Life, Love, Pain and Her

Random, self-indulgent thoughts on life, me, her, and being able to be happy with things as they are now.

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I’ve found during my short time in life that there seems to be a flawed connection between my brain and my mouth. I have all these thoughts that run through my head and, while I am thinking them, they seem so important to me. When I try to express them though, nothing ever comes out right. Luckily for me this disconnect doesn’t seem to creep up when I write. All the thoughts that roll around, crashing like a bull in a china shop through my head, won’t leave me alone. They leave me lying in bed at night, repeatedly going over scenarios my mind until I can find a way to let them out. So to that effort I think I'm going to see if I can’t set these thoughts free. This writing isn’t for you, reader, it’s for me. But you’re more than welcome to read them over and see what you think.

So the world, as it is prone to do whether you happen to want it to at the time or not, continues to turn and things have once again changed in my life. As of this moment it has been nearly ten months since my wife told me that she didn’t want to do this anymore and that she would not be there when I got back from my deployment. In that time I’ve gone through the entire gambit of human emotions, from anger, to pain; hatred, sadness, denial, and finally now, to acceptance. I can’t help but wonder what the “normal” time is for someone to get over something like this. Is there one? I don’t know, but if there was a good thing about this who situation, it would have to be that I had plenty of time alone to go through the process, being deployed the entire time.

For a long time I played the roll of the victim, this was just something that my wife was doing to me, out of sheer meanness. Oh, I played it off when I talked to her and my friends, putting on a mask of indifference and acceptance; but inside I was a little kid who had his favorite toy taken away. Pathetic, I know, but I have found I have to be brutally honest, at least with myself, if I’m ever going to get on with my life.

Looking back now, I can’t honestly say that I don’t blame her any more. While I still believe we were in love at the time, we got married for the wrong reasons, on both sides. I don’t really want to speak for her, but when we met I think that she was looking for some security in her life. I was making a decent and steady paycheck which, while it didn’t make me rich, let us have a fairly good standard of living. I didn’t really need her to work, so she was free to do whatever she wanted to. For myself, I have to admit that I am a closet hopeless romantic. Growing up, I had my parents to model a relationship after. While it wasn’t perfect all the time, they made it work and we had a happy home. Later in life I watched my best friend get married to a beautiful woman with two wonderful kids. God I envied him as I watched their little family grow, it was the happy little fairy tale that I realized I longed for in my own life.

So when I found the spark of love, I latched on to it. A month after we met, she moved in with me and four months later we were married, with little or no ceremony, and set about building a life for ourselves. For a while, things went well. This was the “honeymoon” period of our relationship. We both enjoyed finding out all of the little things about each other that only that special someone knows.

Slowly though, I discovered that there were two sides to her. There was the friend side, which I fell in love with. That side was funny, creative, intelligent, loving and nurturing. Then there was the other side of her that I had somehow been able to see around while we were dating. This part of her could be moody, manipulative, vindictive, and down right mean sometimes. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not as if she just changed over night, or lied about who she was. But you can ignore and accept parts of someone as a friend that you can’t when you are living together.

I think it finally came to a head when I got my first set of orders to move. She had always lived in the same town and had never been too far away from her family and friends. Suddenly she found herself on the other side of the country, with no one but me that she knew and could talk too. I suppose that is when the reality of everything finally hit her. We went through some extremely rough times then. She wasn’t so sure anymore that this is what she wanted, and began to try to explain it to me. I was totally clueless, having already spent five years in the military getting used to the constant moves and temporary lifestyle; I wasn’t as supportive as I probably should have been. That is the first time she started talking about leaving.

Now, I’m not a religious person, but I grew up learning from my parents that marriage was a sacred thing, and I believed in the whole “till death do us part” thing. Beyond that, this was my own personal fairy tale, and things like this just didn’t happen in the stories you read. I was vicious, I talked and talked and talked, coming up with anything I could to make her stay. In the end, I will admit, I basically manipulated her into staying. But, like trying to stick your finger in a crumbling dam, it was not that easy.

Something that you should know about me is that, at some point it my life, I somehow made the unconscious decision to be “The Nice Guy”. This is simply a nice way of saying that I was a sucker. I don’t know when this happened, but not knowing who I was, or what I wanted to do with my life, I just found it easier somehow to adjust myself to those around me and be everything that they needed. With my wife, this got even worse. Every time things would get bad, I would change myself to be what I thought she needed at the time. Eventually, I was nothing more than a glorified door-mat which only ended up, I think, making her that much more frustrated with me.

