Comparisons Between Year 1 and Year 19

I posted earlier that I recently came upon my online journal that included our dating years and those first years of our marriage.  On it's own it was a bit eye opening and gave me some really good perspective about things I saw all the way from the beginning but choose to accept because that is what I thought you did when you loved someone.

This week I have come across some of my writing from May through July of this year.  This was what felt like a time of limbo where he had started verbalizing that he was reconsidering the relationship but he hadn't made a final decision.

I have two really big take-aways from reading those posts.  

First, I handled that time period better than I thought.  I tried to open up a dialogue and really listen to him.  I took in what he was saying and tried to understand it from his point of view.  I asked good questions that I think both reflected my support of him and our marriage and also tried to get him to self-reflect a bit.  Before reading these journal entries I only remembered the emotion and there probably was too much of that but in between the motion was a lot of rational thought and a lot of empathy.

Second, he is still in the same emotional space he was when I married him.  My descriptions of how he responded to conflict, questions, etc. are eerily similar in both 2005/2006 as they are in 2024.  Any topic he didn't want to talk about he found a way to avoid - disappearing into video games or a book, deflecting the question back on me, finding something related to blame on me, changing the subject, etc.  

It was this dance we did throughout our marriage that I spent the last 19 years trying to manage by improving my communication skills, learning new coping skills, and finding new ways to respond to him.  Except the results were always the same.  Because he never grew or worked on his half of the dance.  It didn't matter if I softened my voice or re-worded my responses or spend more time listening and repeating back to him my understanding or asking probing questions to keep the dialogue moving or verbalizing assumptions and asking for clarification to try to clear up misunderstandings.  He wasn't hearing it.

Losing Myself to Find Myself

I drove to Jekyll Island this Christmas.  Going home to see family wasn't possible.  I didn't really want to impose on friends and even if I did, I would still be going home to an empty house after the celebration.  And I am finding so much healing in nature so thought another trip would do me good.

It's a balancing act between sitting in the stillness to process the grief from the divorce and rediscovering who I want to be as a single person by taking advantage of the freedom the divorce has given me.  Sometimes those things happen in separate moments.  And sometimes like yesterday, they happen simultaneously like yesterday morning.

After enjoying the sunrise on the beach near my hotel and grabbing breakfast, I set out on my kick scooter with a pond in mind.  I had seen a report that Roseate Spoonbills had been spotted there recently.  The details of the morning beyond that initial push to get out were fuzzy as I think I needed to just go out and get lost in order to find me.

It turned out that the pond was down an unmarked muddy road, just past an abandoned and overgrown amphitheater and that the paths to get to it were unmarked, included multiple twists and turns, and were a bit overgrown.  Fear almost overcame me at various points as I didn't know exactly where I was or where I was going or what I would find when I got there.  And there was not a soul in sight the entire adventure into the woods creating a bit of an eerie feeling as I jumped at the sounds of nature around me.

But then I suddenly found myself in the middle of that amphitheater filled with graffiti and I could see the pond just beyond it.  As I approached the pond, my focus turned towards incredibly noisy Pileated Woodpeckers that I proceeded to follow through the trees.  Eventually, a pair of noisy Anhingas and then some night herons that were fighting distracted me away from the woodpeckers.  I followed another path around the pond to get a better view of them.  

I think I spent at least an hour and a half in this forest with the pond and the amphitheater.  I would like to say the more time I spent in that forest, the more comfortable I felt but I'm not sure that is completely true.  As lost I got in the sounds and sights of the birds and my attempts to capture them with my camera, there was still this fear of the unknown and uncertain lurking beneath the surface.  So before I left the area, I remember saying to myself, "I'm done facing this fear for now" and then I made my way back through the amphitheater and retraced my steps back to the main road.

I didn't let my exploring end there though.  I continued along a number of bike paths on the island, stopping frequently to take in the sights, breathe in the air, and pause in the stillness.  I stayed to marked, less isolated paths though.

This whole experience left me a bit unsettled, a bit stronger, and with a better understanding of me.   I think the whole process of recreating yourself after such a life changing event is an unsettling process.  You have to deconstruct yourself to find the pieces that are authentic to you so you can build from those.  This means lots of moments of fearing the unknown you have to just sit through before you return to the comfortable.  

Should I have made a different decision?

