The Carnage of Divorce 5

A little background – I was married to my best friend from high school at 22, and ended our disaster of a marriage at 26.  The following are the misadventures and lessons learned from discovering I was married to a stranger, and starting life over before the age of 30.

The man I married when I was 22 was physically, and even more so, verbally and emotionally abusive. There was not a day that went by, especially in the latter years of our marriage, where I wasn’t referred to as fat, stupid, worthless, or ugly. And while I know now that I am none of those things, there were days when I was with him that I believed it simply from listening to it like a broken record.

He was not a fan of me being independent in any way, and put down any idea I ever had to better myself. Even at the time, I understood that this was all just a way for him to control me, to quell his own insecurities. But it still left me raw and absolutely terrified of failure. He refused to move out of the apartment in his mother’s house, and gave every excuse as to why we should stay there, despite it again being based on his own insecurities. I honestly don’t think he ever intended on us living independently, which is simply not normal or healthy for me.

He made it known that my desire for a healthy sex life was, in his opinion, sick; that I should have happily and gladly accepted our beyond sub-par physical relationship. Any sex toy I brought into the house was destroyed, because again, in his words, my wanting anything else to touch me besides him was sick and wrong. And my, at-the-time, bisexual identity (I now identify as pansexual) sickened him.

He caused near-irreparable emotional damage to me. He caused physical trauma that, while still fairly minor, will be an on-again-off-again painful reminder of him every time an injury caused by him flares up.

I have every reason to hate him. But I don’t.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I don’t LIKE him. I don’t wish we were back together, or miss him, or think about the ‘good times’. But I’m not sitting around sticking needles into a voodoo doll, or dwelling on it either. Was I angry at first? Of course – I don’t think I’d qualify as human if I wasn’t.  Did I hate him? Yup. But as with many things, time has washed away most of the feelings – severely negative, or even positive – that I had for him. He simply holds little to no significance in my current life, despite being a part of my past.

The funny thing is, I’m not that forgiving of a person. It’s odd for me to let things go, especially something so substantial. And time can help, but it doesn’t make you forget, or magically fix everything either. What I do have on my side is hindsight. Looking back, I was miserable. Subtract the abuse from the situation, and it still wasn’t, and would never have been, the right place or relationship for me.

The two years since I left him have been the best years of my life. My life before him wasn’t bad. But we started dating shortly before my 21st birthday, which means that I simply hadn’t had time to really grow into my own skin as an adult without him. The sense of self-sufficiency and independence I’ve developed since leaving him has been better than I ever could have imagined.  I have a healthy level of self-esteem, have developed my own interests, and have become someone I actually like. My body is still pretty close to the one I had while I was with him, but I don’t hate the way I look anymore. I am stronger and smarter than I ever could have been, had he not come in to, and exited my life. Knowing now what not to do in a relationship for myself has led me to find someone with whom I fit on more levels than I previously knew existed.

So, since I am well aware that I came away from this situation a better person, how could I hate him? As much as he was the negative factor of the whole experience, I would not be where I am today without it. Would it have been nice not to be abused and divorced? Definitely. But I’m not sure I would’ve ended up the same person, and I’m really happy with my life now and wouldn’t trade it for anything. So, while he’ll never be my favorite person, and I don’t for a moment relish what I went through; I cannot hate him, because that would, in a way, be wishing to undo the person I am. And I wouldn’t trade the ‘now’ me for anything.

A little background – I was married to my best friend from high school at 22 and ended our disaster of a marriage at 26. The following are the misadventures and lessons learned from discovering I was married to a stranger, and starting life over before the age of 30.

Of all the things my divorce could have become, I think what it most strongly stands out as, is a learning experience. I now know how not to end up in a marriage in which I will never be happy, but more importantly, I know how to leave. Now, I do not profess to be any sort of expert, just someone who’s done it, and had the hindsight to see what I did right and what I did terribly wrong.