Over the next few years there were good times and there were bad times. Like I said before, we made great friends, but there was always something in the background. Over and over, things would creep up and get bad, and she would start talking again about how she didn’t know if this was what she wanted. Each time I would talk her through it, talk until my throat was soar and my heart ached, and slowly I would pull her back away from the edge once again; then came the last time.

It was so much easier to hold it together when we were together, and so far all of the deployments that I had gone on were blessedly short because I had worked myself into a nice job as a trainer for a few years. But, the natural order of the Army can only be suppressed for so long, before it catches up to you. Also, my wife had seen the friends and relationships I had in the military and decided that she wanted that as well. So, a few months before I was set to deploy, I packed her up and sent her to Basic Training. It was a hard time, being alone and I developed a great respect for Army spouses that have to sit at home waiting for a phone call or a letter, just to know if their loved one is alright. It’s one thing to be the one that is gone; at least you have the mission to deal with, but twiddling your thumbs waiting is agony.

She graduated and moved on to training, and we were able to spend time together, probably a little more than normal, due to my rank; but something was off when we were together. Not that I wanted to keep her all to myself, but it was hard. She had set up a whole life that had nothing to do with me and I couldn’t help picking up the feeling that there was something wrong. When we parted the last time, it was awkward. I was leaving the next week for a fifteen month rotation in Iraq and I even though I tried to keep my thoughts light, I couldn’t help but think that this was the last time I would see her.

Just before Christmas, the inevitable happened, I was making my normal phone call back to her and she told me she didn’t know if she could do this anymore. She was enjoying her new life and friends, and was sure that if we stayed together, she would loose it all when I got back. At first I tried to bring myself to go into my normal fire-drill mode of calming talk, but this time I just couldn’t get my heart into it. For the last three years I had been doing this, over and over again, and I was tired. Also, doubts were worming their way into my mind. Is it really right to hold someone where they don’t want to be, just for the sake of my fairy tale?

So, I did the unforgivable; I crossed the invisible line, from which I knew there was no coming back. I told her that she would have to make a decision, to be with me or to leave. I couldn’t stand the yo-yo ride any longer. She did, and just like that, my marriage was over, and with it my life, or so I thought at the time.

I’d like to pretend that I was strong, but that would be a lie. The truth is that I cried like a baby, and called her several times over the next few weeks and months to try and talk her out of it. Thank God at least one of us could stay firm. Admittedly, on a few occasions, we fell victim to the temptation that is in all divorces, to become vindictive; but luckily, our hearts weren’t in it and that passed.

Like I said in the beginning, the world keeps turning, and life goes on. The last ten months have been a rollercoaster ride of emotions and thoughts. I’m strong enough now to admit that in a few of the darker times, when I thought that the world was over and my life would never again be worth salvaging, I fanaticized about taking the easy way out, as much as that memory shames me. But with the help and support of great friends and family, who never knew how much they helped me, I set about building a new future and with it, a new me.

I have rediscovered my old love of writing, something I gave up a long time ago when my inexperience in life showed through and a few less than supportive people convinced me that I would never go anywhere with it and I should try other things. I’ve also finally decided what I want to be when I grow up, if I ever do. My years in the military have taught me that I have a need to do something worthwhile with my life. I need to help people, so I’m going to go after a career I have thought about on and off for a while now. I plan to finish up my college and become a teacher. I love kids, and this is something I could see myself loving for the rest of my life, and it will give me the opportunity to continue writing. I’m finally changing my perspective, a long and ongoing process, and living my life the way I want to, not the way someone else wants me too.

Some people may think that it is strange, but I remain friends with my ex-wife. We both figured out that we worked a hell of a lot better like that, and we’re willing to try. I can’t say that I don’t still feel tempted, I find that it’s a lot like when you quit smoking. No matter how long you go, you will always have the occasional craving.

No, I haven’t given up on my little personal fairy tale, but for the first time in I don’t know how long, I am truly happy with my direction in life. I figure what will happen, will happen when it happens, and there is nothing you can do to force it. If you try, it doesn’t work out anyway. I’m sure that my life won’t be all sunshine and roses from here on out, but I don’t think that’s what it’s all about. It’s about the balance. Overall, I have a good life, great friends, and a wonderful family. I wouldn’t trade any second of it, even the bad times; they’re just there to give me perspective on the good times.