So with hours in the car today, I replayed in my head what I had read from my online journal.  I'm especially stuck on the fact that I knew he couldn't give our relationship the same energy I could.  It's really easy to jump to should statements about how shouldn't have married me if he wasn't all in and about how I shouldn't have married him if I knew he couldn't reciprocate with the same energy.  But it's not productive.

Let's say, we could go back and undo this marriage.  Where would that leave me?  Who would I even be?

The people who walk through our lives leave marks on us, some big marks, some smaller marks.  They influence.  They expose to ideas and experiences.  They lead us down paths we never would have considered taking.  They show us parts of ourselves that we didn't know existed.

So to contemplate what either one of us should have done 20 years ago completely ignores the effect we each had on each other's lives because of the decisions we did make.

I knew of the imbalance before I married him.

Based on re-reading online posts from that time period, I now realize that I knew of the imbalance in our relationship before I married him.  Why did I think it would last?  How did it last 19 years (plus almost 3 years dating)?

Let me quote some of what I wrote on January 23, 2004, a year and a half before we were married but after we had gotten engaged.

"I've come to realize something today that will is very hard for me to deal with.

When I truly care about someone I give them my all. People are by far my top priorities. And so with the one I love most, the one who is number one in my life, I need to feel like nothing else could ever be more important in life. I really do need it all. Something that I'm not sure Paul will ever be able to give me at least not completely."

The post goes on to talk about how his car is more important than I am to him, although I now think that is an overly simplistic way to look at it.  

A friend responded to my online journal entry encourages me to talk to him and part of my response is:

"This is one of those things that I will never change about him and so telling him how I feel beyond the initial sense of disappointment does nothing but make him feel bad about who he is and feel unworthy which is far from the truth."

And even going back that far, I knew I had to tip-toe around issues like this to not hurt his already fragile sense of self-worth.

This relationship was doomed from the start.  He wasn't invested in it.  He didn't love himself and feel enough self-worth to be capable of investing in it.  So how did it last more than 19 years without him ever doing the work to heal himself?  

In really thinking about this, I think a really important take away is that no one can give you your worth.  You have to find it within yourself.  It didn't matter how worthy I felt he was and how much I tried to show him that, he won't believe it until he finds it from within himself.

The beginning of our marriage....

The first three years of our marriage are a blur to me.  I was a teacher spending 60 hours a week at school plus countless hours at home.  I was so stressed as my class sizes were too big, the subjects I taught covered too many levels, and there is a steep learning curve in teaching.  I also had a principal who didn't like me from the very start and so as I got closer to tenure, the stress escalated.  

About 1.5-2 years in I also faced medical problems that affected our sex life and caused me a lot of pain.

I remember my ex-husband being so stressed himself as he worked way too many hours in jobs that he didn't like and had no self-confidence that he could do.

So when my ex-husband referred to things going back to those first years, I honestly just had to take his word for it as I didn't remember well.  His biggest accusation was how often I gave him the silent treatment.

Well today I was reminded of an online journal site that I used to be very active on so I went to see if my account still exists (it does!) and recovered my password so I could get into it.  And then I disappeared into a rabbit hole of reading posts.  The last posts I made on that website were in 2010 and it looks like I started in 2001.  I started with the most recent and went backwards to the months leading up to our wedding.

There are two different dynamics with my ex-husband that I described in posts.  The first was actually of my ex giving me the silent treatment when he didn't want to talk about the conflict we had about his parents over-involvement.  I knew this was a recurring argument for us but I didn't realize it went back so far in our marriage.  And I had forgotten the way he would give me the silent treatment instead of trying to talk through the issue.  We never even came close to resolving that issue because he wouldn't listen to how it affected me or work towards something that could work for both of us.

The second dynamic that I described in that online journal is how on days when I asked him to give me a little space to myself to decompress, he would follow me around our home demanding to talk.  In one post, I even went so far as to go into the computer room and close the door, something I write that I don't typically do and he still opened the door to come in and talk to me.

I didn't write so much about my own behavior so I can't say for sure how I reacted or how I contributed to the problems.  I doubt I handled it all well.  I was new to marriage and new to this kind of dynamic - this is nothing I witnessed growing up.  And I was under a lot of stress.  But it makes me question the amount of guilt I have felt and concern that I treated him so poorly in those early years.

My posts during these three years also had a lot of references to depression and being worried I was falling back into a depression.  The stress of teaching, medical issues, and marital conflict really took its toll on me.