The biggest thing I did terribly wrong was my handling of the abuse aspect. I was stubborn and too concerned with people seeing me as a victim to do what would have been smart. To those that want to leave a relationship, but are safe in their current surroundings, I have plenty of things that I did right. But to those that are in a situation where they are in danger, just LEAVE! There is no shame in leaving someone that hurts you. Find a friend or relative to stay with until you can get things in order, or even stay at a shelter, and get out. Take only what you need if you don’t have the option of taking more. You can buy new stuff, and when your life is in danger everything you own is just ‘stuff’. And if you’re in real danger, and have the luxury of being able to do so, at least until any temperamental ex may cool off a little, hide. I, in one of the few intelligent things I could have done, took the week off from work after I left my husband. Not only to get my own head together, and get my new home set up, but to make sure that for at least 7 days he would have no clue where to find me. And depending on your local laws, get a restraining order. I was up in the air on this and decided against it, because although the laws where I live would have easily provided me with the order, they would have provided him with my new address so that he was fairly warned of where he needed to stay away from.

I did do a few things right though, at least in my book. There are a select few things I did that I think would prove helpful in any leaving situation, whether it be divorce, or just leaving a long term or live-in relationship. These things are difficult enough on their own, so there’s no harm in trying to make them go as smoothly as possible.

First off, especially when a legal marriage is ending, or even a common law marriage depending on where you live, do a little research and know your laws and rights. Because property is split within a marriage, if you choose to abscond into the night as I did, you can’t take anything that isn’t rightfully yours. I was lucky, in that my SUV was in my name, not his, and his car was in his name only. The same thing goes for finances – you can’t take a joint account with you. And technically speaking, even the money in an account with just your name on it can be considered joint property in a marriage, so be careful. Research your laws, your options, and if you have the resources, contact an attorney or legal aid for a consultation. You don’t want to start your life over just to find out you have to bring back everything you took. In my situation personally, I knew what he would and wouldn’t have fought me over. So I only took the things he most certainly was not interested in – my clothing, my books, and other very personal effects. What you’re willing to risk really makes the decision on what you decide to take.

Secondly, ask for help. As stubborn as I was in keeping my situation a secret and not publicizing the wrongdoings within my marriage, I had a select few friends that were willing to help me any way they could without knowing every detail. If it weren’t for them, I would not have gotten out. I had one friend that spent a three day holiday weekend, 15 hours a day, moving stuff out of storage units with me, moving it to my new place, assembling furniture, and also being my ‘cover story’ as to where I was. During that weekend, my mom, my boyfriend, and a few other friends pitched in as well. My very understanding employer gave me a little time off, which was so valuable that there are no words for it. And if you have nowhere to go, a friend or relative with a spare guest room, or even a couch to crash on, can help immensely. Even though it might be hard for some like myself, knowing who you can count on and asking for help, can be the difference between starting over and being stuck where you are.

The next thing I did can be tricky depending on your relationship situation, local laws, and financial status. I was able to create an, albeit small, financial cushion to fall back on. Going from two incomes, a large family, and a near rent-free home to having almost no family, one income, and a house full of bills is a big switch. I knew going in that there were going to be a lot of expenses up front, but also the possibility of things going wrong from then on out. And as great as my friends and small family are, they’re all pretty much broke, just like a lot of people these days. If my truck had broken down, or I needed emergency dental work when I was married, it was nothing. We had more money than we needed. But on my own? Those are things I simply don’t have the disposable income to budget for. So, I scrimped and saved, and pinched every penny I could before I moved out; to have the assurance of having everything I needed, and not having to panic within the first year or so. This could have, technically, legally backfired on me. But my husband and I always kept separate accounts, and each only used our own income. So what I did never affected him in any way, nor did he care what I did with my money. Depending on the individual circumstances, mileage may vary greatly on this one, but I can say firsthand that having that little cushion simply made it easier to sleep a lot of nights.

The last major thing I learned was to take my time. Leaving an abusive, not to mention all together unsatisfying, relationship left me kind of broken. Now granted, I had done the majority of my grieving and begun to move on while I was with him; simply because I knew I wasn’t staying there, and things were really bad for the majority of our wedded time together. But making the switch from living with a family to living alone, and from being coupled and being single is a major life change, no matter what the circumstances. As much as I didn’t think I’d need it at first, I took time off. I took off a few days from work, and a couple of weeks from majorly socializing with friends to sort of nest and get used to my own home alone. I even gave myself a window of a few months wherein I was not allowed to date. Depending on the relationship, you probably just won’t be ready. I was well aware that if I’d dated anyone immediately after my husband, I would have just ended up punishing them for what he did. It might not be fair, but it happens. I’d also have to say that, while I didn’t go for it because I’d had plenty of it over the years, if you have the means, get a little therapy. It doesn’t hurt to have someone with an objective position hear you out when things get rough. Spoil yourself a little if you can, and just take the time to develop your very own life again. The whole situation and process is truly exhausting, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with making sure to take time for you.

