband for the boy. They moved far away and started again, hopefully for ever after

The couple eventually married, and the boy joined the Army. They moved a lot, he was under constant stress, but they had each other. The Army ended and they moved back to their home far away. For a time, everything was as it had been — they were both in school, and while poor, they had enough to scrape by. For that time, they were happy.

The boy however, had changed in the military. He wanted to improve their life, but seemed incapable to making it happen. He felt increasingly guilty that he could not break through in his chosen profession, and as their debts piled up, he began to worry incessantly. The girl managed to get a decent job and they continued to scape by, but their financial situation continued to deteriorate. The boy returned to school to get a better degree and gave up trying for his dreams; he knew they would not happen. He now was determined to be — if not successful — responsible.

They moved to a house they couldn’t really afford. They kept a lifestyle that was lower middle class…but could barely afford. The girl for her part worked hard, and had taken over the mantle of responsible one. Her hard work seemed for nought: she worked hard and made a good, if not great, wage, but the money was always gone. The boy, who was trying to salvage their situation hadn’t communicated the issues to her. For her, she worked and worked…and nothing improved or changed. She was a practical woman, now, and becoming a bit bitter. She became sick from the stress, and for several years she was a shell of who she had been, trapped in an endless loop of pain.

The boy, now a man, had no clue what to do to improve things and blamed himself for their situation and her illness, and he hoped she would come back to him. When she finally did, he found that his feelings for her were changing — between the stresses of life, health, career, and schooling, he had let it all fall apart — but he kept trying, kept doing his best. However, he knew that he was failing her, although she denied it and tried to placate him.

As happens in these tales, things reached their nadir. They were perpetually broke, in deep debt, he was failing (again) at his schooling and in holding a job — hardly the responsible figure he was trying to be. He desperately worked to improve their financial standing, understanding that their mountain of debt was waiting in the wings, and not trusting his ability to make the situation right. He shored up debt, he lowered their expenses, he did nothing but live for plugging the holes in their financial ship, all the while knowing that — in the end — he would fail. As he always had.

Then one day, he reconnected with a girl they had known. At first it was just friends, but soon he realized that there were deeper connections with the new girl that he had lost with his wife. He began lying to her about where he was and who he was with. He lost himself, dishonoring the girl now a woman that he had once rescued and had hoped to have a life with. Trapped between staying to avoid hurting the girl now woman that he still loved and cared about, and leaving to join the woman he had fallen in love with, the boy now a man came to hate everything about himself.

Eventually, he could bear it no longer and walked away from the girl now woman, and joined the other that helped him find some of the spark of his old self that was left. He continues to feel he failed the girl, continues to care about her and hopes that she will be well, and will find the happiness he couldn’t give her.

The story of the boy and the girl is not over, but their paths sadly diverge.