Yesterday I went to dinner with one of my accomplished, beautiful, younger, single girlfriends and the subject turned to the remnants of my marriage. She asked me if I feel married anymore. I said that I didn't, and I don't. A couple weeks back another amazing girlfriend of mine, who is a newlywed, cautiously asked me what it was that had made me fall in love with him. That was hard to answer because I had first fallen in love with him when I was 19. Then I thought I had fallen out of love with him, and I went on to live an entire lifetime before seeing him again at 32. It was then, in a London bar that I knew had always been in love with him. So it's complicated, but the easy answer is that all of the things that have happened, and are happening, weren't visible to me back then.
Throughout the course of my marriage I have been asked by many different friends whether or not the issues we have were there when we got married. The answer is yes and no. Yes, my husband has the same darkness and demons and baggage now that he had then, but no, I didn't realize it. I never saw it. If I had paid more attention, or hadn't let love blind me, maybe I would have seen things but I'm not sure. Things come up when you get married. Seriously. They fucking magically fall out of a cereal box one morning and you're sitting there going, "What the fuck is this in my bowl?!"
Mine is one of the greatest love stories of all time. The way we met, and then parted, and then reconnected - all of our life's pieces falling into place. That was magic. That was real love. The problem is, sometimes real love isn't love that works. Or is healthy. Sometimes it's the worst thing to happen to you.
Only people in relationships understand the intricacies of what's happening between them. Sometimes we are trapped in a situation for reasons that no one else seems to understand. Often, it appears that no one on earth would tolerate what's being tolerated because it's so outrageously intolerable, but then, they're not in your specific situation. How do I explain it? I can't, other than to say that I'm not tolerating it. I'm bearing the weight of its burden squarely on my shoulders day in and day out in an endless stream of verbal abuse and dark hatred. I'm searching for ways to be whole again. I'm not a victim. I'm physically very strong and can fight my way out of any corner you put me in. I'm not usually shy when I'm faced with insults and screaming and yelling. I grew up with constant screaming and yelling and spankings and corner standings and more than a few times some pretty hellacious beatings. I'm reactive. I'm defensive. I'm protective. I'm really, really fucking evil if I need to be, but it's been a lot of years since I've let that side of my personality out of the box because frankly, I believe in karma and I don't want nor need that karma in my life. So I bear it, but I don't tolerate it. There's a difference.
I do believe in love. I believe in marriage. I believe that there are good men and women out there who are perfect complements to each other. Sometimes only for a time, sometimes for a lifetime. I believe that some people are suited to marry more than once, or twice, but not me. I believe that couples fight and that love waxes and wanes and that we either do or don't continue to fall in love with each other all over again. I'm all for trying. I'm all for exhausting every last option. And yet, I also believe that people can be so incredibly cruel and inhumane to the people they claim to love that hell would be a perfect descriptor.
I wish I knew the moment that my "World's Greatest Love Story" turned into blackness. On what day, what time, and after what real or imagined infraction did it end? I just want to know for posterity's sake, and because everyone asks me. I don't have the answer. Was it the morning of my wedding when he turned to me in bed and said, "I don't think I can do this," only to leave with his groomsmen and call me hours later to tell me he's never been so sure? Was it his mother's abject hatred of me/him/herself that ruined it? Maybe it was the whole nightmarish process of immigration and leaving friends and familiarities behind. Maybe it was my unchecked (at the time) depression and my lack of a fat bank account. I know that one instance has come back over and over again and has found its way into every argument about every thing, ever. My daughter's heart surgery. The decisions I made to pay for her heart surgery, out of my own bank account, instead of paying my taxes. We were uninsured. I had to choose, my daughter's life or the IRS. I chose my daughter, and the IRS chose to chase me down and entangle me in a decade's long "payment arrangement" that sees me indebted to them forever. That comes up a lot. How I got "us" into trouble with the IRS. How it has affected him. I wish it had been an easier choice to make, but this is America and that's how our medical system operates, and you know, I was very lucky at the time to have had $70,000 in a retirement account to pay for almost all of that surgery. Almost all. I paid the other $25,000 over a period of years. My daughter is healthy now thankfully. Anyway, maybe that was it.
Although it's hard to take and harder to admit, every confidence I shared with him, every weakness and fear I confessed to while laying in his arms, he has exploited. He has thrown them in my face, accused me of being less than, used them to show how lowly I am, and in one very life-changing instance, shared my deepest pain with a total stranger he ended up sleeping with. Nothing feels worse than having a stranger call you up and tell you something about yourself that absolutely no one knows but your spouse. It's like someone reaching right into your chest, taking out your heart, and throwing it off the freeway bridge.
Time and again when I relate the biggest issues in my marriage to trusted friends there is a universal question everyone - male and female - asks: "But he's your husband! Doesn't he know he's supposed to be your partner?"
Yes, I think he knows that's how the rule book reads, but ask him today and he could give you at least a hundred reasons why I don't deserve his support/love/interest/attention. A wise friend of mine once said that people can justify anything in the world to themselves to make themselves feel okay. I see proof of that all the time.
I write this more to exhale than for any other reason. Some day I'll write the whole story down. I'll include all of my transgressions, failures, and shortcomings, and let the reader come to whatever conclusion they want. However, nowhere in that story will there ever be a shred of hatred coming from my direction. It only flows toward me, not from me.
Another very wise person I know said that karmic debt is a debt that must always be repaid. Whether in this life, or the next. I believe that. That is why I lay myself bare to the God that I believe in and pray for next steps. The sadness that occupies the entirety of who I am comes from the fact that I no longer have that friend I really believed in. Someone whose creativity and intelligence and words were so meaningful and powerful to me.
That sucks.