Overall? Divorce sucks. Truly and deeply sucks. It’s painful, and it’s exhausting on every possible level. I truly hope that no one else has to go through what I did, and that you all really do live happily-ever-after. But the likelihood of that isn’t great, so if nothing else, I hope my experiences make someone else’s go a little smoother.

A little background – I was married to my best friend from high school at 22 and ended our disaster of a marriage at 26.  The following are the misadventures and lessons learned of discovering I was married to a stranger and starting life over before the age of 30.

Today, I don’t want to write about the details of my divorce.  Or the details of my marriage, for that matter.  I don’t feel like focusing on what went wrong, but I have to admit that I’m curious as if all of the things went wrong really mattered as much as I give them credit for.  Yes, we were entirely incompatible and yes, he was very abusive.  But even if those things hadn’t been, were the odds already stacked against us?

The divorce rate in the U.S. is at a staggering 50%.  Now, that number is subject to waver slightly depending on the source, and it’s also a mix of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and so forth marriages.  But there’s another theory that’s less studied but definitely has some strong supporters: that divorce breeds divorce.

Here’s a little family history for you.  My parents are divorced.  My father was married once before my mother and is married again now.  The woman that were all my almost stepmothers that I spent a lot of my adolescence around (my dad gets engaged a lot) had all been divorced, anywhere from 1 to 3 times.  My mother never remarried but has been living with a man since I was a teenager that has been divorced twice.  Her brother, who is her only sibling, is divorced as well.  On my father’s side, his mother was married once before she met my grandfather and his sister (my aunt) has been repeatedly divorced as well.  And the month that I left my husband, my best friend left hers as well.

On the ex’s side, his mom was on her third marriage, his step-dad on his second, his father having only ever been divorced from his mom, but is remarried.  His aunt had never married, and his uncle was well on his way to divorce last I heard.  His grandparents on both sides were divorced.

So even if we’d gotten along perfectly, if we’d worked through every quarrel, never gone to sleep angry, and started marriage counseling on the day of the wedding, would we have had a shot at all?  I’m honestly torn.

We knew the statistics.  We knew that our parents’ divorces and our families’ disposal of the sanctity of marriage had damaged us both at some point along the way.  So we resolved against it.  I can remember sitting in our Methodist minister’s basement/conference room (coincidentally, this minister? Also divorced.) telling him that we knew the odds we were up against.  And that we were not going to be a statistic and not give up or quit like our parents had.  That the word divorce was not a part of our vocabulary or our future (I’m laughing and shaking my head as I type this).  We were so determined (at the time) not to go down that road.  We knew it was dangerous and damaging and we wanted no part of it.

As determined as we were, however, we didn’t work.  I can only speculate so much what would’ve happened or what might have been, because in a case of abuse, I don’t believe in staying with the person no matter how determined you are not to be like your parents.  I can say however, that when it comes to topics like this, I normally go against the studies.  I wholeheartedly believe you blaze your own path in life and make your own choices.

Unfortunately, this situation is an odd exception.  Because I can see, by comparing it to the divorce of my now-boyfriend to mine, that there is a difference in how these things go.  When I left my husband, no one was surprised.  Now that could easily have been because it was clear to any outsider that our marriage was in the toilet, but there wasn’t even enough shock for that to be the case.  People just rolled with it – like it was an everyday occurrence.  Which for them, I guess, it kind of was.  And this never would’ve made me think about our odds and what role they played in our divorce until I met my current boyfriend.

There has been one divorce in multiple generations of his very large family.  One, before his.  And it was an aunt and uncle of his and it happened about 30 years ago.  Other than that, he has one of those families where you grow up, get married, and stay with that one person until you die.  But his marriage didn’t work out and they made the decision to split up.  This caused an uproar of absolutely epic proportions in his family.  It was unheard of.  There was no reason it couldn’t be fixed, no reason to do this to their children, there were a dozen family members trying to help them put things back together even after they’d made a final decision.  They didn’t treat it like an everyday occurrence because to them it was a very big deal.

