Taking Responsibility - How I Sabatoged My Own Marriage.

Let me start off by clarifying, as soon as I forced myself to see the reality of my husband's relationship with my cousin/best friend/Godmother to my daughter, (known for all intents and purposes as "the cuntsin"), we were done. We managed to stay on life support for another two years, but it was basically a vegetative state and we should have pulled the plug sooner.

Looking back, it's probably fair to say we never belonged together in the first place. You really couldn't find two people more opposite to embark on a life together, and yet, there we were. Perhaps it was that opposition that was so attractive to us both. I think if he were ever to speak to a mental health professional, it might be suggested that he has a severe Hero Complex. (Among other things...) When we met, he wanted to save me. I was a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants single mom of a not even two year old, living on unemployment in my parents' house. I had no real plan. I was probably just hoping for a prince, and there he was.

Please don't misunderstand...I wasn't just sitting around waiting for some schmuck to come and bail me out of my life. Had a life with this man NOT been the path I chose, I surely would have found another way to go on living. But as it turned out, as I went about the business of living in that time, I dated other men, and THIS was the man with whom I fell completely head over heels in love.

We dated for two years before moving in together. We spent five years living together before getting married. So nobody can say we didn't know each other well enough to be sure about starting our happily ever after. When we got married I was 35 and he was 32, so you can't really say we were too young to know better.

So what the hell went so horribly wrong?

If I were a narrowminded asshole, I could say he cheated on me and leave it at that. But I'm not a narrowminded asshole. I've been on my own for 15 months, and in that time, I've had plenty of time to think about my own responsibility in the demise of our union. Here are a few of the mistakes and errors in judgment on my part:

1) I believed everything he said.
When he told me he would love me forever, I believed him. When he told me he would chase me around the bedroom for at least the next 50 years, I believed him. When he said he was determined to live like a king, I believed him. When he said he would shovel shit 7 days a week if that's what it took for me to be home for our kids, I believed him. And even though in the beginning, you would never have found a more loyal, trustworthy husband than mine, things change and people change. When he said he would never betray my love, I believed him for much longer than I should have. I will never trust someone so completely again.

2) I spent too much money and tried to hide it from him. 
I know lots of families go through this issue. I went through it on a grand scale. While my ex will swear on a stack of bibles (in which he has no belief), that I spent all his money taking my family out for breakfast every day while he broke his ass working, that is a figment of his accusatory imagination. The truth is, we were having babies. I had two pregnancies in opposite seasons and needed maternity clothes. I was buying everything on the planet for our kids. There were times when his "self employment" left us short on cash, and a bad business investment (that I protested) left us with hardly any income for a six month period. He swears this is untrue. But if he goes back and checks his tax records, he will see I am right. So during those times, I was buying clothes for the kids, diapers, sometimes food, birthday gifts for everyone we knew, Christmas gifts, and clothes for my own post-pregnancy, shrinking derriere. We were going on vacation. We had bought a new car. We bought another new car. And I was buying whatever I wanted for our kids and justified it by telling myself he promised we would be living like kings. (I believed him...) So as I paid the bills and we ran short to cover them all, I would shuffle them around and pay the most important ones first, until it just got too far ahead of me. I tried to fix it without his knowledge, going behind his back for help, and when he found out, it almost broke us. That was 12 years ago, and it took a hefty home equity loan to bail us out, but we managed to move past it. Mostly. Except for his eventual need to be in control of every penny, to the point where he demeaned me on a daily basis by leaving me a twenty dollar bill on my nightstand every morning. Like I was some corner prostitute.

3) I said "no" to sex when I was exhausted. 
I surely don't mean to suggest that every wife should have to give it up no matter how tired she might be, but sex is really an essential way to stay intimately close to a spouse. And when the constant demands of newborns and toddlers and life in general leave us feeling too drained to even go through the motions it can also leave us with a disconnect that can sometimes never be repaired. I WAS exhausted. Our boy was collicky for the first four months. He never did sleep well, and therefore, neither did we. When he was a year old, a pregnancy that ended in miscarriage left me devastated and depressed for several months. Then came our girl. At the same time, an autism diagnosis for our boy was dropped in our laps. Lots of reading, calling, running, driving, doctors, therapists, and OH, YEAH...AN INFANT...I couldn't keep track of when my last shower was, so never mind romance! But that hurt us. He even threw it in my face before he left, even though the last three years he was here it was HIS turn to say no. Sex is important in a marriage. If it's not happening there is either something very wrong, or it needs to be penciled into the appointment book. Unless you BOTH don't want it. Then you do what works.

