The Most Pathetic Things I Did To Try And Save My Marriage (Part Two)

A friend asked me last week how I felt about writing these blogs, if I found them therapeutic. I have to say that at this point, it isn’t therapy. If I wrote them three or four years ago, yeah, but now its just reflective storytelling in my mind.

So here we go, the second pathetic thing I did. It has been a long time coming.

Why is it that so many men don’t really look after their health? I talk to women at work all the time and they all have a similar complaint - that their husband doesn’t feed himself, at least not very well anyway. I have that problem with my husband who has a penchant for fast food, and I had it too, with my ex-husband.

After my ex left, the second most pathetic thing I did was I tried to feed him. The man had high blood pressure, high cholesterol and symptoms of some other kind of heart problem lurking. On top of that he didn’t exercise, didn’t watch his diet or his weight, and he had a fondness for alcohol and caffeine.

The idea of him out there on his own, taking care of himself actually made me shudder. I had visions of him eating out at fast food joints for lunch every day and expensive restaurants for dinner at night, not to mention racking up credit card debt along the way as he did this.

So a day or two after he left, I went out to the grocery store and bought about two hundred dollars in groceries and spent two days cooking chilis, curries, and stews, and packaged them into single-serving meal sizes into Ziploc freezer bags so that he would have some healthy, convenient alternatives to eat while he was off ‘coming to his senses’ (because remember at this point, I was still convinced that he would come back).

Did he appreciate my efforts? He didn’t show it if he did. Heck, he probably felt awkward that I was still trying to take care of him. I bet he didn’t see that one coming at the time. I can laugh about it now.  Did he eat them? I don’t know. It would not surprise me if you opened up his mother’s freezer and found a bunch of those freezer bags still in there today with massive freezer burn.

So yeah, I can look back now and say that the cooking and the cleaning of the tires were lame, but at least I didn’t get pregnant and have his child. That would have been a recipe for disaster. 

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Follow Your Passion / Believe In Yourself

I know I still owe you Part Two of The Most Pathetic things I Did To Save My Marriage, but after the frustrating week I have had (coming to terms with the difficult realities of e-publishing books from Canada), I wanted to write something more upbeat and inspiring, something to remind myself why I need to jump the hurdles necessary to make the e-book thing happen.

Anyone who knows me knows I am passionate about writing. I have only recently started putting myself out there, but my love of writing was discovered back in the year 2000. My ex and I lived in Vancouver at the time (for his career) and I was not working.

One day he said, “You should write a book. I bet you would be good at it.” I kind of laughed at the idea but it stuck with me. A couple days later I got out a pen and paper and started writing. To my surprise, I found myself with some characters and the start of a storyline. I got excited. It was a murder plot. My ex joked that it was him I killed off in the opening scene. I wrote a four hundred-page novel and I felt like I had accomplished the world.

When we moved back to Ontario in 2002, it was obvious that I had officially found love in writing, so my ex suggested that I take a night course to polish my skills.  What the class taught me was that I had no antagonist, no protagonist, and no story arcs. In other words, it taught me how to format chapters of a novel. It also helped me to develop a critique group who constructively edited my writing.

I scrapped the story I wrote in Vancouver, but I was undeterred.  I was looking forward to applying what I had learned to my craft. I came up with new stories. My poor husband was forced to sit through hours and hours of me talking on and on and on about the research I was doing for my stories.

My ex has always been an entrepreneur at heart. He always pushed through the obstacles and past his comfort zone to do whatever necessary to be successful while I always held on to what I perceived to be a healthy dose of fear (for the both of us). Hence the reason he is out there being successful pursuing his dream and I am only now stepping up to the plate.  

The divorce threw my writing into disarray for two years as I got my life back in order, but I am fortunate to have found another man who encourages my writing, going so far as to read and critique it (something my ex, although supportive, never did). And I have managed to come back stronger.

You have to be passionate about what you are doing. And you have to believe in yourself. You need to believe that you deserve the successes you dream of. If you live in fear, if you live with self-doubt, you will never believe that you are good enough, and if you don’t believe you’re good enough, why would anybody else think you are?

I know my writing is good. I have no doubt I will find success, and for that reason, I cannot let a not-so-little thing like getting an American Tax Exemption number get in the way of putting myself out there.

My ex will always be the first person who ever believed in my writing. Heck, he believed in it before I did. He was the one telling the world I was a writer way before I was ever ready to tell even my closest family. There is no rewriting history. And that is why my upcoming novel ‘6 Divorces’ (still in early first draft re-writes) is already (cryptically) dedicated to him.

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The Most Pathetic Things I Did To Try And Save My Marriage (Part One)

I wish this article could be titled the most pathetic thing I did, singular, but unfortunately I did two pathetic things, plural.  Today, I give you pathetic thing number one.

The first few days after my ex-husband left, I lived under the delusion that our separation was only temporary; that he would come to his senses and come home with his tail between his legs.

