I met my husband when I was 19 years old; he was 48.  He was my first everything and I loved him with a passion I did not know existed in me; I lost myself in him, in us.  I molded myself to be what he loved and admired and I pushed for everything from the beginning.  I pushed to know him.  I pushed for him to notice me.  I pushed to be his girlfriend.  I pushed “I love you”.  I pushed to be his “fiancé”, his “wife”, and the mother of his children.  He never pushed, he only consented.  In his own words I was the one “always in control” of our relationship.

Yet, I would argue that I was never in control until the moment I called for a separation.

     He was 29 years older, financially responsible, charming, attractive, and charismatic. He had been married for 15 years to a woman he had known and lived with on and off for 30 years.  He had dated and lived a life long before I even existed.  I had NO relationship or dating experience; my emotions were raw, impetuous and overwhelming in regard to my husband.  My feelings for him were “explosive” and needless to say dramatic and youthful until I had our 1st child, and they calmed even more with our 2nd baby.

    After our babies were born, this man whom I had adored, and was passionately and blindly devoted to, suddenly seemed a child himself.  Over the course of our relationship I had seen parts of his nature that I innately disagreed with, traits that were in direct conflict with what I believed and valued.  In the beginning I argued these things, but being inexperienced and in-love I did not fight for my intrinsic needs and beliefs the way I should have.  I allowed myself to be emotionally bullied, manipulated, and controlled by someone who was insecure.  It was easier to shut down when I felt I wasn’t being heard than to “….speak louder” and “fight”.  Why continue to fight when you are the one always at fault at the end of that fight?  Why fight when your partners apology is always justified by an “I’m sorry for my actions but if you hadn’t….”  Why continue fighting for something when the things you get in return are material not emotional?

And, at what point does the other person take responsibility for simply…“not listening”? Not caring.

My husband gave me plenty of material things in the way of traveling: we literally traveled the world together.  Yet, was this ‘just for me’ as he had stated repeatedly after our separation?  No, I can’t say that it was since he had already traveled the world for the 40 years prior to my entrance in his life: by himself, with his 1st wife, with his previous girlfriends, and his family.  TRAVELING was his thing; it is what he loved doing most and it was a perk to be able to share it with a romantic partner.  It was not something he did just to make me happy – he was going to go with or without me, and he did.  At the end of this relationship I have to say that I got to see the world because of him, and now others use it against me to demonstrate my ungratefulness.     

   Our relationship was relatively problem and argument free as long as our likes, wants, and needs were in line.  Often, when they were not — I ended up feeling less than and stupid although I cannot say he ever overtly put me down and he was certainly never physically abusive.  While he extolled my virtues to family, friends, and acquaintances there always seemed to be a subversive undermining of my intelligence, feelings, and opinions in private; just subtle enough to make me second guess myself but never him.  

      I know the mistakes I have made and I am deeply and regretfully sorry for them.  I am sorry for tearing up pictures of his ex-wife; pictures that I searched through his things in order to find.  I am sorry for throwing away video of a trip he took in the early stages of our relationship simply because his ex-wife met him there.  I would NEVER do that again because now I have been in a relationship and I better understand things that I just couldn’t understand before.  I am sorry for giving up ‘communicating’ after 5 years of trying.  I was emotionally a teenager and I felt unheard, this is not an excuse but an explanation of my very childish actions.

    Over the course of my 9 ½ year relationship I had been viewed (to my knowledge) well by my in-laws.  In fact, they said that I “…grounded him” and “…made him a better person.”

    Now, it has been made clear that in light of the fact that I no longer wish to continue on in my marriage I am either suffering from “post-partum depression,” “…am an absent mother,” and am an “unforgiving and vindictive person” who has decided a career is better than being a mother and wife.  Why am I viewed as such?  Is it because I realized one day that I had grown up emotionally and my self-worth could no longer remain intact as long as I remained in an unhealthy relationship?  And, that in order to secure a new life for myself and our children I was required to get a job…not a career…but a job as a receptionist for $15 an hour?  How does that make me a bad mother?  How fair is it to criticize a woman who goes back to work because she is no longer happy, especially when those very same critics also worked during their own children’s infantile and toddler years, and had nanny’s caring for said children?  How does this make a woman a bad mother, an absent mother?

It is true that I only get 4-5 hours a day with my children in the evening, but in those hours I do the best I can to show them that I love them.  I am a mother.  I comfort.  I feed.  I change.  I discipline.  I play.  