Now maybe if that same amount of noise had been made about my divorce, things would’ve been different.  This is minus the abuse, of course, but if we hadn’t had that to contend with, maybe we would’ve tried harder at the other things?  I suppose it’s really hard to say based on the specific downfalls that led to my divorce.  But if we had less drastic complications, would we have been screwed anyway?  I have to at least give credit to the idea that the idea of divorce, like many things, is just easier to swallow when it’s what you know.  When it’s all you know.  That maybe for both of us it was just a more acceptable decision than it would have been for others.

I haven’t gotten very far here.  I’m not sure there’s a right or wrong answer to this discussion for anyone, let alone me and my ex-husband.  And it’s hard to just say ‘if there hadn’t been abuse’ because it’s hard to think back and see the situation without that as a major factor.  I don’t remember the man that didn’t hit me so how can I remember a marriage where it didn’t happen?  But do I think the idea of divorce may have come easier to me because I was over-exposed to the phenomenon? Yes.  Him? I’m not sure.  And if I had been born into a family similar to my boyfriend’s, would it have been more difficult?  I think it would have- If for nothing other than not wanting to be the odd woman out and cause such a ruckus if it could be avoided.

So, while I may have been an exception based on extenuating circumstances, part of me has to believe that being so exposed to divorce could have contributed to mine.  There are no do-overs so we’ll never know for sure, but I do believe that having something be so common in your life can make it your own personal form of normal.  And in this case, walking away from a marriage that may or may not have had the potential to be saved is normal to me.  I can’t complain because divorce is what led me to find the man that I do believe I’m supposed to be with, but I think it would be nice to still fully believe that in all situations, I’m the one calling the shots – not what I am surrounded by.

I have a little bone to pick with the people at Disney.  They’re ruining my men – and for that matter, my women as well.
This weekend, I was flipping channels and caught my absolute favorite Disney movie on tv: “Beauty and the Beast.”  For those of you unfamiliar with the story, it’s one of a beast that lives in a castle with a menagerie of walking, talking, housewares.  The fair French Belle, through a series of events unimportant to my point, becomes his captive in his beautiful mansion.  She’s dainty and delicate, beautiful and fair, while he is, well, a beast.  Fur, fangs, giant toenails, and all.  Through the movie, in true-to-Disney form, they begin to fall for one another.  And in the end, the curse that had made the beast so beastly is lifted as he falls in love with Belle, and he becomes a beautiful, gallant, human prince.
The Beast was strong, masculine, burly, passionate, had a wee bit of a temper, was stubborn, messed up all of his nice clothes, and would’ve been thrown out of any 5-star restaurant, had there been any in the woods surrounding his castle.    While for the short time we see him as the prince, he’s smaller, more delicate looking, he’s dressed quite nicely, and by today’s terms would most likely be considered metrosexual.  When the curse is lifted, all of his formerly personified furniture and dishes return to their original state as his servant staff.  Which tells me that if you brought this man into present day, he probably wouldn’t be able to work a remote control or boil water for himself, never mind fixing a furnace or a dishwasher or manning a barbecue grill.
Most of the princes are just the same as the prince that the Beast becomes; spoiled, haughty, overdressed, underworked, selfish, too caught up in thier image, and whiny.  Just the fact that they all follow the model of “Charming” bothers me to some extent.  Charming sometimes?  Sure.  All the time?  I’d probably want to smack the endearing smirk and glittering blue eyes right off of his perfectly bone structured face.  Imagine – you wake up, last night’s mascara smeared down your face, hair tangled all over, and look over to see Prince Charming, perfectly coifed, laid out in his pristine leather riding boots and velour cape.  Turn on? Not really.  I’d probably feel more like one of the Disney villainess’ most of the time.
The princesses tend to follow the same pattern.  They begin as hard-working, kind, generous, women that become royalty.  Do you think, in all reality, that Cinderella ever scrubbed another floor as long as she lived or that Snow White ever went back to hang out with the Dwarves?  I also don’t like the portrayal that all women are dainty and weak, and prefer to be waited on – and if they’re not like that, they should aspire to it.  And don’t even get me started on the idea that they all need a prince to come look after them and provide for them.  They really do seem big on the concept that you have to be rich and royal to be happy.  On an adult and humorous note, I think it’s ridiculous and a completely opposite of reality.  On a more serious note, however, I really dislike the ideas of adult womanhood that these princesses place in the heads of young girls – that they need a man and only work if they are enslaved and have no option?  Personally I just don’t think that’s at all healthy.
My preferential Disney princess would have to be Pocahontas.  She understood the value of working hard, and was vehemently opposed to marrying the man her father wishes her to because she doesn’t love him, nor did she believe she needed a husband for any reason at all.  When the man she does love returns to his homeland, her life continues without him.  I like the overall message of this because it defies the idea that things need to work out like a fairytale in order to ever find true happiness.  I’d rather children, and people in general, be taught that a few bumps in the road, even some large bumps, are survivable and life will go on.
And so we return back to the Beast.  Sure, he was rough around the edges.  Sure, he had quirks that Belle had to compromise a bit for – just like any real life relationship.  Don’t get me wrong, I understand they’re fairy tales for a reason, but the way that they’re written just does nothing for me.  I have no interest, and I doubt I’m the only one, in the prettyboy, waited-on, wealthy Prince Charming that does everything right and that everyone looks up to.  I’ll take the rough and tumble kind, the man that’s a little less refined but that truly does mean well and try hard, the man that is not perfect.  Disney can keep Prince Charming, I’ll take the Beast.

