Tag: Relationships

Angry About the Loss Of A Dream And A Promise

HeligKo
Foever Lost, Forever Present (in red)

This is something I hadn’t expected to come up as often as it does. It plays to my overly sensitive sense of justice, and right, and the idea that your word is your bond. I knew as the talk of divorce cropped up, that this would be an issue for me, but I didn’t imagine the ways it would hurt. I figured I would internalize it, and process it, and after a time of mourning I would be done with it. That has not been the case.

I was struck by this the first time a couple of weeks ago. My grandmother died. We weren’t close. She was terribly manipulative of my mom, and had shown with my nieces that she wouldn’t be reliable to show up for a lunch let alone other grandmotherly things that you would expect. She had been a significant factor in my growing up though. We spent some portion of nearly every weekend when I was a child at their house for a family dinner or some other event. I was sad and grieving as you would expect. As I drove to the hospital to get there before she died, I was so angry. I couldn’t figure out why at first, and then it smacked me in the face. I had been there through multiple funerals for my wife. I had been there when her mother died shortly after we got married. I had gone through this turmoil providing what she needed at the time, or at least trying to meet her needs. They were obnoxiously hard to decipher. But now, here I was alone driving to the hospital. I would be there with my crazy aunt and uncle who had each other, my mom and dad, my sister and her husband, my cousin and his husband. They all had someone who had committed to be there through the tough stuff, through the sad stuff, and mine was not only there, but did not want to be with me through the tough stuff. She wanted to be happy. Such a shallow feeling, happiness is. It is something fleeting, and rarely found when you are looking for it. It sneaks up on you when you are busy being content with the crap life brings along. My mom was so confused by my reactions at the hospital, because I was angry more than sad. The grieving came later, but I was truly and justifiably angry. I didn’t take vows with this woman to be cast off when things weren’t as good as you planned. I took vows to stay together even if it sucked, and trust me there were many things that sucked. Basically, I felt ripped off by the fact that I didn’t have that person who pledged alongside me to be there for this stuff. To further dig the thorn in, she made a big deal out of the fact that my dad does not want to be around her, and that she wasn’t welcome at the funeral. My mom would have made it work, but there wasn’t any reason, she didn’t know my grandmother well, because as I said before we weren’t close. It was just so inappropriate at the time.

Earlier this week I had another moment. This one just made me sad. For most of my life, I have wanted what my parents had. They enjoy each other tremendously. They tell stories about when they were young before kids, and about life with us kids at an early age. They yuck it up with friends from years far past. I was sitting at a bar getting some tacos and a beer for dinner after dropping off the kids with their mom. I was sitting next to two couples who were telling these kind of stories to each other. They were easily old enough to be my parents, or at the very least the younger friends of my parents. I became sad, and very inwardly turned as I saw these couples and the joy they had in bragging about partner and how they handled a situation, and the occasional jab about something far in the past. These are things that I just won’t have. Not even if I were to get back together with the mother of my children. She is incapable of telling stories that don’t make me look bad, and her the hero. She doesn’t playfully jab me, she knocks me in the jaw and tries to call it light hearted. I have lost this part of the dream. There is no getting this back. I chose badly when I chose this woman, and the price of that choice is I will never have the dream. I will never have be loved by one person regardless of circumstance. I will never have stories to share with my partner about life before kids.

The first part of the promise I can have, if I ever venture out to find another partner for life. I would like to hope that my judgement is better than it was in my 20s, but I don’t know that I can trust that a woman is capable of this. Not that there aren’t women capable of this, but that I can’t tell them apart. Women, you need to police your own better. Marriage is off the radar for me for the foreseeable future. The risks are too high, and they aren’t shared between us. women are seeking divorce at an alarming rate, and that rate isn’t much different for the religious as it is for the irreligious. If you are woman who believes in marriage and desires to find men of quality willing to marry, then you need to do something about the culture fostered among women that men are interchangeable and disposable. I married a woman who all would have counted as a Christian woman of conviction, and those convictions were cast off chunk by chunk as she wasn’t completed by me. Which is another bone I have to pick the Jerry McGuire theology of you are supposed to complete me is crap. Marriage is supposed to be a commitment to working together to make it through life, not that I or you should be creating a whole person by the union, but that two whole people are better than one. That proposition is being broken in our society all the time, and I honestly don’t see how I could try at it again, especially while I have kids that would be torn apart by another family break up.

