One of the big bombshells my ex dropped the day he decided he needed a rest was, \”I have no idea that we are for each other anymore.\” I didn't purchase it. I had been for each other and that i was certain he was too. He was confused, he needed space, and that i would create it for him, even though for many, his words could have been the final nail in the coffin. So I was fascinated to read Laura Munson's \”Modern Love\” column in Ny Times about her refusal to battle together with her husband when he declared he no more loved her.

She writes:

\”I don't adore you anymore. I am not sure I ever did.\”

His words came at me like a speeding fist, like a sucker punch, yet somehow for the reason that moment I was in a position to duck. And when I recovered and composed myself, I were able to say, \”I don't buy it.\” Because I didn't.

He drew in surprise. Apparently he'd expected me to burst into tears, to rage at him, to threaten him having a custody battle. Or beg him to change his mind.

So he turned mean. \”I can't stand what you've become.\”

Gut-wrenching pause. How could he say this? That's when I really desired to fight. To rage. To cry. However i didn't.

Instead, a shroud of calm enveloped me, and that i repeated those words: \”I do not buy it.\”

Munson recounts how she refused to sign up in or be hurt by what she considered her husband's midlife crisis. She wouldn't allow him to walk away so easily, but she wasn't going to fight for him either. Munson didn't balk when, rather than leaving, her husband spent the next few months coming and going without explanation, blowing off family plans, and ignoring her birthday. \”I simply had arrived at understand that I was not at the root of my husband's problem,\” she writes. \”He was. If he could turn his problem right into a marital fight, he might make it about us. I needed to get out of the way to ensure that wouldn't happen.\”

To some, this probably sounds completely nuts. Munson writes that her friends thought she'd dropped it, which she suspects a few of the readers of her column will think she's a pushover. It's one thing for a couple to work through infidelity, only one person's declaration that they no longer have been in love? \”Although it appears ridiculous to state 'Don't go personally' whenever your husband lets you know he no longer loves you, sometimes that is what you need to do,\” writes Munson.

I tried not to take my ex's declaration personally as well. It was not about me, it was about him, and that i couldn't help him make out the print. Uunlike Munson's husband, my ex was giving me the kind of verbal feedback that totally supported my theory that he was mid-quarterlife crisis-that he needed space, that he would go to therapy, he hoped to locate his long ago to me. As a result, I stepped aside and tried to offer my emotional support. Friends thought I was crazy, particularly when they heard the whole \”I have no idea if we're still in love\” bit. But I didn't buy it and that i thought eventually he would make out the print too. That never happened.

But Munson's husband did eventually wake the f**k up and saw his situation for which it was-a midlife crisis. \”My husband attempted to strike a deal,\” writes Munson. \”Blame me for his pain. Unload his feelings of personal disgrace onto me. However i ducked. And that i waited. Also it worked.\”

Would you've ducked? Would you have waited? I think I would again, even though it failed.