I Do

13 years went by quickly for me. It still doesn't seem like it could have been that long ago that I divorced my first husband.

To anyone who would have looked back then, the decision to leave him was an easy one, but that isn't true, it was the hardest thing I ever did. In my world, he was the love of my life but I hated him at the same time.

To cope with all of the emotional turmoil I was going through, I tricked myself into believing I was a bad-assed tough as nails woman who didn't have use for the softer emotions in life. I built a fortress around my heart, barely letting even my own children and their pain touch me. I convinced myself that I didn't need anyone or anything that I couldn't supply myself. This allowed me to function and make the daily decisions that I suddenly faced. It allowed me to work and earn a living, provide for my children and sleep at night, but most of all it allowed me to carry through with my decision to be divorced.

After the emotional havoc settled down and my ex and I had made peace with one another, the walls I had built to survive began to come down brick by brick and although I had learned to love someone again, I still kept a part of me encased in armor so hard, so thick, that even I wasn't aware of how guarded I had become. It was a way of life for me and I really thought it was going to be that way forever.

When I met Jeff I began to allow myself to trust someone else again, but it was difficult to learn, and honestly, I'm still in the process of understanding it.

Trust is a fickle bitch.

Just when you think you have your life cemented in bedrock, your world can collapse. The people you rely on to be your foundation can fall away, leaving you exposed and alone. It is a horrifying reality and not unique to any one of us. It hurts when your life is turned upside down. Some of us can cope and escape the hell of rebuilding seemingly unscathed, others need the help of friends and family, others submit to the pain and never re-emerge the same again. It is a personal journey and it's outcome is different for every one of us.

For me the key to happiness was finding a person who was willing to wait for me to come to terms with all of the ghosts and all of the defenses of my past. The 13 years that went by so quickly for me, were not the same 13 years for Jeff.

For all of my blustering about knowing everything about everything, I was full of shit. I wasn't aware of it, but I had always expected him to let me down. I had always waited for the other shoe to drop. I expected him to leave, to abuse me or my kids, to lie, to cheat, to be unreliable... Everything in the world that would prove to me that he had entered into our relationship for personal convenience. I expected him to run when it got too hard to stay. I expected this, because I had convinced myself that was how people are, I had become cynical and believed that nobody was as good as they seemed.

He never ran, but it took me 13 years to figure that out.

I think that living through a divorce or demise of any long term relationship is worse than losing someone to death. Death is final and you accept it as such. You know that you can never resay something to the departed loved one. You know that you can never see them again, that their existence is over and done with and you allow yourself to heal with acceptance, but also with forgiveness. You focus on the memories of that life that were good and loving, allowing the bad moments to fade away from reality and trust that in the end, the person you lost knows what was really in your heart.

Divorce doesn't allow you that luxury. Divorce is painful, and worse, the person you left has the nerve to still breathe. You see them. You hear about them and their fabulous new house. You know that they are out on Friday night with people who used to be your friends. It sucks.

What the hell are you supposed to do when your guts are wrenched and you hear about them laughing it up at your favorite restaurant? They're supposed to be at home locked in their basement naked staring at the walls wondering how they fucked up enough in life to lose you!

But it isn't like that, is it? No, it's not. You can't dwell on the more tender moments of your life with that person because it hurts too much. You can't risk ripping open the gashes in your heart by thinking about things that used to make you smile.

But that isn't true either.

You can.

The most amazing realization happened for me and changed my life completely. It altered the way I viewed my relationships and since that day, my world has been more solid. You can love again, it's just different.

I spent over 10 years waiting for Jeff to measure up to something I had fabricated in my head. The poor guy didn't have a chance! I had over time, altered the reality of what my first marriage was, magnifying the good parts to a disproportionate level, leaving behind the parts that had made me sad. I expected Jeff to achieve these heights and surpass them, only in reality, the higher he climbed, the taller the apex became. Jeff had asked me to marry him countless times, and each time, I had a different excuse not to.

In the end, what finally clicked in my head was that no matter how much I kept him at arms length, no matter how many times I hurt him and said no, he still loved me and still kept trying and he was always there. Jeff never gave up. He gave me the time I needed to sort things out in my head.

I still love my ex husband with all of my heart, and Jeff knows this. I love my new husband with all of my heart too. This may sound odd, but the truth of the matter is, it's a totally different expression. My ex will be endeared to me for life because he is a huge part of who I am and what I became. Jeff is my present. He is the man who cares for me every day, who accepts me for all of my faults, who laughs at the quirky things I say and do, and allows me the freedom and honesty to express myself. I respect him for this because I can't say that I would be as gracious about the matter. Sure, I believe that honesty is great and that you have to allow people to say and feel what is their truth, but if he came to me and said "I love my ex with all of my heart", I'm not so sure I'd be as understanding as he is...

I suppose what I am trying to say here is that I've learned that trying to recapture something that existed once isn't the way to approach a new relationship. Accepting the new one for what it is and learning to value the nuances that are different is definitely the way to go. It has been my experience that once you stop looking at the present from the past, you will see the beauty that you are trying so hard to regain. It isn't easy to do, and I can't really tell you how to do it, but I know that it is true.

There is room in your heart, you just have to remodel a little bit.

I'm lucky, I've had two men touch my heart in two different ways, Thank you both for that.

And thank you Jeffee for the freedom to say these things out loud.

posted by Kim @ 3/30/2006 09:39:00 AM Who Reads This Crap? Comment: 20

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