It's interesting what he takes from that time period and how much he held onto how he perceives that time period and how I just put it out of my mind.  I think he hung on to his negative perceptions from those three years and let them color how he saw me for the rest of the marriage.  And I forgot those years and so they couldn't color how I saw him the rest of our marriage.  

My Journey

This blog started in mid to late July.  I kind of wish I had started it when things first started but at that point I had way too much hope to consider starting a "divorce" blog.  This morning before I got out of bed, my mind went through those earlier months this year trying to make sense of how I coped without a support network.

My ex-husband traveled a lot for work in the spring.  He spent at least 7 weeks (in 1-3 week trips) in a city out east teaching plus he took a trip with his family in February and another work-adjacent trip in New Orleans in May.  So it felt like we barely saw each other all spring.  I always used to enjoy a few days of me time when he traveled for work but would come to miss him when the days added up and last spring was no exception.  I remember feeling very happy when the threat of a government shutdown sent him home early for one of his trips.

But something felt different as he came home for those last trips.  It was in late May that he told me he was questioning our marriage.  I didn't tell anyone at first because I didn't want it to color our relationships with friends and family if we ultimately worked it out and I still had hope.

The summer was such a blur that I don't remember how many weeks I went before I finally told a couple close people.  And unfortunately, those first few people I told had limitations on how much they could help.  My parents live 12 hours away.  And the close friend I told had too much going on in her own life (and maybe a few insecurities of her own).  To be honest, when this all started, that is all I had - one close local friend who is half of what was a couples friend and family 12 hours away and of course, the now ex-husband who was the cause of my turmoil.

It wasn't until August that I really started expanding my social networking and finding more supports.

I don't know how I made it through those first weeks and months essentially alone.  I still don't have the close social network of people I'm truly comfortable with.  They are all still pretty new friends and I worry too much about burdening any one person.  So I still often feel quite alone.

Grief vs Fear

One thing that has surprised me is how complex negative emotions can be and how hard it can be to unwrap them so that I can find acceptance and healing.

When I feel grief, is that over the loss of my ex-husband as a person or is the loss over the life I made plans for or is it over a loss of who I thought I was and what I thought I believed?  Do I miss the man?  Or do I miss the life we created together?

And is it really grief or is it fear of an uncertain future?

I live in a time where women still make less than men and more often get passed over for promotions.  And that reality compounds the challenge of supporting oneself on a single salary with such a high cost of living, even in a fairly low cost state.

I live in a time when women can't trust men they don't know (and even many they do know).  The Gisèle Pelicot case in France is a prime example of that.  Over 80 men in a 30 mile radius (fairly rural area I understand) thought it was okay to rape an unconscious woman and it was all planned by the man she thought she could trust, her husband.  That is a lot of men who see women as property to be used for their pleasure!  Even before this case came to light, I felt a lot of fear at even the thought of entering the dating world.  

There's enough fear in loving and being hurt again even without the physical safety concern.  So then I contemplate what a life alone would look like which brings a whole different set of unknowns and fears with it.

So is it grief I feel?  Or fear?  Am I mourning what I used to have or fearing what the future will bring?  And how do I bring my focus back to living in the present?

He just didn't care and hasn't for years. He just pretended to.

As I was out in my city this evening alone, I was reminded of a conversation I had with him months ago, probably in September.  For years, I have asked him to track me on the evenings I'm out alone and when he traveled to check in that I got home.  I had many conversations with him about the security concerns women have and how much I appreciated having him look out for me.

So back in September when my choir practices started up again after we had separated (but were still sharing an apartment) and I found myself out alone at night without anyone checking in on me that first night, I approached him and asked if he worried at all about me being out alone or if the thought at all about checking up on me.  He looked at me with such a dumbfounded look and made some comment about how he didn't want to stalk me (I hadn't turned off sharing tracking with him yet). 

Clearly it had not even crossed his mind to be concerned about me.  And his response was so dismissive, he clearly didn't care at all, not even as a fellow human being.  

Tonight in thinking through that interchange a bit more, I realized that lack of care is not something people can turn on and off.  That means he had not even cared about my safety for a long time.  He had not even cared for me as a human being, let alone the woman he committed to.  

And that lack of care or any concern for me guided the incredibly selfish and indifferent way he left the marriage.  

How could I have so misjudged him?  The man I thought I married never would have been this unkind, cruel, and uncaring to a stranger let alone someone he had claimed to love.

