I Was Lucky

Posted on by stilllearning2b

I was lucky. I never spent time in a decaying marriage. The lies that destroyed the relationship protected me for its duration, keeping me cloaked in relative comfort.

I was lucky. I never had to wrestle with the question of should I stay or should I leave? That decision was made for me.

I was lucky. I never had the pain of hoping for or trying for reconciliation. You cannot reconcile with someone who has become a ghost in his own life.

I was lucky. We did not have children. I did not have to see the pain on their faces, nor engage in a battle for them through the courts.

I was lucky. I had a clean, sudden amputation of my life, my marriage. The trauma was near-fatal, but I was left with a clean cut.

I know not all of you are so lucky. You may be deciding if your marriage can be saved. You may be hoping that it can still work out, alternating between hope and despair. You may be subject to painful contact with your ex. You may have to tuck your kids in, wishing you could take their pain away.

Even if your marriage did not end in a sterile amputation, you still have some control over how it heals. Take care to keep the wound clean and expose it to fresh air. Tight bandages may hide the damage for a time, but the wound will only fester when it is kept in the dark. Do not worry at the healing skin. Leave the scabs until they fall off of their own accord; they provide needed protection. Be gentle with the new skin, the new growth, for it is still fragile with its pink-tinged hope. Sooth the wound with the balm of your friends and family, your pets, your passions. And know that the scars only serve to make you even more beautiful.

 

Marital Limbo

Posted on by stilllearning2b
marital limbo

We had one of our good friends over the other evening. He was recently divorced when I met him a few years ago, although Brock knew him through much of his marriage. In the past several years, he’s been dating, at times sporadically and at other times with more intent. He even contemplated moving in with one woman not all that long ago.

So I was shocked when I heard these words out of his mouth the other night –

“I never want to get married again.”

I was shocked, not because I think marriage is the best answer for everyone. And I certainly understand shying away from matrimony after enduring the pain of divorce. I was shocked because marriage seems to fit him. He’s stable, healthy and loyal. He has goals and doesn’t shy from hard work to achieve them. He has grown as a person and has developed many healthy relationships around him. When dating, he is a serial monogamist, developing deep relationships with one woman at a time. And I’ve never sensed any bitterness about his past.

So why the anti-marriage stance?

And then yesterday, I read this post from Matt over at Must Be This Tall To Ride. He talks about the time spent in marriage limbo when he slept in the guest bedroom for over a year. I winced while reading it; it certainly sounded like a special kind of hell. Neither married nor single. Like living in a home destroyed by a flood, yet unwilling or unable to let it go.

And I thought about my friend. He lived in marriage limbo for a long time. He was married, yet in the most important ways, had no wife. They orbited around each other with little chance of connection. And when they did connect, it was ugly. The divorce, in many ways, was a relief. An untethering to a lame duck marriage.

His memory of marriage is not a good one; what was good has been sullied by the time spent in limbo. No wonder he is shying away.

My experience could not have been more different. I never spent time in a decaying marriage. I never visited that marital land of neither here nor there. I was in marriage heaven and then instantly plummeted into the fires when it ended. My bad memories are not of marriage, but of marriage ending.

So perhaps that’s part of why I wanted to be married again.

 

My curiosity is piqued – is there a correlation between time spent in marital limbo and desire to be married again? What’s your story?