I hurt; I feel.  I miss my children more than anyone can know.  When I look into their big…bright eyes I see reflected back my own self-doubt and fears; my loneliness, my loss.  I see my own innocence, trust, and my belief.   And, I get lost in my son’s face…my daughters smile…because I think back and realize how long ago I lost all of those things which children are borne with, and lose, through the passage of time.   Often the pain is so overwhelming that I’m not sure how to keep from slipping into the deepest and darkest depths of my guilt.  There is nothing that hits harder than the realization that you have failed as a wife, a woman, a human being….and ultimately as a mother; nothing more painful and soul wrenching than all of your hopes and dreams crashing on top of you…the weight of them a burden far worse than any you could have imagined.  I loved my husband. I have lived a full and fast life with him.  And, for as much as I have been hurt I know that I have now, in turn, hurt him – something I never sought out to do.  But we are two very different people with more than an age gap complicating our marriage.  

If it were not for my mother who has tried to guide me away from the mistakes she made during her own divorce from my father…I would be lost in such a way that I do not know if I would ever find my way back.   

    On my computer screen at work is a picture slideshow of my babies.  It is hard to look at; In a 5 minute period I see the passage of time.  I see the birth of my first son Joseph, and I remember how happy I was with his father.  I remember his time of birth and that it was in New York in December — drizzling outside and quite brisk.  It was my first moment as a mother…and I was scared but happy.  And I remember when I bore my daughter in Los Angeles on a night that was not so dissimilar from my son’s.  There have been many moments with their father wherein I have been happy: but I have grown up.  Our children have changed me.  Their unwavering love has given me confidence when others have broken it.  They have made me believe in something bigger than myself.  Because of them I have chosen to leave their father…my husband, and dealing with the repercussions of such a choice has me reeling.        

But if the alternative is for our children to have a mother who is only half alive how does that benefit them?  How can you be a good mother if you have nothing to give them emotionally?  And, is it truly better for one’s child(ren) to continue on in a marriage where you feel you cannot be your true self, and when your true self surfaces it is manipulatively belittled?

Shame on those who, albeit quietly and subtly, put me down; who try to make themselves feel superior by breaking my worth.  Just because some think I didn’t try “hard enough” to make my marriage work doesn’t mean that I didn’t.  And having lived a lifetime ahead of me, seeing analyst’s on and off for 40 years, and being married and divorced more than once does not make a person an “expert” on relationships, nor anything else for that matter.  My husband may be your relative, you may have known him since the day he was born, but that DOES NOT mean you know him intimately.  You do not know the man I was married to, and you DO NOT know me because no one really knows a couple behind closed doors.  And it is more than unnecessary to ‘remind’ me how much I am missing out on my children’s life by asking, “…don’t you miss them?”, or softly commenting: “Now that you are working you don’t get to see them much.”  If the people delivering these lines were not intelligent I would brush them off as ‘ignorant remarks,’ but that is not the case. These are being made by smart individuals attempting to further guilt and shame me for my decisions.  

    Children are not “damaged” by the divorce itself….they are damaged by the actions and verbal antics of the adults around them; adults they love, feel safe with, and admire.  This I DO KNOW because I am a child of divorce.  I am not oblivious to the changes in my children’s behavior and I am not uninformed.  I did not make the decision to get a divorce impulsively or irrationally.  Those who wish to constantly point out, and remark as if I am unaware of such changes are the people who will damage our children.  These are people who are nosy, controlling, and at the end of their day bored and lonely.  

I was in my children’s shoes when I was 7 years old.  My age did not make it any easier for me to understand and accept the events that took place.  However, what I do remember figuring prominently was not my parent’s bitterness and anger toward one another; it was the external family members choosing to get involved and fueling my parent’s already volatile emotions.  Have your thoughts and your judgments….but keep them to yourself.

Children grow up and one day they find out for themselves what idiots the adults around them were, and whoever had the negative energy against their parent(s) is the one they will turn against and will resent.        

    Our children do not hear me, or my family, belittle my ex-husband as a man or father. They don’t see me cry or yell…I work hard to get all of my emotions out before I walk in the front door.  I encourage them to be with their father, to love him, and to value him because after all is said and done, he is their father and they will only have one.  What is between us has nothing to do with them, or our respective in-laws.      

I would rather my children see their mother struggle for her happiness, self-worth, morals and values than to sacrifice them for the sake of a “happy marriage”.