Decade, The Last Ten Years
Did you know that's the name of my ex-husbands book? He'd begun writing and compiling poems around the age of 17 with the specific intent to publish them someday. He was able to snag an independent publisher right around the time I got out of the military and had a few hundred copies put out into the world. Since we met at 21 I was a common theme in some of the poems, either myself or life in general. Teen angst turned young adult passion. It was nice to know he dedicated that work to a woman I had no idea he was seeing during and after my enlistment.
A decade ago I was reeling. I don't remember Christmas that year...I have a vague vision of a tree in the house and I think by that point a former friend and her son had moved in with my daughter and me. I don't remember how I/we celebrated...I have no idea if I went up north to be with my family, but that seems like the logical assumption. I only remember feelings. Dread. Loneliness. Sadness. Hurt. Anger. Depression. Self-deprecation. Relief.
I remember the day My Girl came to me upset, I hugged her tight and told her if she needed to blame someone, to blame me. I'd done bad things and I was the reason daddy didn't want to be with us anymore. I remember a person whom I thought was a friend to me questioning me about things that were none of his business. Grilling me until I gave him the answers he wanted. He would go on to feign friendship for a couple of years until he realized I wasn't his damsel in distress and verbally eviscerate me to the point of yet another deep depression.
A decade ago I was in transition. I was swimming in a mix of emotions from sadness to freedom. I'd hated being married to him but life without didn't seem to make sense. I adored his family and his massive set of friends had engulfed me. I had a busy full life and I didn't want to lose it all and be lonely forever. I mourned the loss of his family and some of the friends far more than I ever mourned the loss of him.
I've carried the burden of the blame all on myself for ten long years.
I've tried to let bits of it go through blogs or talks with friends. I met and befriended the person he chose over me for the last 6 years of our marriage. She put so many things in perspective for me and still does from time to time. I've blogged and bitched about child support and his lack of involvement, I've shed tears over holding him accountable. But I've never spoken outright about the pain of the thing itself. The marriage and ultimate divorce that haunts me a decade later.
He was charismatic but he wasn't really my type. He fit a particular mold and had that beatnik coolness going on but had things been different I probably would never have chosen him at all. You see he had this magical line that he used on women for years: "they always want a guy like me, but never me." So I caved and said, 'ok, you're interested enough just go with it and see where it takes you'. I moved in with him because the dorms were getting to be too much for an almost 21 year old. I had no real job, no driver's license, no car...it was high time I grew up. My parents railed at the idea of a woman and a man living together unmarried. So we agreed we'd get married. Our whole relationship was based on a manipulation.
There is no engagement story. There was no ring. There was no romance. There was an agreement and a weekend ceremony in the park. That's it.
And then I got pregnant and all hope I had in life was lost. There was no way I could quietly bow out and walk away from this person who was hard to live with, had an awful temper, and was inherently lazy. I was trapped.
People pretty much know the rest. I partied, I drank, I threw a microwave, I joined the Marines. We alienated friends by asking for money. We lived in some sketchy places and later with his parents for a while. We attempted to live a lifestyle that was far more messy than fun. We were a mess and and I did the one thing I thought I could do to fix it. But it didn't fix it. It just gave me an outlet to act out even further. And it gave him the perfect scenario to play the victim and be the lone male in a neighborhood full of lonely women. It never occurred to him to take on more than one job and find us a nice, safe place to be. It never crossed his mind to be a protector and a provider. It was simply, how cool can I look doing this....?
So why do I mourn it? Why would I carry guilt and sadness for this long if there was no fairytale to ruin? It's not like he was sitting at home faithfully pining for the woman of his dreams to come home. No seriously. He wasn't. I wasn't the woman of his dreams and he was neither faithful nor pining.
The short answer is I don't know. But the real answer would be because someone had to take the blame. He was never able to bear real scrutiny, his ego has always been far too delicate to bear the weight of mistakes or regret. I was trained from childhood to wear that shit like a cape. Oh, we've got some humiliation to face? Cool, sew it up with this gold thread and hand it over. I worked as hard as I could those ten years, I tried to cook, I tried to be a good mother, I tried to be a supportive and loving wife. Oddly enough right at the end when I said I knew I was a bad wife (because of my infidelity and alcohol problems) he said, "no you're not a bad wife." Then WTF was I? I still don't have the answer to that. I can only assume he meant that I did all the cliche things but behaved badly outside of that. I don't know. The truth is I spent the vast majority of that time faking my own happiness. That's why when we announced we were splitting up people far and wide were shocked because they had no idea we were having problems.
We weren't "having problems"...it had always been a problem.
Anyone over the years that met him after meeting me automatically assumed we'd gotten married because I got pregnant. There's not a boss I ever had that believed I chose him. Not One.
It wasn't a fairy tale. It was a means to an end.
He wasn't prince charming. He was just a guy with a mountain of baggage when I met him.
I was no saint.
Neither was he.
And it took two to break the shit out of an 11 year marriage.
I need to cling to the relief...not the guilt. It's past time to forgive myself and allow that learning experience to fall behind me.