4) I kept trying to be who he wanted, even though it meant not being myself.
He needed the housewife who would be just like his mother. An episode of Everybody Loves Raymond comes to mind...in a marriage counselling session, Debra and Ray come to realize he wishes his wife was more like his mommy...yeah, that show was a pretty accurate depiction of my life. Except that my mother-in-law was a much younger, hot tamale version of the doting mommy to her son. I loved her then, and love her still. But I never did want to BE her. I tried. I tried to keep the house immaculate. I tried to cook for him the way his mommy did. I would call her and ask her how to make this, or that. But all the things that mattered so much to him were never all that important to me. I want the house to be clean, but I don't need to be the mom who waits for everyone to finally take off whatever they were wearing that day so I can wash, dry and put away everything we own before I can put my head on the pillow. I would try, and give up. And try, and give up. Ultimately, in his eyes, I failed miserably. He recently told me "YOU wanted to be a housewife and I LET YOU. And YOU just couldn't do it!!" No. I couldn't. I didn't want to be married to the house. And I wanted to sleep sometimes. And I wanted to be my own loud, corny, friendly, center of attention self, and not the floor scrubbing, brownie baking, curtain pleating, underwear pressing, stand quietly behind her man, 50s sitcom wife he created in his head. I am the same woman now as I was when he met me. Only I am much happier with who that is. And completely unwilling to change to please any fucker who expects me to.

5) I ignored how much our opposite personalities had pulled us apart.
He loves the summer. I don't. He loves being athletic. I don't. He loves being outside. For me, there are lots of variables that need to be in place before I enjoy it. He is an old fashioned, provincial, closed minded, creature of habit. I am a forward thinking, open minded, evolved, lover of moving forward. In the beginning, I could laugh it off and overlook a lot of our differences. When we got into the nitty gritty of raising kids, those differences became an obstacle. If ever there is another man in my life, and he ever has a belief or character trait that makes me cringe, I will leave skidmarks.

6) I put my happiness in his hands.
When we were deep in the grind of everyday life, it was always my love for my husband that kept me happy. He'll tell you otherwise, but he has also convinced himself of anything that makes him look like a victim. I was deeply and madly in love to the point that 10 years into the marriage, (and 17 years into the relationship), I could still feel my stomach doing flips when I heard his truck pull in driveway. Even after all the fighting and disrespect, and being treated like I was never good enough, I still believed in 'til death do we part. To love, honor and cherish, as long as we both shall live. For me, it was never about, "I'll love you until you disappoint me". And when I ultimately couldn't live up to the perfect vision of housewife in his head, he gave up any attempt at caring about whether or not I was happy. And when his connection to someone else became undeniable, he went out of his way to ensure I was UNhappy. And I allowed that to happen. The person I am now will NEVER allow that to happen again. If any man is ever lucky enough to be allowed into my life again, my happiness will be important to him. But he will not be in control of it.

7)  Despite what my intuition was screaming at me, I purposely convinced myself that there was no way these two closest people in my life would ever betray me.
Our gut is a powerful thing. The head can be observant. The heart can be deceiving. But the gut never lies. If we overthink things, we can convince ourselves that any tragedy we were ever afraid of is looming or currently happening. But when we are PURPOSELY AND DESPERATELY trying to convince ourselves that our most dreaded fear could not possibly be happening, and our internal alarms are going off at EXTREME RED ALERT, we have to pay attention. My husband and my best friend were too close. Not only did I allow them to become close, I encouraged it. I was so happy my husband and my best friend could get along so well. "Let's go help her." "Don't you think we could give her a hand?" "Now that her husband has left, we'll need to be there for her." Those are things I said. To my husband with a severe hero complex. Does that make me responsible for the fact they ended up together? No fucking way. But...if I am ever so blessed again to be in a relationship with a good man, I will be the most self absorbed, possessive bitch his sorry ass has ever known. He will NEVER allow another woman to become close enough to become a threat to our commitment. And don't get me started on the poor bitch who might ever be fool enough to put her hands on my man. Just don't.

That's it, in a nutshell. We were probably doomed from the start. Probably never should have been together at all. But I'm thankful every day, as I love my children, for every moment. I'm thankful for the good days, when he convinced me I was loved. I'm thankful for the lessons of the hard times. I'm thankful for the strength I take with me. I'm so very thankful for the realization that I'm happy with the person I am, and that I never did give that up for anyone. Especially not the prince who turned out to be a frog.