The consequences that I’ve rendered…I’ve stretched myself beyond my means

I decided to bring back Random and Odd because tomorrow marks my divorce finalization date.  In the last 19 months I have learned so much about myself. Some good, some great, some…not so good or great.

I decided to keep thing events of what happened in our marriage and divorce somewhat private, outside of some snarky comments, no one except the people close to me know the details of why our marriage ended. 
In the beginning I was hurt by the end of my marriage. I think mostly because It was another failed relationship and I felt that I had given so many “chances” to right the wrongs and even sought marriage counseling.  It was difficult to take the counseling serious when I knew that his problem wasn’t with our marriage, but with an addictive behavior he admitted to having and without getting that under control,  it didn’t matter how much talking we did and promises that were made, we weren’t going to survive. 

It didn’t take long before those feelings subsided and were replaced with new friends and a new kind of laughter.    Where I am today and the woman I was then, I realized that I didn’t love him the way that a woman should love a man. I loved him like the best friend he was to me.  When he left, he took that friendship that I thought I would never be able to replace.   Let it be said, I was wrong.  There were things that I did miss that I may have twisted in my head and it took truly falling in love to see the difference of the two.

After my husband left, my room felt so empty and the side of the bed was this haunting reminder of his absence.  The side of his bed became where I placed books, plates, remotes.   After awhile I realized it wasn’t  HIM that I missed, it was that safe feeling I had knowing that I wasn’t alone in the room.  When I moved into the new house and that side of bed belonged to someone else, when he left too, I didn’t put stuff over there.  I recognized what I had done before and decided this time around is to make myself feel safe.  

Another thing I had twisted was that I was afraid I was going to miss intimacy.  Looking back, there was no intimacy in our marriage.  Because of the issues we had it never felt like my husband ever really opened up to me. I see that now…there was something he was holding back.  It took many, many, many conversations with his ex-wife (who now is counted as one of the two people I TRUST in this world, and you all know our past!) to fully understand the depth of the ‘holding back’ issue.  I can say, I didn’t see it then, but it’s so obvious now that I actually feel retarded for not seeing it before.  Oh, the arrogance of thinking that I knew everything about him and that he shared such intimate secrets with me that no one ever knew. Yes, I was a retard.

It wasn’t until I finally did have intimacy in my life that I realized how truly special that is.  It wasn’t through secrets we told each other or the secrets we shared, it was through touch and unconditional trust we had for each other.  There was one incident I will never forget, and in that moment I made a promise to someone that I would love and care for this person for the rest of my life and never hurt him. Sadly I had to ask to be released from that promise in order to move forward.  The next relationship I am in, that person will be truly blessed because I do understand the difference between friendship and intimacy.  Sometimes we get lucky and we get both.  Sometimes it doesn’t last and it’s okay to move forward…and you don’t have to be graceful like I thought I had to be.

In the beginning I chose to do some things that would mask that feeling of hurt and betrayal.  The most obvious thing was taking up skydiving.   I love skydiving more than anything I have ever done in my life. I am start enough to see now that I threw myself into it because I was running from something.   When everything began to fall apart I had to make some choices that I kind of regret.  I say ‘kind of’ because the choices I made were smart ones, but I had to give up some things to achieve them.

Last month I was faced with what it felt like to give up something I loved and my first reaction was to head out to the dropzone and hurl myself from the next plane going up.  I quickly saw the flaw in that way of thinking and decided to deal with that hurt in a healthy way so when I do get back on that plane I can leap out with a clear mind.   When my marriage ended, I didn’t care about ending anything ‘healthy’, I just wanted the pain to stop and I pushed it far away.  Because of that action, I became somewhat jaded.   The fact that I actually recovered from him leaving so quickly was kind of shocking.  I have asked myself since the day he left, ‘Do you miss him?’  and I realize that it wasn’t him I missed, but I missed feeling safe.   The other night, it was blinding clear to me that when you truly love someone you remember how they feel and smell when they aren’t there.  I never had those thoughts in my head after my husband left.  I can’t remember what he felt or smelled like…I never cared to.

I do not regret anything that has happened in the last 19 months.  My kids got to see that sometimes things don’t work out and as hard as I tried to not fall in love again, I did.  They saw what Mom was like when she felt truly loved.  They also got to see that even after you get knocked down, you get back up again…and then you get knocked down again.  It is just like that song.   They got to see me finally snap and they saw that true friends rally around you and they let you say, “I’m done.” But they take the keys from you and they sit with you and build you back up.  My kids will see that you can hate someone with every bone in your body and that person turns out to be the person that picks you up and dusts you off and jokes, ‘There was a time I would have used the opportunity to run you over and back my car up and do it again. ‘. 
They have the joy of watching Mom start another journey in her life, even though I keep looking over my shoulder at the past to make sure that I don’t make any of those same mistakes again.
I think the biggest mistake I made was going against something I promised myself.   I said I would never get married again and because I began to feel safe again, I went back on that promise.  This time around I will take the advice of someone I loved with my whole heart…I will never say something to someone that I don’t mean to make them feel better. 
I will NEVER get married again.