I don't know what triggered me so much tonight.  I had been doing so well.  And tonight I'm a complete mess with tears running down my face as I scootered through my city and now am sobbing in my apartment.

Mother Nature's Healing Hand

Last week I walked along the shore with a Willet (a medium sized shorebird) as we both darted in and out of the waves and heard the crunch of the seashells below our feet.  I also sat in the sand, a flock of birds a short distance a way and watched diverse species interact and co-exist.  I stood at the railing of a bridge and watched a huge flock of Snowy Egrets, Tricolored Herons, and other species and descend on a shaded area of a creek, perched in trees and along the shore as they darted in and out of the water capturing fish.  I paused to take in the significance of shorebirds resting in the sand.

I felt the sun on my face.  I walked through a rain storm.  I listened to the rhythmic sound of the waves.  I felt the breeze toss around my hair, at times obscuring my view.  I paused long enough that the birds forgot my presence.

Being fully present in the marvels of nature, the sand, sea, sun, plant life, wildlife, etc., brings a sense of calm to an often chaotic world.  It reminds me of my place in this world - one small, yet important, interconnected being in a world larger than I can fully understand.  And it reminds me that when the challenges of yesterday have passed, these moments of beauty will still exist.

Peace is giving me clarity

I read Carolyn Hax's advice column in the Washington Post.  Today's letter was about a husband who is an aggressive driver.  Some letters hit home closer than others and today's was an example of that.

I am in the middle of my second long-road trip by myself since the divorce.  One thing I have noticed is how much more peaceful the drive is without him.  I knew his driving and response to other drivers affected me, it was a perpetual argument of ours, but I didn't fully realize exactly how much.

My ex-husband had a lot of pride in the excellent driving skills he felt he had.  And sure, he can maneuver the car well and has great spatial awareness.  But he didn't anticipate other drivers' actions well and he let his emotions take over when he reacted to how others drove.  His aggression and anger would come out the second another driver around him did anything he didn't agree with.  There were many times I felt unsafe and I told him that on multiple occasions, including times where we were away from the car and I thought emotions were lower.

He would accuse me of not being on his side if I didn't verbally agree with his anger at another driver.  In the end, this was on example he gave of a way I didn't validate his feelings.  What I realize now that got lost in that moment was the important feelings that really needed validation - my feelings of being unsafe.

Over time, I learned to cope by burying myself in my phone while he drove so that I just couldn't see it all and would have an excuse not to participate but then he just accused me of being on my phone too much in the car.  He wanted me present with him but he wasn't willing to create a safe environment for me to do that.  In the end, he blamed me for my reaction to his aggressive and unsafe driving.

So with each passing day, as I find more and more peace, I find it impossible not to compare experiences to now vs when he was by my side.  It's giving me a lot of clarity in why this marriage was actually very bad for me and how he didn't have my best interests at heart going back a lot of years.

It's funny the things that are the most intimidating.

I got married right out of college.  I never lived on my own until now.  So I learned to navigate adulthood with a partner.  When that is the way you learn to navigate adulthood, you naturally lean on each other's strengths.  So there are some things you primarily handle and some things they primarily handle.

In my case, my ex-husband handled everything car related.  And that became even more unbalanced in the last decade when I was not regularly commuting by car.  Although I rode with him often enough when we traveled or went out to the suburbs, I very rarely drove on my own since about 2012.

So being suddenly handed over all the responsibility for my car this year has been incredibly intimidating.  And it doesn't help that we switched to EVs this year so my car doesn't really resemble at all the car I owned the last time I had a daily commute by car (in 2012 - I think it was a VW Beetle Convertible - I don't remember if the diesel or the turbo gas engine was the last one I had when I was regularly commuting).

What I feared most was that first trip through the car wash and so I put it off and put it off until I couldn't anymore because my car was covered in salt after a trip to the north.  To maneuver the wheel onto the track, then get it in neutral, then switch to the service menu to find the car wash mode button, and then fold the mirrors all before the car entered the wash seemed like a monumental task.

So today I found a car wash near my hotel and it went so seamlessly that there were tears in my eyes as windows were covered with soap.  It was one of those moments (and I've had plenty these past months) where I felt so empowered and ready to face anything.  If I can do the thing that most intimidates me with my car, I probably can figure the rest of life out.

