Purring Cats as a Treatment for Heartache

Heartache is aptly named, that heavy, constricted feeling in the chest, sometimes even a real heartburn-like pain, which comes with stress, unhappiness and grief.  Mine has been coming and going for months now.
My cats seem to sense my need for a hug and one will climb up onto my chest, adding to the weight.  They rub their heads against my hands and face, soliciting fuss and cuddles, purring, kneading and rolling around as I stroke their fur and murmur sweet nothings.  It’s as if they are asking me to comfort them, but it works in reverse.  Sometimes they lie there for a while, and the vibration of their rumbling purrs seems to release something, lifting the tension.  They may stay until something disturbs them, or, satisfied that they have done their job for now, they stretch, yawn and jump down.
What would I do without my cats?  They are two of my blessings.  I love them.

How do you stand it?

Someone asked me recently, ‘How do you stand it?  Still living with your XP, even allowing his girlfriend to come and stay!  Why don’t you leave?  Why don’t you kick him out?’

Well, the situation is bad enough without making it worse.  I can’t afford to leave, and anyway, why should I?  It’s my home too.  I can’t ‘kick him out’ – it’s his place too, and I can’t afford to buy him out.  It’s not as if XP and I are fighting and at each other’s throats all the time.  It’s as if this is just another stage in our long relationship – still friendly, but no longer intimate, not as close.

Of course, it’s not as if I’m indifferent.  My heart aches at the thought of leaving this place, where we had such plans.  It means I have to change my lifestyle, get a job (very difficult just here and now), find another place to live.  I was absolutely heartbroken to begin with, but in all of these things, there’s a choice.  Be miserable, or get happy.

It’s not always easy, either.  I frequently feel sorry for myself, lonely, left out and in need of a hug.  But causing friction by insisting CG doesn’t stay here wouldn’t make it any easier.  I don’t expect I would win an argument about it anyway, and would have to resort to antisocial behaviour, like playing my music loudly at 3 in the morning.  How would that help?  There’s enough spite in the world without me adding to it.

So I stand it by counting my blessings and looking at the positives.  For example, I still have a roof over my head.  XP did not go off with an 18 year old airhead.  CG is a cheerful, practical, friendly, intelligent woman only a few years younger than me.  And I find when she stays, I enjoy her company and XP is better company too.

It may not be ideal, but actually, it’s better than okay.

Now we are Ex

And so, dear reader, I didn’t marry him.  Or rather, he didn’t marry me.  He asked twice, and I said yes both times, and we had talked about it enough for me to know that actually, he would rather not spend the money and be the centre of attention, and anyway, what did the piece of paper matter?  He’d been there and done that, and didn’t particularly want to do it again.  Well, no problem, really, although I would have liked a massive, all weekend party, with marquee and buffet and barbeque and dancing, and a bouncy castle and piñata for the children.   Perhaps as a house warming, in summer when we’d got the hay in and the house had been renovated and decorated.  In my dreams.  And now that’s where it will stay.

We had gutted the farmhouse, intending to renovate and extend to create a place where, potentially, the grandchildren would come for magical holidays. Then as the recession started to bite, work on the house stopped, as neither of us were earning much and felt insecure eating up our savings on the project without some sort of consistent income.

Then Ex Partner (XP) decided to move on.  He wanted to do something else, somewhere else, and with someone else.  He's now been seeing his Current Girlfriend (CG) for just over a year. 
Initially, when he told me that he was having an ‘affair’, I knew that if he was telling me about it, it was serious.  However, he had always let me know that I wasn’t the complete package. (Charming, thank you, but then nobody's perfect, least of all me!)  I reasoned that if I loved him, then why shouldn’t someone else?  Providing I was secure here and our relationship continued, then I would be okay sharing him.  He said he would not be forced to choose between us, but when CG made it clear that she could not share him and would end the relationship, he made his choice – he chose her.

I know in my heart that it hadn’t been the healthiest of relationships for a while, but I’d always told myself that I love him and despite some serious arguments, didn’t truly consider leaving him.  Could I, would I ever find someone else who would put up with my foibles?  Despite my eroded self confidence, I don’t think of XP as a paragon of virtue either.  However, whereas I accept and tolerate our differences, viewing them as complementary, it’s clear now that he perceives them as irresolvable incompatibilities.


I always believed that things will work out for the best if you let them.  As one door closes, another opens.   What goes around comes around.  The trick is to apply your beliefs to yourself, to practise what you preach, really believe it. 

Time for me to move on, too.

But first, we have a farm to put in order and sell.  With the change of lifestyle, we will also need new jobs to be able to support ourselves.

Interesting times lie ahead ....