Sorry for the semi-random thought processes here. This has been a rough couple of weeks.

Ten-Foured,

JeD

You Never Told Me That!

HeligKo
img-thing

Words I continually heard were “You never told me that,” or something similar. It even reached the point where I was told that I must have imagined the conversation in my head. This was strange, but I am fairly introverted, so not completely implausible. I started to think I had entire conversations in my head, because she had no memory of them. This was the story of our marriage. She would respond to me angrily if I argued that we had talked about something that she didn’t remember. To some degree, I started to believe that I was a bit crazy. That I could imagine an entire conversation, and it never have happened. I would give up plans, because she wasn’t prepared for them, because we never talked about them.

After the divorce talk, I was much more aware of the conversations we had. I was more sensitive to slights I might offer or receive. I was trying to be a better husband, and was becoming increasingly aggravated with the lack of effort on her part to be a good wife. Not just then, I didn’t expect much then, but in the past as I reviewed our life together on mine own. I noticed that I would be talking, and she would start the conversation with me, but after a while she would disappear into her own world. I used to think she would change the subject abruptly on me, because there was some connection in her mind to what we were talking about. I have a tendency to do that myself. I found though that she would get lost in her own thoughts, and would stop hearing me. She would then jump in conversation to whatever it was that she was thinking about. As time went on after the divorce talk, she had less and less that she wanted to talk to me about, so she would just disappear and not come back. That is when I noticed what was really going on, and figured out that I was not nuts, but being ignored all these years.

I tested this a few times. I would say completely ridiculous things, and see if there was a reaction. There was none, and when I say none I mean not even a nod of the head like she was pretending to listen. I would stop mid-sentence and just leave the room, and she wouldn’t even notice. This was both eye opening and heart breaking for me. I realized that it had been a very long time since she cared what I said. The hard reality of this is I had started to believe that what I said was not important, that people didn’t care what I thought or said. I had stopped sharing anything with so many of my friends. I have found that they all wondered what they did to make me not want to trust them anymore. They too were victims of my marriage, and some of them will recover with me, and some of them have already left my life not understanding what happened.

It is amazing how the person you are closest too can affect everything in your life in ways that you never imagined. I can only imagine what that could have looked like if we were both in the marriage for the right reasons. It could have been amazing. Someone who can have such a strong effect on me and how I interact with others could have propelled me to such great heights with my friends and family, just as she pushed me down. I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me here. I could have maintained those relationships on my own. I could have been more aware of what was going on, and limited the damage that was caused. I could have believed that I was worth more than she thought I was, and never have tumbled down the path I have been on. It hasn’t been good for either one of us.

Ten-Foured,

JeD

Wake Up Call

HeligKo
Vintage Copper Alarm Clocks

Well the divorce talk was a wake up call. It certainly got me going. I changed. Some of the changes were the desperate actions of a man caught off guard. Those slid away with time. The biggest changes came in my spiritual walk with Christ. My walk over the years had nearly became non-existent. I spent almost no time in the Bible, and only went to church to make sure I didn’t lose connection with the people there, I cared about.

I started the “Love Dare” with my wife. It pissed her off most of the time. I wrote a blog journal so she could read my thoughts. She initially responded well, even when she got pissed. I learned a lot about love and marriage going through that book. Needless to say, she did not. She was still determined to stay on her current course. During this time we also started counseling. The counselor was good. He was strong and straight forward. Not the kind of counselor that I have been turned off by over the years. The first few sessions we talked about me, and how bad I was, and all the blah, blah, blah, she could come up with. He honestly said to her, “You want to give up a fourteen year marriage over those things.” He explained that her complaints were normal, and generally reflected a lack of understanding of how men and women are different. She shut down and got pissed. One of the last sessions, I brought up and incident where we had our boys at a soccer tournament. I had to take one over to his game, while the other finished up a game. I dropped him off across the park, and came back to get her. Somehow we missed each other. I called her, and she answers the phone screaming at me about leaving her there to get all our stuff. Needless to say, our stuff amounted to a shelter for her, her chair, a heater for her, her blankets, and some other stuff for her. She then hung up on me. I get to the other game, and am pissed. I ask her if she was going to apologize, she spit “for what,” and I went over to talk to some guys. I wasn’t going to stand there and wait for her to cool off and play nice. She told the counselor, she didn’t believe that I came back for her. He asked if I was there when she got to the second game. She said no. He asked then where do you think he went. She didn’t know. He asked was he gone long enough to have left the park. She said no. He then asked, then isn’t it reasonable that he did exactly what he said he did. She screams “I don’t care.” She huffed and puffed for a while, and when he got her to talk again, she said. “This was fine, so long as we are talking about him. I don’t want this marriage, I don’t want to fix it. I don’t want to talk about me at all.” She then went on to explain that she settled for me, because she didn’t believe that anyone else would want to marry her, and that she never really loved me. I am getting to the point where I believe that.