Social Media

 Social Media makes it possible to see what an ex is up to which is not really a positive thing.  I unfollowed my ex-husband on Instagram, the only social media he uses.  And I had told my family that is what I did so they wouldn't give me updates if they chose to continue following him.  But his account is public and so it requires my own willpower to not go look for his account.  I don't know what made me look tonight when I was in my own good mood get ready for my own travel but I did.

He's out in Las Vegas and exploring the Grand Canyon.  And it hit me hard.  We did so much travel together.  We were great travel partners, or at least I thought we were. We had so many travel plans booked when he decided to walk away so this year has been the year of crumbling plans I had so looked forward to and then scrambling to rethink my time off in a way that I could afford and wanted to do now.

My sister responded to my text stating the Grand Canyon is "overrated" which made me laugh.  When I called my parents, my dad pointed out that love of travel was a gift I gave him.  He really didn't travel much before me.  I don't know how much he would have done if I hadn't encouraged us.  I'm not sure he ever would have left his corner of his home state.  So maybe that is a gift I gave him.

I don't even know what truly bothers me most about it.  Maybe the fact that I enjoyed traveling together with him and so I wish I were there (although I don't really given the year I had).  Or maybe because it seems like he is walking away from this marriage without any consequences.  It just really sucks feeling like the consequences of his decision are resting heavily on me.  And part of me wants him to sit still long enough to actually reflect on what he did, although he probably isn't capable of that.

Audiobooks

I was always an avid reader although it tapered off a bit as my ex-husband watched more and more television. Since separating, I've really been trying to get back into books but have really struggled because I just can't focus.  

I just want to share that audiobooks are a great way to get back into reading.  I may not be able to finish a ebook or paper book, but I have been finishing audiobooks.  Sue Monk Kidd is the author I'm enjoying most right now.  She wrote Dance of the Dissident Daughter which was the focus of my Women's Retreat at church but also wrote some great historical fiction with strong woman characters.  I just finished "The Invention Wing" and am next planning to listen to "The Secret Lives of Bees" which I know is also a great movie.

I imagine that as I find more stability and focus, I'll be able to switch back to ebooks.

Going out alone

One adjustment since the divorce is not always having someone to go out and do things with.  Sometimes I find friends to join me when I want to go out but not always.  I could choose to stay in when I can't find someone but I'm not willing to do that.

So this evening I purchased a ticket to an Improv Show and took myself out for dinner and drinks before hand.  It was really a lovely evening.  I got street tacos from one of my favorite food stalls, found a place at the bar and tried two different seasonal cocktails.  

And then the show was so fun!  I laughed so much that I was still smiling on the walk home.

Would it all have been more fun with someone?  Yes, it definitely would have been.  But I don't want to miss out on life because I'm waiting on people.  So I'll make plans, invite people, enjoy company when I can, and strike out on my own when I can't.

Even when I think I'm doing well, the pain comes back so raw

I finally called to deal with my oldest credit card.  It was an account I opened up around the time I graduated high school.  I still remember my first purchase.  At some point early in our marriage, I added my ex-husband as a secondary account holder to that credit card.  I don't know why he was added as a secondary account holder vs an authorized user.  Maybe to help us get a higher credit limit.  But that decision I made early on in our marriage meant that he could never be removed from the account.  So today my only option was to close the account completely.

And I so I sit here with tears running down my face.  The emotion feels so raw.  I feel right back in the middle of some of the worst of my grieving.  I trusted him.  How could he betray that trust?

Giving my brain a break

I'm at a point right now where I accept that I just will never truly understand and I have recognized that I don't need to in order to find healing.  That's not to say I don't have questions run through my head still but they don't take up as much space.  I don't sit on them so long.

My ex-husband is who is he is.  And he made the decision he made not because of who I am but because of who he is.

I still feel a fondness towards him.  I would be lying if I said I didn't still worry about him.  I hope he made the right decision for himself and that this gives him a chance to find what he needs to discover happiness.  

Now it's time for me to embrace this next season of my life and live fully into who I am.

Sleep

Dare I write about this before I know if this is enough of a pattern?  Six months of sleepless nights really takes a toll on your body.  And for a while there it seemed there was no end in sight.  But this past week I slept.  And of all places, it started with that first night away from home in a hotel in the middle of Illinois.  And then it continued through my stay with my parents in my childhood home, through the hotel night on the way home, and through last night back in my own apartment.  Of those last nine nights, I had only one that I didn't feel was very good sleep.

I won't assume I'm past it all or that I won't be triggered again in a way that affects my sleep but I feel like I have turned a corner.