My optimism and rose colored glasses served me well in that they protected me and allowed me to find joy and peace in a situation where my very joy and peace were being constantly threatened. And as much as I lost of myself in the marriage, the two things he never successfully took from me no matter how hard he tried were my peace and joy. Maybe that's why he left - his misery never could compete with joy.
That's powerful isn't? To be able to still hang onto joy and peace at some level even through a draining relationship. And like I wrote in a blog post this morning, so many of my memories are those joyful or peaceful moments. I recognize how much better off I am today (night and day difference) yet can acknowledge the good I found in the last two decades.
Therapy last night started with my talking about the moment of the shattered mug I wrote about earlier this week and in telling that story I made an off-hand comment about how he always complained about the mugs I brought home from our travels. It was enough of a complaint to make me seriously think through the mugs I bought but not enough to make me stop buying them altogether.
But why was he so against the mugs? They were inexpensive and not a burden at all on our budget. All my mugs put together don't even come close to adding up to the money we threw away on just one of his cars.
We had the space for them and I always made sure our cabinets were organized in a way that fit his needs and preferences. So it wasn't like they were in the way at all.
They were useful. He even took a few in the divorce. These mugs caused no harm to him. He didn't actually gain anything positive by complaining.
As my conversation with my therapist continued on to more examples, I couldn't help but wonder if it was just one of many ways he was trying to take away from my joy in the simple pleasures of life.
In the last year or two of our marriage, I really started to guard my Sunday morning coffee time. I wanted time to sit at the counter top in our kitchen, sip a cup or two of coffee and read the Washington Post or scroll mindlessly. That is when he decided he wanted us to clean on Sunday mornings. There is no particular reason Sunday had to be our time to clean. We were a couple without kids and no real social life living in an apartment - cleaning didn't take long and we had plenty of spare time.
The more I held my own on this scared time to me, the more irritated he got. If that was the time he wanted to clean, he could have done his part and left me mine to do later. Or he could have chosen just about any other time throughout the week or weekend. But he refused to do either. He preferred to intrude on the joy I was finding in this simple routine I had developed, a routine that caused him no harm.
In hindsight, I suspect this was one of the ways I was finally trying to finally take some space for myself and he wouldn't accept that I needed space in the relationship too.
These are just but two examples of times he tried to interfere with my joy in a simple pleasure of life, things that caused no harm to him.
The pain is so sharp to realize he was trying to stop me from enjoying simple pleasures that had no consequences for him. I spent two decades supporting all the little pleasures he enjoyed. Even when there were consequences to me, I supported his pleasures. It gave me joy myself to see him happy. Yet he couldn't even let me enjoy a Sunday morning cup of coffee.
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