Even in the midst of ugly things like separations, life does go on. Winter was upon us. It was Christmas after all. My ex got the snow tires put on our car (we only owned one vehicle at the time) then dropped the summer tires off at the house to be stored over the winter. It wasn’t like I could say no – he was living out of garbage bags in his mom’s basement. He had nowhere else to put them. Plus I still thought I wanted him to come home so I played nice.

But housing the tires is not what I qualify as my sad, desperate move.

Anyone who knows anything about performance brakes and expensive alloy rims knows that the brake dust attaches itself to the wheels faster than barnacles grow on the bottom of ocean liners. The black dust is a constant battle, not to mention a constant reminder that your brakes are getting used and only getting worse, but I digress, I am moving off topic. Brake dust is not only unsightly, but it is also corrosive and can do serious damage to rims. There are entire lines of cleaning products dedicated to the removal of the offending brake dust. We probably spent more on rim cleaners than I spent on home cleaning products.

So my ex dropped off the summer rims, informing me that they were still dirty. He instructed me to clean them, as he didn’t have time to do it himself, and drove off before I could come to my senses enough to argue him on it.

Staring at four tires, each wrapped in its own garbage bag, I debated with myself – to wash them, or not wash them, that was the question.

What did I do?

I washed them.

Wheels and rims are heavy. My garage was cold. My hands froze. My jacket got dirty. I cried, hating myself every minute of the process.

I guess the problem was I did this for me. I did it so he could see that he could still rely on me, and for that reason, it could actually be seen as a selfish action. I also did it because I am cheap. I did not want to be buying new rims in the New Year. Sigh…

To be continued...

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Sometime's Goodbye's The Only Way...

Raise your hand if you ever knew your marriage or relationship was over and yet you stayed anyway?

Question: How happy were you?

Answer: Probably miserable.

Here is the funny thing. I already knew my marriage was over before my ex husband ever walked out. Over the last two years of marriage, I had on several occasions tried adding up the value of our assets and liabilities trying to get a clear picture of our net worth. Then I divided it in half. I tried to calculate our future net worth – like if we stayed together for two more years or three more years. I really wanted our debt paid off first before we took any drastic action.

I was doing this, and yet I still hadn’t really admitted to myself that it was over. I told myself that I was doing this as a precaution. Practical, I like to plan for worst-case scenarios. I didn’t want to be caught off guard if we did break up.

I can pinpoint the exact moment when I admitted to myself that the marriage was over. July 2007, I was on a flight to Germany. Without my husband.  My sister’s fiancé at the time had a house in Germany that they visited often and this time he invited me to tag along and keep my sister company.

Listening to Linkin Park on my I-pod, their song ‘Shadow Of The Day’ came on. With lyrics like ‘sometimes solutions aren’t so simple, sometimes goodbye’s the only way’ and ‘the sun will set for you’ the song really grabbed me. I had heard it countless times before, but on this trip I attached personal meaning to it. What I heard was a song about closure, about a relationship coming to an end, about the sun setting, bringing with it a peaceful end. Is that what the band really meant for fans to get out of it? I don’t know. Songs are subjective really.

So why did I stay?

Because after I admitted to myself that the marriage was over, I quickly attached a second phrase. The marriage, in its current state, was over, unless we did something to save it.  And I truly wanted to save it.

Arriving home from the trip, I picked up my bags and walked through the arrival gates at Pearson International and saw my husband standing tall waiting for me. He smiled. I smiled. He took my bags for me, welcomed me home, and led me to the car.

We didn’t have sex that night even though we had been apart for eleven days. We went back to our everyday way of life; him, drinking and playing video games (in his apparent attempt to suppress his desire for children), and me being miserable about the lack of emotional intimacy.

Five months later, he walked out of my life. In retrospect, it really shouldn’t have surprised me at all. 

TALK BACK : When did you admit to yourself that your marriage/relationship was over?

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New Me, New Job

For me, one of the scariest aspects of being separated was finding a job.

Job-hunting has never come easy for me. I have always struggled with the necessary self-confidence required for interviews, networking, and for putting myself out there.

During my first marriage, I worked for my husband’s company. I helped with the business plan to secure our initial bank loans. For years I managed the day-to-day book keeping requirements, financial planning, and forecasting the cash flow. I managed the accounts receivable and accounts payable during the company’s start up phase.

I stopped working for the company when the accounting requirements exceeded my abilities.

I am an introvert by nature. I need to push myself to be social. During my marriage, my husband helped enable me to become even more of an introvert, to the point where making a phone call to my doctor took a lot of effort for me, and I almost never picked up a ringing phone.

I kind of stumbled on to my post-marriage job. It was January, about a month after my separation, and I had decided that I deserved some new bedding. I went to my favorite home décor store in hopes of finding some new sheets and a new duvet cover.

What I found was an advertisement for new associates. To my mind, this ad was meant for me.  I turned around, went home, polished my resume, changed into more professional attire and returned to the store. It took a lot more courage than I care to admit, but I went up to the customer service desk and inquired about the positions. I filled out an application form and minutes later I was being interviewed by the administration manager. Two days later, I had a job. 