A little background – I was married to my best friend from high school at 22 and ended our disaster of a marriage at 26.  The following are the misadventures and lessons learned of discovering I was married to a stranger and starting life over before the age of 30.

I never had much of a family.  When I was young, it was just my parents and myself in our house.  My father had two other children that he’d written off as an error of his first marriage, and discontinued contact with his parents or brother and sister around the time I started kindergarten.  My mom’s father died when I was very young, and her mother, while at least a relative, was never the cookie-baking, cheek-pinching grandmother one might have pictured.   I did have one aunt and uncle with two children on my mother’s side and we saw them every third or fourth holiday.  My parents divorcing when I was 12 brought my family down to just myself and one parent.

I’m not complaining.  This isn’t an oh-poor-me kind of thing.  I didn’t mind growing up that way, especially since it was all I knew.  I’m kind of a loner by nature and I like my space and my quiet.  And when I visited friends and boyfriends houses on holidays, all the people stressing out in the kitchen, the children screaming and running around, and the general craziness was just a little much for me.  I always assumed I was best suited for a future in line with my past – sparse and simple.

Enter the husband.  From the time I met him, I was just as involved with his family as I was with him.  You could tell his mom had always wanted more children and that from day one, she considered me as one of her own.  Living in part of their house only intensified this as his mother and stepdad were a part of our everyday lives.  I was welcomed into his family with open arms and embraced by all of the aunts, uncles, and cousins that were thrilled for him to have found a wife (why that didn’t scare me, I cannot explain).   Sure, there were still people in the kitchen fighting over whether or not the turkey was done, children hopped up on easter candy running all over the house, and the token creepy uncle looming around, but for the first time ever, this crazy bunch of people were MY crazy bunch of people.  It felt great.

But when the marriage started to go bad – or rather, when I stepped out of denial and realized I’d made a terrible mistake by marrying him in the first place – it was the family that kept me in it.  I’d been a part of them since I was 21 and since the little family I had was living out of state by then, they were all I had.  Starting over isn’t so scary when you have your friends and family to stand behind you – but when the friends and family are the same people you’re walking away from, it can seem truly impossible.   So I decided to stick it out.  I’d stay with him, for the benefit of them.  I figured it was a positive outweighing the negative kind of situation and rationalized it that way…for about a week.

