A Recent Chronology of Stream Consciousness Journaling, Part III: April showers

Feel like shit, eat shit, then feel like shit again. 

Some dreams come true, but they don’t keep true.

Why does the rejection of one feel like the rejection of all?

Can you break the cycle without breaking down entirely?

I’ve either had more chances than any person deserves, or I’ve never really had a shot to begin with. - April 17, 2016 

My 34th birthday had come and gone. I had made another trip back to Central Texas to start moving some of my stuff and so I could tell some close friends and family in person about the divorce. They were all sad for me but supportive. Reassured me that there was nothing to be ashamed of, and that I would survive this. I felt the love and appreciated it, but had a hard time swallowing the thought of moving on and being happy again, or at least as being as happy as I was. 

I’m scared. So very scared. That is what it all boils down to. The sadness, the anxiety, the anger, the confusion. That’s all well worn territory that I’ve been able to name and face over and over, but the fear. That’s new for me to be honest about. A new filter for trying to understand my wants and desires. Is it holding me back or driving me toward something? - April 23, 2016 

Starting to crack the veneer. Struggling with the mourning I was having to do for life I was living, the life I wanted, and the life I felt like I was now going to miss out on. I next tried to recap and recollect as much of what I was feeling and thinking and put it all into perspective of our entire marriage at that point.

There was a lot of stress leading into our Wedding last May, but I assumed once that was behind us we’d hit a nice Honeymoon period of relief and happiness. Let me reiterate that while yes the Wedding planning and time and expense were a stressful thing, I absolutely wanted to and very much looked forward to getting married and being married to this specific person. We didn’t have a proper a honeymoon, but took a few days to recoup and relax together in San Antonio and I thought it was quite a lovely time.

We are both procrastinators, so upon returning home and starting our married life (we had already been living together for the previous nine months) we let a lot of things get in the way. Our dining room and formal living room was packed with leftover Wedding materials (glass, crates of plates, other decorations) and along with all the wedding gifts. And they mostly just sat there untouched for months. 

We did re-arrange the furniture and re-paint the master bedroom last summer and that felt great to do. But I was working long hours from home with my new small business and she was working long hours away from home, and often with travel away for. We didn’t get to spend a lot of quality time together when we weren’t both burned out and exhausted. Our 5 year-old nephew came for a visit in late June/early July and we were distracted by that for a while. 

Then came the mid-July period which is always a dark period for me because of the anniversary of my brother’s suicide. This is something L was aware of and I spoke about again last year to reassure her that my unhappiness was not due to anything she was doing or our relationship. 

August was hectic with another Wedding back home in Austin for my cousin Stephanie. Then tragedy two weeks after that when my cousin Natalie was killed in a motorcycle accident. I drove back home to Austin again but this time alone for Natalie’s funeral. L could have gone with me, but it was easier for her work life to not suddenly take the time off. This hurt me, but I didn’t say anything at the time. 

I didn’t speak up about my misgivings regarding us a stray kitten we found a few blocks from home, seemingly abandoned. L immediately fell in love with the kitten and wanted to keep her, while I suggested we look at finding her a new home. I did not honestly think L would actually keep the kitten because we had her 15 year-old cat P.J. that is very set in his ways and hasn’t lived without animal for eight years at that point. And of course P.J. hated(still hates) the other cat. I being stuck working from home all day, everyday got the brunt of the awkward transition. And L would dismiss my complaints about the situation, although in hindsight I know should have taken a firmer stance.

By the end of August we were finally having discussions about how we felt that things were not right between us. And we brought up the idea of marriage counseling, but didn’t start it right away. I took on a new client and got even busier and more stressed out with work, and L’s work got busy and she had to travel and be away for days at a time frequently through the fall. 

For Thanksgiving, we both took off from work and flew to Dallas to be with her family for the holiday. The entire visit she was withdrawn and wanted to be with her family members while acting like she could barely stand to be in the same room with me for very long. 

Christmas was just as busy and stressful. My parents were coming to be with us for the holiday, which meant having to clean & organize the house a bit more. I’m sure L was stressed about impressing or being a great host. Even though my parents are lowkey af in that regard, they are far from normal in a lot of ways, but they were going to be happy spending the holiday with us no matter what.

