Our 14th Year

I didn’t want to write about this.  I spent all day fumbling through my thoughts, gaining some perspective, and allowing myself a little space before I took the plunge.

I met him, the Spouse, 14 years ago today, August 14, 1993.  Both of us were in the military, out for a night with friends.  Neither one of us was expecting to meet anyone.  I definitely hadn’t planned on meeting my husband that night.  I did, I met the man of my dreams.

We had energy between us.  Energy I have never experienced with anyone else.  From that night on, we were inseparable.  We ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner together.  We forgot we had friends, forgot a world existed outside the two of us.

I loved in a way that love had never hit me before.  I knew he would be the man I would spend the rest of my life with.  Today though, I cry for us.  I cry for the man and woman we were, and the love we once shared.

One year ago, I asked the Spouse for a divorce.  We had grown apart.  He became a man that served his friends and forgot about his children and wife.  Family was no longer important and I suffered through a lonely marriage.

Although still married, we are separated.  I have asked for time and space for us both.  We both need to find ourselves again, before we can ever find our way back to each other.  Will that day come?  I can’t give you that answer.

In him, I see my best friend, no longer my husband.  Do I love him?  Yes, but not in the way spouses love each other.  I love him as my best friend.  Do I want to lose him?  No, but I don’t think we can be married either.

If we do ever find our way back to each other, I believe our marriage will be stronger for this time we have taken.  In order to accept each other and to love the other person for whom they are, we need to learn about ourselves again. 

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Strong Enough

You know that saying, “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”  How many people believe it to be true?  I believe old Friedrich Nietzsche definitely believed in it when he said it and I believe in it too.

Marriage isn’t easy.  We always joke about why babies didn’t come with manuals, well why didn’t marriage?  OK… I’ll take that back, a little.  Marriages might not come with manuals, but there is counseling, - if you both choose to go - there are other outlets as well; talking to your church, family, friends.  Of course, again, everyone needs to agree.

I bring this up because my husband actually asked recently to go to counseling.  WOW!  I was shocked when those words came out of his mouth.  Literally, sitting in my chair without a word to reply; I couldn’t think.  Then something popped into my head.  It was the only thing I could muster, a thought without thinking - and you get the abbreviated version, but, “WTF?”

Hubby seemed a bit puzzled; taken aback by my response; rightfully so.  He most likely was expecting at least an OK from me, but no, I had no OK to give him.  I felt a rage in me I have never felt before.  Anger at the fact that the hundred plus times I asked, I was promptly told, “No.” 

I was calm, although I was burning with anger on the inside.  I wanted to know why.  Why, after 13 years of marriage and in out second separation did he want to go now?  Why not one of the many, many, many times I asked did you not want to go?  My reply after “WTF” and the time spent thinking, I told him, “No. Not until I find me again.”

I spent 13 years in a marriage, loving a man that soon fell out of love with me; He found that love again when I asked for a divorce.  It didn’t kill me.  I am raising two children, back in school full-time, and continue to work full-time, all without help from him.  It has not yet killed me.  These are things that make me stronger.

I am not afraid.  But, in order to be a wife and a friend to him again, I must find me.  One day he will learn and understand this, but until then, it will not kill him.  We both will be stronger for having gone through this. 

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3 Little Words

I love you!  Those words can flow easily from mouths and do they really mean something?  Too many people, those three little words mean everything and for me they did as well.  Today, I’m not sure what they mean when they flow from my husband’s mouth.

It’s not another bitch session, just curious as to why.  Why he can so easily say that he loves me today, but never spoke those words to me prior to our separation.  Does he really love me now?  Does he say it because he’s not sure what else to say?

Since our separation, I have never told him I love him.  I am no longer “in” love with him.  My love for him is for the time we have and the children we have together, but it is not love you have for your spouse, more like a friend.  I have been honest with him about this and he accepts my feelings.

Thinking back on our marriage and why we are at this place in our life together, I can’t tell you if I will ever be “in” love with him again.  Today, sadly, I am not, tomorrow that may change. 

I am sitting here thinking about it and about why I get frustrated when he tells me.  I don’t feel the same that he does.  I guess I just feel awkward when I have nothing to say back to those three little words.

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