One thing from our counseling sessions that stood out to me was this. He was trying to explain to us that what a woman in marriage needs is that unconditional love. This is what I was trying to learn through the “Love Dare” as well. I can admit that I wasn’t always good at this or motivated to do better, but at this point wanted nothing more than for her to understand I loved her. She told me during this time that she had no doubt that I loved her. Of course there is a but. A disconnected but, but a but none the less. When he asked me what I needed from her, he concluded what I was trying to express was I needed respect. I agreed. I hadn’t thought about it in those terms, but that was it. He went on to explain that there is a special kind of respect that only a wife can give her husband. It is a respect, like the love she expects that can’t be earned. It is a gift that should come from her along with her vows. Her response was cold, almost angry, “Well he needs to have his own self respect.” The counselor agreed and tried to explain the difference in what he was talking about, and she repeated that phrase a few times. This was when I really started to believe that she never did love me, and maybe couldn’t love me or anyone else. She was so wrapped up in her feelings and her anger that she was unable to recognize the effect that she had on other people.

During this time, I also started meeting with my pastor. We studied the word, and talked about my situation. He has provided great advice, and comfort. He is furious that she would allow us to adopt 3 kids, and have a kid if she wasn’t willing to love me. You see the problem, he gets that love is what you do, and emotions will follow. She wants to feel that romantic love, and isn’t getting that. The truth is, she never has had any empathy for me, so I am not surprised as I look back at this. I have grown in my spiritual walk going through this. I have learned to love when there is no love in return. I have also learned that this bond called marriage that God created is going to hurt like hell as it breaks. I don’t think she will feel it until it is over, and then she will wonder why I am not hurting the way she is, because she will have missed all the pain that I was already going through. My pastor had me go through a Bible study called “Experiencing God.” I would recommend this to anyone who wants to get a better understanding of God’s word and his desire to no just know us, but to interact with us.

I have been finding that as I talk to friends, and reveal what is going on, that many of them have been concerned for me. Her temper and sharp tongue have become harder on me. Many of these friends stopped seeing us, and I never knew why. It was because she had cut off the relationships when they became uncomfortable. If there is one lesson that I have learned through all of this, is relationships have to be maintained by me, and that I cannot have a real relationship with anyone as a couple. That is a strange thing to me. I believed that through marriage we became one, and most of our relationships would be together. I was wrong, and not just because of who she is, but its just not the way it works. When couples get along it is because each member of the couples gets along well the both the members of the other couple.

Over the next few months, I tried to pretend that we were still a normal married couple with our problems. I tried to make days that should be special, special, and to comfort her through her hurts with friends and family. During this same time she was busy knocking down my reputation to anyone who would listen, and was looking for supporters on her quest to kill our marriage. I am surprised that she found very few supporters. She can be extremely convincing, but I had developed a good reputation in this small community, so people dismissed most of what she said as being angry and inappropriate talk about your husband. This has been one of the biggest blessings as I meet and talk with people now.

Ten-Foured,

JeD

Small Town Life

HeligKo
Town Square

We decided to move a few years later. She doesn’t seem to be able to settle for more than 4 years at a time. We bounced around churches in the same way. This has had a profoundly isolating effect on me. I have very few friends, and none of them are from after I got married. That is a terribly sad thing for me to have to admit. I have no new friends over the last 15 years. We moved to a small town just outside the city we live in. Little did I know that this would be the beginning of the end. I liked the idea. A close knit community would be a great place to have some connections that seemed to be missing from my life. We moved into a historic house that had plenty of space, and we found a church. Things were going well. She became president of the PTO, I joined the board for the local soccer club, and we helped start a ministry to high school students. This was what I had always wanted. So long as there was a mission to be accomplished she and I seemed pretty good. She still had issues around sex with me, but for a while it was better, but not for very long.

