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I don’t want to rehash our marital issues or retrace our steps that led to our divorce. Just some thoughts to end this week with, a week that for some reason found me reflecting in a new way about the past.
Suffice it say we went through a heart-wrenching time in the dissolution of our marriage; we each cried a river and then some. I wanted us to reconcile and at times, I was hopeful like on New Years’ weekend 2008/2009 when I wanted nothing more than to be with you. We had our spats that weekend, the little things that got so magnified under the expectation that we might somehow work it out. It snowed just for us it seemed. As much fun as we had, I think the stress too was palpable. We were to have made a pair of lists of some kind and see what if any common ground we might find that could grow into an anchor for re-building. I truly wanted that and I think you may have too but it did not happen. It was shortly after that you made it clear that no matter what I wanted – a rapprochement, a new deal, a renegotiation – you said the marriage was over, that we had no road back. I accepted that; I started it, our ending, forcefully but had many moments of doubt and trepidation. I wanted you and then I didn't. I loved you and then I didn’t. I wanted to love you and I couldn’t. My heart and head were at war. I could not bear it.
I sent you a picture of a sunset in Colorado that I took on the way back from Joe’s Barn – with a tag line saying I will always love you no matter what. I figured that we got engaged in Colorado and maybe we had the chance to re-engage there too. Now though it seems like our trip there 18 years ago and again last year were just bookends to our marriage. Whenever I go to Colorado no matter the circumstance, for the rest of my life, I will think of you, of us, of the happy times we indeed had.
Then I accidentally found out about David – you dropped a note here on the nook floor sometime before we were divorced I think – unintentionally I suppose when you went into your purse or pocket. Some stuff that you must have written down during therapy when you told your therapist about your new relationship. I was happy and sad at the same time. I was glad to see you breaking out into your new life; I was sad to think our road back was getting rocky and washed out.
I was so wanting to turn the page on 2009; a horrible year. Every time I see you though I get a catch in my throat and I often have to compose myself before I start driving again. There is still a place, a scar now, in my heart where a picture of you resides. Sometimes it fades, sometimes its crisp but it is there. Then your dad passed away; I was gripped with grief and was helpless. I was asked not to go to the wake. I grieved alone for a man I admired. You turned 50 and I wanted so to hold you and wish you great things. You are not gone from my heart.
I have vivid dreams of late where you and I are together, laughing, holding hands and so happy. Doing stuff – movie, having friends over, walking with Terry our beautiful lab in a big endless field on a stunning summer day. That one comes frequently. I wake up disoriented and momentarily forgetting we are apart. I cry. This is hard for me too. My mind is always playing awful tricks on me.
You said today you miss your home; sometimes I think your old place and me too misses you. Your handwritten spice jar label jars a memory. An old card with a sweet message to me found stuck in the bottom of a drawer. A garden tool you hung on a nail. A picture in my digital file. You are still here it seems so real sometimes. I try hard to make this place a new home, one that is all mine and it is taking time. I need to remodel something.
There are dozens of songs I can’t bear to hear; ones we loved together that spoke so deeply to us. It has been a rough transition. I am not always happy. Even the shelter of someone else’s heart and embrace does not make the pain go far enough away yet; I get that. Nothing can or will ever replace the depth or intensity of the life we had together. Sometimes I even want it back, if only for a moment then I realize how unhealthy that idea is. My therapist says all this is normal. Normal hurts. Normal sucks.
But I recall vividly too our struggles, our strife and the disrespectful and bitter behaviors we unleashed on each other. I remember being told I was verbally abusive when I was not; when you made all the word magnets spell out nasty things about me around my picture on the fridge I was crushed. I can easily reach back and recall the litany of deal breakers and perceived transgressions that were on the table and each other’s refusal to budge. I even made a list once. I think we both kept on wishing the other person were different than they are; your voice still echoes in my head - protesting my ‘wishes’ for you to make some changes – changes I wanted so we could have the best for us, so WE could both be happier ultimately. You did not trust me on that. I did not trust you to make what I thought were necessary changes – since you told me so repeatedly in terms quite certain. When you finally heard me, you rejected what I had to say. It took some time to get there – to the point where we could really here each other clearly - but it was futile in the end. You once told me I was ‘making a big mistake’ in leaving you. I think we BOTH made big mistakes in our marriage, without laying any blame more on one that the other. I asked you to grow up, you seemed to ask me for a good reason why you should. I only wanted what was best for US and it seemed you only wanted what was best for YOU at the moment. I livc in the moment too but I think about the future too and I wanted you to come along. We were frustrated that we could not get on the same page. Over and over and over. “Do we have to talk about this AGAIN?” “You are ruining my night”…..well, I thought…you are ruining my LIFE.
Therapist seems to concur that we would have in likelihood ended up in the same place we did: in a stale-mate, agreeing to disagree with neither of us happy with the marriage or with the other. Things could not stay the same but we could not change or grow purposefully together. I wish it were not so. To this day I wish it were not so.
I have learned a lot since we moved on. I think I know myself better. I think I know you too in a way I had not. Time gives us the luxury of hindsight. I think we are both likely better partners than we might have ever been to each other. There is a rich irony in that.
I can’t conclude this letter easily…there is so much to say and then perhaps nothing to say. I do wish things had been different for us.
I asked for you friendship again today. Please when you can, and if you can, be my friend. If you can’t I will understand.
I will always love you. But a lasting partnership means more than love. Love is a set of actions that engenders feelings of intimacy. Your actions spoke volumes. You said you loved me you just did not act that way. You derided me. You laughed at my insecurities, you did not care or comfort. You did not offer solace. You wanted to rewards of work but would not extend the extra effort. You never made me breakfast in the nearly 20 years we were a couple. Yet I catered to your every whim, trying to make your life paradise. You seemed to always say no even when a yes was within your reach.
Yes, I miss you. Why, I am not sure. It must be love. Yes, I wish it had been different. But I needed a better relationship, someone to love and give to me the way I love and gave to you.
My hand is out. My heart though is cautious and guarded. Is there a road back? I know not how. I only wish that we could untangle the mess and find what we once had and take a sad song, and make it better. With a better ending, living happily ever after. That was the plan. That was the plan.
Stick with the therapy. In one sentence you tell her you want to be her friend, but in the next sentence you start listing all her transgressions against you
Location: Living near our Nation's Capitol since 2010
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Well, C, I think your letter (even though you wont send it) represents the kind of letter that many of us who have gone through this experience would write. Love, loss, grief, longing and some anger.
9 years later,I can tell you that the hurt does go away. It s getting far enough away from it to see the light at the end of the tunnel that's the hard part. Be patient, stay in therapy, keep busy and hope for a better future. Its out there.
I am painting a few rooms, blowing out a wall, installing a new countertop....making my way.
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