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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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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