on the death of a marriage

A little over eight years ago, my then-wife and I were with a couple of friends at a Ralph Nader rally in Portland.  It was my second Nader rally, and my friends were very excited, although they would later vote for Gore.  They had another reason to be excited: they were getting married in less than a couple of weeks.  The one ugly note about the experience was when my then-wife and I used the time before Nader walked on stage to throw some news their way.

"We have something to tell you," I began.

My friends' faces broke out into grins.  "You're having a baby, aren't you?" they replied expectantly.  (Yeah, I know, a Tom Swiftie, but it's 3am, and I'm in no mood to whip out a thesaurus.)

My face froze in mid-wince.  "No...we're separating." 

"Oh."  There was nothing more to say.  They went on to get married, have three kids, and live a very happy life.  My route, however, took a different turn. 

Some marriages begin fatally flawed; others begin with the tiniest of cracks that over time grow into black holes so massive, not even love can escape.  And then some marriages simply grow apart as each spouse ages and changes.  The problem is, you usually can't tell which is which until the marriage is so broken, it seems to require too much lifeforce to repair it, and you find yourselves in your bedroom, or a park, or in the car on the side of a highway screaming, crying, or both, wrecking something you had spent thousands of dollars sanctifying in front of your friends and family. 

We let the lease on our apartment lapse, and we moved away from each other.  We talked often, saw each other on occasion.  We had decided to separate for six months, after which we would decide whether the marriage was worth saving.  It only took about two months, however, for me to pull the plug.  I was an emotional wreck, deeply embittered, and increasingly unstable as I realized the last five years of my life had been one long series of failures and setbacks, my marriage being the golden turd on top of the Dung Heap of Dubious Achievement.  I knew I had to cut the cord and get the hell out of town before I ended up in Droolsville. 

I'll largely spare you the info of the seven months between the separation and my divorce and exile from Portland, except that it was horrible.  I rarely, if ever, tell people what my life was like during that time, so I'll keep it short.  On a typical day, I got up, played Civilization II on my Mac, and left to work part-time at a Trader Joe's, where I was constantly berated by management for never smiling.  I would close the store with the rest of the crew, take the light rail home, put on an extra layer of clothes because my bedroom lacked a heat source other than a tiny space heater, and read on my futon (always folded because I was used to sleeping on a couch) under several blankets until I fell asleep.  There were some other events in my life during that time - the wretched presidential election, a moderate-strength earthquake, hiking Mount Hood - but the above was pretty much my daily life until I moved to Chicago. 

Buried in my little metal cashbox of Special Crap is a personal check, made out to the state of Oregon for the amount of $287.50.  On the lower-left hand corner under "notes" is written, in my hand, "divorce filing."  Adding the ten-dollar paperwork fee, breaking up my marriage set me back a very reasonable three hundred bucks.  I keep the check as a memento of those months. 

Why am I blurting this out after all these years?  I have some friends who are getting divorced, and another who has separated from her husband.  I've privately told them the following, but what the hell, I'll make it public: the end of a marriage sucks, no matter the circumstances.  And through it all, I'll be there for you guys, no matter what.

Comments

[eighmie]

This is not the end for me Rich. I already lived a life of quiet desperation the last few years of my marriage. I am opening like a flower now, the sun is shining and I feel more hope than I have in years. God I hope the ex doesn't read this. I'm so sorry you went thru such pain alone.