At first there was guilt.  I had become my mother in law’s only daughter.  She doted on me as if we shared blood, bragged about me to her friends and coworkers like I was her own.  We spent time together, did all of our holiday shopping together, did the holiday cooking together, I taught her how to use her computer and she showed me a different kind of parenting and family than my own parents were capable of.  And she wasn’t the only one – his stepfather, a wonderful, woodsy, rugged kind of man who had two daughters of his own that had never appreciated him and if there wasn’t money involved, wanted nothing to do with him, finally had a daughter that adored him.  It was a perfect familial match.  His daughters were nowhere to be seen, nor was my father.  He taught me how to skin and butcher a deer, he took care of my car, and he teased and taunted the life out of me every chance he got.  Just like I was his own.  So if I left, I knew I would hurt my husband – on many levels, he deserved it and even if he hadn’t, love isn’t fair.  Sometimes people get hurt, it’s part of the deal.  But they didn’t deserve to be hurt, to lose someone.  They hadn’t done anything wrong.  Was I being selfish leaving them so that I could live alone and find someone better than their son to be with?

Then came fear, which is only natural.  What happens if my car breaks down?  What happens if I have a bill I can’t pay?  My only real relative is a few hundred miles away and has less money than me.  And then the longer fears – what if I never find someone new?   But my list of fears included what if they hate me?  What if they believe that I was the bad wife, he was the good husband, and I’d never deserved to be there in the first place?  What if I was giving up the only family I would ever belong in?  Did I want to go back to being alone on Christmas?

There were a lot of factors that added to my divorce – from abuse to communication issues, from severe dishonesty, to simply not loving the man I’d married.  And as you’ll see in this series, one very human thing won over all of this guilt, all of my fears, and even all of the reasons I should have left him over – the fact that I wanted so deeply just a chance at being truly happy.  And in all honesty, if it weren’t for them, our marriage would have been only half as long as it was.  They unknowingly kept me there with how good they were to me and for me.

As has already been made clear, I did leave .  I don’t miss my husband.  I don’t miss being married.  I don’t even miss having a warm body next to me at night or the sense of security that came along with being his Misses.  But I do miss them.  Especially in the fall and in the winter.  The Stepdad would be hunting and building fires, my mother in law and I would be at the mall and hour before it opened on black Friday morning, lined up outside.  This is the absolute last situation I ever thought I’d find myself in – I miss my family.

I knew that leaving meant the risk of losing them entirely and things had gotten so bad with the husband that it I was ok with it.  When I left my husband –in the oh-so-classy way of leaving while he was at work at night, based on his history of anger and abuse – I left him a long note that he probably never read.  It said things like ‘this is your bank account.  This is  your dry cleaner’.  I left the parents a note too.  I thanked them for giving me a home and a family.  I apologized for disappointing them if I had, and told them I hoped they’d understand.  I returned the key to their house, left the note on the table, and locked myself out the back door for the last time.  I spent hours packing up my things from the downstairs apartment, sealed and left the note for my husband – as cold as a statue.  I left that note for my mother in law to find in the morning and was crying like a baby.  And I don’t cry.

The first phone call I got when I left wasn’t from my husband – who had gotten home and gotten his note early in the morning and said and done nothing.  It was from his mom.  She was crying and telling me she was so sorry for what I’d had to go through and what I’d had to do.  She understood.  She said she didn’t blame me, still loved me, and that she still wanted to be a part of my life.  She made sure I was ok, that I was safe, that I didn’t need anything, and told me to call her when I was ready.

I honestly avoided her for a few months.  And then a few more after that.  I needed time to heal and rebuild my life, and then I needed time to just be me, with my past behind me.  She got the hint and backed off.  A few months ago I saw her and the stepfather at the grocery store.  She was hesitant in coming over to me but was fine once she realized that I was too.  She had seen through Facebook of all things, that I was with someone that made me very happy and was genuinely glad to see me so in love, so healthy, and just kept saying how happy I looked.  She filled me in on her extended family, on her job, on what she’d been up to lately.  We made sure things are ok with us moving forward.

I know I got lucky and that it wouldn’t have worked that way for everyone.  I know some women would’ve sided with their sons no matter what they did and written off the girl that slunk away in the middle of the night.  I know some families simply wouldn’t have wanted me anymore.  But they still do – granted, I don’t go over on holidays to avoid everyone being uncomfortable, but I see them, I talk to them, I celebrate the holidays with them on a very small scale.  So while I was willing to part with them if it had to be done, it turned out, it didn’t.  It was through this last act of standing by me, of all the things they taught me and did for me while I was with them, that shows me what a family really is.