We developed some friendships quickly. As time went on, those friendships began to whither. Until recently I did not understand why. Her temper, and her attitude destroyed those relationships with other couples behind my back. I have also come to find out that many of those people are still watching out for me, and wanting to be my friend. They just don’t know how. As time has gone on, we have become more and more isolated. Our kids are involved in things back in the city, and our house has proven to be much more expensive than we had thought it would be. We are struggling financially because of the driving, eating out, and the house. She had demanded that she run the finances years ago, and I let her. Now she has thrown up her hands and handed the mess she has created to me. I was far too inattentive to this and now I will pay the price.

Our sexual intimacy dwindled to nothing. The only sex I got was obligatory, and it felt like it. After having sex I was sometimes sick to my stomach, because it was so obvious she didn’t want it, that I felt like I was doing something dirty. Understand this is sex she initiated, because I had given up initiating sex with her, because it always ended with being rejected in some harsh way.

She has always had an issue with the amount of things that I know. I am an avid reader, and am informed on a lot of topics. She got in the habit of calling bull shit on me in public. She generally wasn’t correct, but she obstinate, and set on convincing everyone around that I was just making things up, or that I was wrong, because some fine detail was off by some small margin. She seemed determined to make me small before everyone we encountered. My self esteem is a mess over this still. The process of writing this out is so that I can put this all to bed, and return to being the man that I had been before I sold my soul to marry this woman. I was on the fast track at my job, and it has just stalled. It is the cyclical results of she shot my esteem down with lack of respect, I begin to carry that into my work, and then I don’t get the promotions, which she then uses to remind me that I am really not that successful or smart, which then tears me down farther.

Although my reputation is strong in our little town, I have few friends. Small town life would have been great, but it is also where our marriage eroded, and I became more and more isolated.

Ten-Foured,

JeD

Lets get this started

HeligKo
It Was Supposed to be Pure

This blog is here to serve two purposes. One, that I get to write. I haven’t been writing in a long time, and everything I want to write right now I don’t want attached to my name, because of the struggles me and my wife are having. Which brings me to the second purpose of this blog. I will be telling my story, at least the part about my marriage. I am in the middle of a likely divorce, and need a place to review the history of my marriage. Perhaps along the way, I will see where things went wrong for me. Mistakes that I made that could have changed the course of my marriage. For the most part, I want to explore the mistakes, so I don’t make them again, because I don’t believe that my wife would have changed much about how she has acted or feels.

The name of this blog is a personal catch phrase. I say it to myself when I think about the problems in my marriage. We were married October 4th or 10/4, and that is when everything changed, so I have dubbed that being ten-foured. I will start with the beginning, so it will take some time to get to the current part of the story. By the end, I hope to feel different about where we are. I still want to save this marriage, but I don’t see much hope in that. Even if the marriage can be saved, I don’t have any illusions that she will change, so I would be back in this position again some years down the road. I say this with great sadness. I believe in the redemptive power of Christ, and if she chooses to return to a spiritual walk with Christ, then I have no doubt that things can change, but for now she runs away from all things good towards the women who have already shattered their homes. She seeks comfort in the stories of how good it can be. She forgets the great sadness they used to tell her about before she was a potential member of their club, then it became all roses and honey to be a divorced mom. She also seems to think that I will remain very husband like, but she won’t have to share my bed, and will suddenly have a great husband and a lover of her choice her aren’t the same person. she is sadly mistaken about the lengths I will go to be kind to her after she has destroyed my family. She is also sadly mistaken about her market value as a woman in her 40s with 4 kids and is overweight.

I am bitter right now. That will come through my writing. That is part of the reason I am writing. I want to explore our relationship, come to some new conclusions about what really happened, and heal the bitterness, so I am prepared for the battles that will come for me to have my say and time with my kids. For now we are preparing for seperation. We will share an apartment that the kids stay at until our house is sold. We will alternate who stays with the kids at the apartment, while the other stays at our house. This seems like a miserable situation to me right now, but I can hope that some good will come of it. My reality alarms tell me this is divorce lite for her.

Ten-Foured,

JeD