tragedy.

Do not look for healing at the feet of those who broke you.

Rupi Kaur

When I thought about what my life held after leaving my marriage, although I knew it would be hard, I didn’t know just how hard. 

Jennifer Weiner said, “Divorce isn’t such a tragedy. A tragedy is staying in an unhappy marriage, teaching your children the wrong things about love. Nobody ever died of divorce.”

It’s hard to NOT see divorce as a tragedy, right? A tragedy is defined as, “an event causing great suffering, destruction, and distress.” All the small tragedies leading to the greatest of all the heart’s catastrophic events, divorce. The two words should really be interchangeable. I guess I saw marriage for more than what most see it as. It seems fewer people work towards the fundamentals of marriage. I didn’t agree to spend the rest of my life with this man to ultimately decide that I simply couldn’t. Realizing sometimes no matter how bad we want to make it work, a person’s fundamental characteristics change and they don’t always change in the same direction as you. I suppose I’m simply trying to say, marriage meant something to me. It was something I could grow and flourish within with another soul who I loved and would do anything for. Something to be proud of. Something sacred. To say that no matter what, we’re going to figure it out. Knowing that we didn’t “just figure it out” was a blow, realizing “we” weren’t the “we” we use to be. We simply grew apart with every little tragedy, ultimately ending in failure. Suffering. The suffering endured before, during and after makes you want to run back into their arms and pray away all the bad. The suffering while you essentially mourn the loss of  the person that you fell in love with. It’s easier to mourn the loss of someone when they no longer walk this earth, to mourn someone you’ll see around… that’s a tough one. Destruction. I think the most destructive part of my marriage was the words that were thrown in anger. I use to think back on the times we argued, we came to no conclusions, we ended up further away, we said some terrible things to one another. Attacking core parts of a person hits differently. We weren’t discussing ugly pants or shoes. We attacked qualities, things that couldn’t be changed about a person. We broke each other down far more often than we tried to build each other up! After leaving, the destruction was far worse. There were conversations had on the carport of my house that I wish never existed. Things said in anger the worst fucking things ya know. I didn’t have a moment of peace for months. I had destroyed him when i left, it seemed. There wasn’t a second he wasn’t consumed by what I was doing, fighting for me to just give him that “one more chance.” The hundred other chances were just as destructive as the very last chance that was given. Distress. Defined as extreme anxiety, sorrow, or pain. Option D, all of the above. 

I felt the worst I’d ever felt the first time I did something for myself.

He always makes the statement, “you up and left me.” I can’t quite wrap my head around that. It was years of contemplating. About 6 months after our separation, (when I finally had time to breathe & start finding myself) I made a statement to my sister about how maybe I should try again… she reminded me of how many times over the last couple years I’d wanted to leave and gave him one more chance for the kids. She reminded me of the nights I cried that I’d forgotten. She reminded me of my own strengths. She was right. I had to draw the line. I knew how it would go. You’d fuckin think so! I took none of her incredible advice and I think I mentioned earlier, I gave him ONE MORE CHANCE!!!

The last chance. Final. The end of our story. 

I’ll start with, being lonely is a hell of a thing *read that in a Rick James voice* I won’t blame it all on loneliness. I was far from finding the person I set out to find. I wanted simple things like, conversation. I adore my kids but it’s only so much they want to discuss. I wanted a person to share funny shit and perverted jokes with. I wanted someone to warm my feet. I wanted someone to watch movies with. When I realized this, my internal demons fought a bit on the matter but I figured if I’m willing to give a stranger do it, least I can do is let him in for the simple things and see how it goes. So I did, I engaged in his text and it wasn’t long before he was at the house every day. I have those journal entries, maybe I’ll share some encouraging words from em. I wrote about him as he slept next to me, me smelling the alcohol on his breath and him thinking I’m a fool. Things obviously didn’t work out on that chance either. I learned a lot about him in those few weeks and how little he had actually changed. He was just really good at lying. He didn’t take it well and every day was like ground hog day with him. Every single day he would message me, some things hateful, some sweet. None of which I wanted to hear. I let him vent and beg and rant and rave, I’d defend myself because some things were just outlandish. I learned a lot about the person who he thought I was. 

I had a realization after that, that I’ll never love him remotely close to the capacity that a wife should. I would never trust the words coming out of his mouth, I would never see his intentions as pure. I would never be his person again and he, too, would never be mine. I had emotionally left my marriage long before I physically left.. we didn’t mourn our marriage at the same time. Back when I was begging and venting my frustrations, it fell on deaf ears because his mind was made up. My mind was made up. Like the song says, “we’re just strangers with memories.”

I have come to terms with most every aspect of everything we were or weren’t or could of been and might of been. I know matter of fact-ly that I will not spend another ounce of energy explaining myself to him, answering his endless demand of questions, the false realities he conjures up. Just this week he’s accused me of sleeping with 3 separate men. I was actually shocked twice by him during these rants; First being, I asked him if HE thought I would sleep with his friends? Me, the person he’s known since 8th grade, would that person sleep with people I knew were his friends? He said that he thought I would, I was that kind of person. Wow fella. Second, is that he thought I gave one single fuck about any one of those texts. I know that likely makes me sound like a terrible person but I’ve heard every bit of it before. Every single text. I knew every trick and guilt trip that was coming. He recently said that I was just his babysitter that he pays monthly.

Ok, that last one was a good one!!