New Years we traveled back to Austin to stay with her family again, and again she was pretty withdrawn. This time the rest of her family was as well, but for them it was more so about just being busy and thinking I was fine. I ended up getting a lot of alone time with my niece and nephew and I did really love that portion of the visit. 

We finally started marriage counseling shortly after the new year. L talked a lot during the first visit, which was part of why we were there. She felt like I wasn’t communicating with her, that she didn’t know what I was thinking or feeling and it was frustrating to her. She also revealed that despite the whirlwind of romance in the beginning our relationship, she had started having serious second thoughts about going through with the Wedding about five months before our set date. This was completely new & shocking information to me. 

I internalize things and it takes me longer to understand how I really feel about something, so it took me a few sessions to warm up, but I was going above and beyond to share and be open both in counseling in our everyday life. We took a few sessions to focus on individual issues and concerns, and I felt like I was making progress on both fronts.

In a joint session, I had a breakthrough when I realized that it would most healthy for me to leave my job, since it was such a emotional drain and my work quality had dipped severely, didn’t want it to get to the point that I might be fired and endanger my future job prospects. The therapist and L both encouraged me to take this step. L and I looked at our financials and realized things would be tight, but we could make it. Hope was on the horizon for me to find a new path in my life and find some temporary work that was less draining on me. By the time I was finished with my job and completely free of it, I was urged again by both L and our therapist to a take trip back home for a while since I had the time and thinking it might do me good to be around family, friends, and familiar settings to recharge my batteries. It would also give L and I some space and time to think on things on our own.

I did not feel the same way about the trip. I was immediately nervous about it and unfocused. I felt like I wanted to stay working on things together, I didn’t want and was scared of what the space and time apart would feel like. We had already spent so much of our married life not together and I was craving the intimacy and closeness that we had not had in a while, what I thought we were trying to get back to. Apparently we were on very different paths.

I was depressed and withdrawn while spending a week with my parents. My mom asked how we were doing and confessed that during Christmas it broke her heart to see L & I seem so out of whack. She had not previously said anything, not wanting to intrude, but I was open with her about our marrage counseling and wanted her to know how things were. In my mind, we were on a bumpy road but we were not looking for an exit. Smooth travelling lanes would lie ahead after we put the time and work into it.

I ended up coming home a day earlier than expected. When I walked in the house L didn’t even get up to give me a hug or kiss. It was late and she was still working, but it did give me pause. The next day we had a seven hour long talk, put all our cards out on the table. It was a long, hard, but productive talk. I posted here at that time that it was a turning point in our relationship, I just wasn’t sure if it was for the better or worse.

That week’s session with the counselor was on St. Patrick’s Day. We spent most of the session re-hashing the long talk we had a few days prior, and one thing we had talked about beforehand was asking for more guidance on practical things we could do moving forward. At the end of the session the therapist asked us what specially we wanted to do moving forward. That’s when L dropped the bomb. She said that she wanted to start taking steps to dissolve our marriage. She was a wreck. It was not an easy thing for her to say. I was calm and quiet. In shock. But I understood her, I couldn’t even entirely process it at first but I knew she was being honest and true to herself. 

A few days later once it had sunk it, I was very low. It felt too late to yell and scream in protest, so I told her I would accept it. I didn’t want to, but I didn’t see another other way of proceeding. If she didn’t want to be with me, then I shouldn’t try to force her to do anything she didn’t want to do. I wanted to fight for my marriage, but she had no fight left in her. Every time I suggested some alternative to divorce, whether it was separation or more counseling, or when I would just pour my heart out and not hold back any of the pain I was feeling – she would take it all in and not relent one bit, she felt terrible about hurting me but she would not pretend to change her mind to alleviate my pain. I admired her determination, but it devastated me.

The Monday after Easter we took a trip to visit each of our families and break the news to them in person. My parents were first and they took it very poorly. My mother had to run to the bathroom and vomit upon hearing our intention to divorce. My father was sullen and withdrawn, immediately blaming himself for being a bad parent. L’s parents and her sister and brother-in-law took the news much better. They were sad, but supportive and especially wanted me to know that they loved me and still cared for me no matter what. 

