Short form: engagement over.
Long form, cut-and-pasted from the e-mail I sent to family and friends:
Beth came over this afternoon (Sunday) and told me, without preamble, that she was breaking off our entire relationship.What else needs to be said?
Reason: she had met someone else and "he swept me off my feet". She volunteers at a local art gallery and apparently this guy is a regular there.
Reading between the lines it seems she had a date with him this past Friday. I didn't get any details, but then I don't really need them. It's obvious what kind of woman she actually is if she's incapable of telling someone, "No, I'm sorry, I'm engaged."
I guess I can take solace in the fact that this engagement, at least, lasted longer than the one with Marlene did. And at least I found out what kind of person Beth is before we were married.
Denis Leary said it best: "Life sucks. Get a frickin' helmet."
It's not like this happened after a big fight, either: she and I had a big fight on the 1st of September, but that was not quite four weeks ago. This shit came right out of the blue.
* * *
This comes after eight years of shit, one bad break after another. Even the good stuff has consistently turned out to be a curse in disguise, every damned time, and I'm beginning to think that this shit is not going to get better.
The past two months in particular have been a drumbeat of crap: getting fired, losing my aunt, having that big fight; I had just started to get my equilibrium back, and now this.
I'm not sure how much more of this shit I can take.