This will be the last entry for this blog. I'm not shutting down, I'm shifting gears. It's time to move on and do something a little different. Time to do something for me, something that makes me tick.
Thanks so much for following me on this crazy journey.
https://www.inc.com/rhett-power/master-self-forgiveness-with-these-5-questions.html
A decade ago I was reeling. I don't remember Christmas that year...I have a vague vision of a tree in the house and I think by that point a former friend and her son had moved in with my daughter and me. I don't remember how I/we celebrated...I have no idea if I went up north to be with my family, but that seems like the logical assumption. I only remember feelings. Dread. Loneliness. Sadness. Hurt. Anger. Depression. Self-deprecation. Relief.
I remember the day My Girl came to me upset, I hugged her tight and told her if she needed to blame someone, to blame me. I'd done bad things and I was the reason daddy didn't want to be with us anymore. I remember a person whom I thought was a friend to me questioning me about things that were none of his business. Grilling me until I gave him the answers he wanted. He would go on to feign friendship for a couple of years until he realized I wasn't his damsel in distress and verbally eviscerate me to the point of yet another deep depression.
A decade ago I was in transition. I was swimming in a mix of emotions from sadness to freedom. I'd hated being married to him but life without didn't seem to make sense. I adored his family and his massive set of friends had engulfed me. I had a busy full life and I didn't want to lose it all and be lonely forever. I mourned the loss of his family and some of the friends far more than I ever mourned the loss of him.
I've carried the burden of the blame all on myself for ten long years.
I've tried to let bits of it go through blogs or talks with friends. I met and befriended the person he chose over me for the last 6 years of our marriage. She put so many things in perspective for me and still does from time to time. I've blogged and bitched about child support and his lack of involvement, I've shed tears over holding him accountable. But I've never spoken outright about the pain of the thing itself. The marriage and ultimate divorce that haunts me a decade later.
He was charismatic but he wasn't really my type. He fit a particular mold and had that beatnik coolness going on but had things been different I probably would never have chosen him at all. You see he had this magical line that he used on women for years: "they always want a guy like me, but never me." So I caved and said, 'ok, you're interested enough just go with it and see where it takes you'. I moved in with him because the dorms were getting to be too much for an almost 21 year old. I had no real job, no driver's license, no car...it was high time I grew up. My parents railed at the idea of a woman and a man living together unmarried. So we agreed we'd get married. Our whole relationship was based on a manipulation.
There is no engagement story. There was no ring. There was no romance. There was an agreement and a weekend ceremony in the park. That's it.
And then I got pregnant and all hope I had in life was lost. There was no way I could quietly bow out and walk away from this person who was hard to live with, had an awful temper, and was inherently lazy. I was trapped.
People pretty much know the rest. I partied, I drank, I threw a microwave, I joined the Marines. We alienated friends by asking for money. We lived in some sketchy places and later with his parents for a while. We attempted to live a lifestyle that was far more messy than fun. We were a mess and and I did the one thing I thought I could do to fix it. But it didn't fix it. It just gave me an outlet to act out even further. And it gave him the perfect scenario to play the victim and be the lone male in a neighborhood full of lonely women. It never occurred to him to take on more than one job and find us a nice, safe place to be. It never crossed his mind to be a protector and a provider. It was simply, how cool can I look doing this....?
So why do I mourn it? Why would I carry guilt and sadness for this long if there was no fairytale to ruin? It's not like he was sitting at home faithfully pining for the woman of his dreams to come home. No seriously. He wasn't. I wasn't the woman of his dreams and he was neither faithful nor pining.
The short answer is I don't know. But the real answer would be because someone had to take the blame. He was never able to bear real scrutiny, his ego has always been far too delicate to bear the weight of mistakes or regret. I was trained from childhood to wear that shit like a cape. Oh, we've got some humiliation to face? Cool, sew it up with this gold thread and hand it over. I worked as hard as I could those ten years, I tried to cook, I tried to be a good mother, I tried to be a supportive and loving wife. Oddly enough right at the end when I said I knew I was a bad wife (because of my infidelity and alcohol problems) he said, "no you're not a bad wife." Then WTF was I? I still don't have the answer to that. I can only assume he meant that I did all the cliche things but behaved badly outside of that. I don't know. The truth is I spent the vast majority of that time faking my own happiness. That's why when we announced we were splitting up people far and wide were shocked because they had no idea we were having problems.
We weren't "having problems"...it had always been a problem.
Anyone over the years that met him after meeting me automatically assumed we'd gotten married because I got pregnant. There's not a boss I ever had that believed I chose him. Not One.
It wasn't a fairy tale. It was a means to an end.
He wasn't prince charming. He was just a guy with a mountain of baggage when I met him.
I was no saint.
Neither was he.
And it took two to break the shit out of an 11 year marriage.
I need to cling to the relief...not the guilt. It's past time to forgive myself and allow that learning experience to fall behind me.
This will be the last entry for this blog. I'm not shutting down, I'm shifting gears. It's time to move on and do something a little different. Time to do something for me, something that makes me tick.
Thanks so much for following me on this crazy journey.
https://www.inc.com/rhett-power/master-self-forgiveness-with-these-5-questions.html
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