The job gave me a newfound sense of purpose, a sense of being productive. It was my introduction back into society. I have been working at the home décor store for four years now. I have moved up to full-time and moved up into a supervisory position. I am entrusted with decision-making and delegating.

The social aspect of working in retail has been good for me. I am required to be available for customers who like to ask a lot of questions. I train and mentor new associates. I anticipate the flow of inventory through the store and merchandise product accordingly. It reminds me that I do have skills and that I do have something to offer.

I am still an introvert at heart. I always will be. I am a writer. It is an incredibly isolating hobby. But I learned a valuable lesson not to cocoon myself, and shelter myself from the real world. 

My current husband is trying his darnedest to ensure that I maintain a sense of independence, something I didn’t do in my first marriage. Sometimes this is accomplished by dragging me kicking and screaming but I know he has my best interests at heart.

But I still make him deal with taking my car to the shop.

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The Day My Marriage Died

The day my husband said ‘I want kids’ was the day my seven and a half year marriage died.

Cue the monsoon tears, or as Oprah likes to call it, ‘the ugly cry’.

We had an agreement from the get go that we were not going to have children. I never misled him. I never lied. I was very clear on my stance about not having children. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He wasn’t allowed to change the rules.

Then he told me he changed his mind about kids three years ago.

THREE BLOODY YEARS!!!!

As I fell apart, my husband left the house, leaving me to cope with the mess he dropped at my feet. I had no choice but to watch the car pull out of the driveway and drive off. I waited for him to turn around, to return to tell me he had just made a huge mistake; that this incident would somehow make us stronger down the road.

 Five minutes passed. Ten. Twenty. I called his cell phone only to get voicemail.

I had been with this man for ten years, my entire adult life. I built my life around him. I gave up my career path to support his career choices. Everything I did was for him. I wasn’t sure I had an identity outside of him. 

I immediately zeroed in on the big picture, the how-am-I-going-to-survive-I-am-a-desperate-housewife-I-have-no-job-I-have-no-car-we-have-a-boatload-of-debt picture, and I panicked. We are talking full blown meltdown. My world was coming to an end. I was sure I was going to shrivel up and die.  

When I finally admitted to myself that he wasn’t turning around, I called my mom. All I said was ‘he left me’ through my tears, and she was by my side thirty minutes later.

I spent the first night of my separation at my parents’ house. I didn’t sleep. I checked my cell phone every fifteen minutes or so throughout the night. I filled his voicemail with sobs and hang ups. I willed him to show up on my parents’ doorstep.

He never showed.

On the second day, I focused on just making it through breakfast. Then I focused on making it through Christmas shopping with my parents. Next I focused on eating lunch, followed by reading a magazine for an hour.  The big picture was just too scary, too intimidating.  I found that when I broke life down into surviving hours at a time, it became more manageable.  And that was how I survived the first few weeks, putting myself back together a few hours and then a few days at a time.

I spent the second night back at my house, and there I stayed for another eight months while I pieced my new life together. I got alimony. I got a car. I got a job. I didn’t fall apart. I didn’t curl up and die. Not only did I survive, I thrived. 

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Four Years Later

It has been almost exactly four years to the day that I started this blog that my marriage ended. So what is my excuse for waiting so long? Why did I wait four years, writing lessons and stories in retrospect as opposed to in real time, as they happened?

Truthfully, Fear.

Not fear of rejection. Not fear of retaliation, but fear of using social media. Even though I am thirty-four years old, I am only somewhat computer literate and I am technically challenged by today’s standards. Blogs have been around for years, but I myself have only just started getting into social media. Oh sure, I have a Facebook page, but I really only use it as a place to post pictures.  I started a twitter account but I still find myself struggling to come up with interesting tweets.

Truth is, I have been playing with the idea of writing a blog for a while now. Writing is my creative outlet. I literally become depressed and riddled with anxiety when I don’t get to write for a couple of days.   Where novels can take years to come to life, a blog post takes a day or two. It is practically instant gratification in comparison.

The Writer’s Mantra is ‘write what you know’. Well, I know my experiences with marriage and divorce, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and they are experiences that I think a lot of women can relate to.

And you know what? I think if I had blogged the actual demise of the relationship in real time, there would have been a lot of negativity spewed and a lot of blame hurled at my ex-husband. I still shift a boatload of the blame over on him, but at this point in my life I can admit that it takes two to break up a marriage. I can admit my mistakes that contributed to the demise of the marriage. 

Four years ago I would have been the victim that laid the destruction solely at his feet.  You would have seen the nastiest thoughts of an imploding marriage. Oh the things I would have regretted writing after the fact.

After four years, enough time has passed to have perspective. I can talk about the sadness, the anger, and the loneliness from a reflective point of view – not a ‘happening-in-the-moment-oh-my-god-should-we-be-worried-about-her’ state of agitation.

So yeah, waiting four years to create this blog was a good idea


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