It's been a week since I said out loud that I wanted to get divorced. And although I'm the one walking out, it has been the most difficult event of my entire life. And it's only going to get more stressful. I'm glad that it is done. I was unhappy and I couldn't stand it anymore. It wasn't just him. We both had completely stopped caring about each other. He did a little before I did. It's done now and by the end of next week, I'll be living in a apartment a few blocks away.
Michael and I never had much in common. The pastor who married us even mentioned that we weren't necessarily a good match. He offered a brilliant idea though that I still tell newly weds. He said "You won't wake up everyday madly in love. The hope is that you wake up and CHOOSE to stay anyway." We were married after dating for 2 years. He had proposed to me after the first year. At first we had normal fights, nothing we couldn't get over. The problems that we started with that stayed with us were my extreme use of sarcasm and his crippling jealousy. I am smarmy, down right rude at times. Often, I'm not even aware of how brash I am. He has a history of ex-girlfriends who cheated on him coupled with an already suspicious demeanor. We had our first child just 4 days before our first wedding anniversary. I settled into the mom role much better than I expected. I was a very stressed new mother, but things were fine mostly. Problems began though. Women who have children often discover than being a mother is wonderful, but being a mother figure to grown man is unacceptable. And men often shift their love and devotion from their wife to the new baby. This combination is deadly to a marriage. Two years later our second and final child came. By now things had become very stressed between us. He was still questioning every time I left the house and I was still smarting off with uncaring, shitty words of wisdom. We were becoming quite complacent. I had let him become one of my children. I was doing everything I could to keep him happy, not because I cared so much but because I didn't want to hear him bitch about anything. I'm sure he also didn't want to hear me bitch. Around 2 years ago he attempted to quit smoking. He failed but did not tell me. He kept it a secret for a long time. When I found out, I was devastated. Not because he was smoking, but because I was completely convinced that he was unable to lie to me about anything and he had succeeded so well. It even made me question how well I knew him. He would pull this "lying about quitting smoking" thing on me a few times before I told him I had become indifferent to it. I told him I refused to care about him if he was going to do that because I didn't want to feel bad anymore. I meant it. I started staying in my room. All the time. We didn't even eat dinner together. We had nearly no interaction between us at all. One year ago, I took the kids to stay at my mother's house and I told him I refused to live my life like this. I said all the problems must be fixed before I turned 30. And now, here we are...
I told him how I felt. He was very upset. In nearly 10 years of a relationship, I've only ever seen him cry one other time. That would be when we were a new couple and I threatened to break up with him. This was much worse though. I crushed him. He was completely devastated and shocked. I have threatened him with divorce before, but it did not effect him. This time, he knew I wasn't bluffing. He is filled with hopelessness. When I told him, I felt nothing. I was trying to be tough to let him know this was real and I would not waver. A day later I did finally relax and let the emotions sweep in. It was a tidal wave. I've never cried so hard in my life. I wasn't sad for putting my foot down. I was sad because I hurt him so much. I honestly didn't expect him to be so hurt. He never shows any hint of emotion to me. Never has. I felt he deserved it, but I don't like to hurt people. And even after all we'd done to each other, I still felt terrible for being the one to end it. Neither of have eaten well or slept at all for the last week. We are emotionally exhausted. Things are improving slightly. We can't cry anymore. This hurt has come on strong, in massive waves that are almost impossible to handle, but they're nothing compared to being over 30 and knowing you'll never get the guts to leave a bad situation. However, this is going to help us tremendously. He will be forced to take care of himself finally. He will also be forced to handle the kids on his own. I will be forced to get my life together. To stop hiding behind this computer.
If anyone who personally knows us ever reads this, I'd like you to know that we never cheated on each other. Never. We both agreed that even if we hated each other, we'd never touch another person without breaking up. And we never hurt each other. We weren't necessarily bad to each other, we just didn't care. I just happened to get fed up first. It seems very sudden to most. That's because we've been pretending to be happy for a long time. He takes blame for breaking me and I take blame for giving up. We're both sorry, but we plan on being as civil as possible. We plan on evenly splitting the time with our children and even trying to be friends so that our children will see the positives of this change. These are all just plans, of course. I've promised to try to stick them above all other aspects. Wish us luck.