By the next day my mother said she didn’t want to see or speak with L or family anymore, it was too hard for her. She was angry and upset. I told her that was fine for her to feel that way, but that she needed to buck up and support me and not turn me into the person that takes the brunt of her emotional wraith, as has been our family system since the passing of my brother and my mother’s mother. I needed them to be there for me, I couldn’t hold their hand through this process. I need the shoulder to cry on right now. It’s easier said than done. I’ve already had to be abrupt and stern with my mom a few times when she was called or texted me something out of anger. I’ve given her permission to take all that shit to her closest friends and other family members. She has to be the one taking shit from me right now. 

She lashed out at me that I didn’t want this and I was just giving L what she wanted, and that is true. I don’t feel the same way as she does, but I love her and respect her choice even if I don’t agree with it. Even if it makes me want to run into oncoming traffic. I need to have some faith right now that maybe she is right about all this. I don’t know if I will ever feel that way, and I haven’t given up on the hope that despite all this we could possibly reunite at a different time and place in our lives when it is right. Stranger things have happened. 

In the meantime we’ve reached the point where the divorce papers have been filed. I’ve started packing and will move out completely by mid-week next week. Due to complications with her job the announced has not been made public, but we’ll finally be able to tell all of our friends and family Wednesday this week. I’m already preparing to shut my Facebook down for a while to avoid an onslaught of well meaning but painful messages and inquiries. I’m getting a P.O. Box and a storage unit in my hometown, while I will temporarily rotate between crashing on a few different friends and family members’ couches and guest rooms while I look for work and my own place.

I’m not taking much with me, letting her keep most of the wedding gifts since they are mostly home goods and were all picked out by her anyway. We’ve both filed extensions until October for our joint tax return, which is going to work best for us this year, and I think we’ll be able to take care of that amicably through a third party CPA. She wants to pay for my health insurance through the end of the year, or until I get a job with benefits, but I am trying to let her off the hook for that because her car is on it’s last legs and she’ll need to be able to make payments on something new or used in the very near future. I am entitled by Texas law to half of her retirement savings during our marriage, but again there is no way I’m asking for that. I won’t even take the engagement ring back, no matter how much I could use the money. I would probably drop dead the moment I walked out the pawn shop with cash in hand. 

Maybe time and distance will change my view on that. I don’t know. I don’t much of anything right now, except the present and future is grim. I’m angry at the person I love most in the world, and I don’t what to do with that. I keep trying to name it, to own it, to unleash in hopes that it will be a catharsis, so far it hasn’t worked. The anger over being mislead, that she likely truly did not want to even get married to me in the first place but didn’t say anything. The anger over being told I was supported and encouraged to leave my job without much in the way of savings, only to find myself about to be homeless, broke, unemployed and divorced in only a short time period from now. I’m angry because despite all the pain I know she is going through it feels like I’m being flicked away, and that will be less chaotic for her going forward. She already seems more comfortable settling back into the idea of being alone and not having to answer to anyone else. While that is the last thing I want.

I spent the first 30 years of my life as a very very lonely person. I endured horrible things in my life that made me a very guarded and unhappy person. Sexual abuse, emotional abuse, mental health problems, drug & alcohol problems, suicide, every decent adult romantic relationship I was cheated (seriously that is how every “good” relationship I had ended), a period of dangerous and careless sexual promiscuity that made me feel guilty and shameful and unworthy of love, a two and half year period of being unemployed or only working periodically and short term exhausting all my savings and sending me into debt. 

I fought through all of that and more and I had turned a corner in my life, was happier and healthier than I had been before. And that is when I met her. We fell for each other quickly and hard and it got serious fast. And I embraced it. I thought I finally had a true partner, a true intimate connection. I knew it wasn’t all going to be flowers and rainbows for the rest of our lives, but I thought we were in it for the long haul. I thought the next time my life was changed in a dramatic and terrible way again that I was not in it alone. I was wrong. - April 24, 2016 

I so wish I was able to process all of this and explain myself in this amount of detail a month previous to when I wrote this. Again it very well might have not made a difference toward the outcome but I know that tapping into my anger honestly is much healthier for me and doesn't hurt the people I love because they can face what I am feeling and we can work to resolve things. 

The divorce papers were soon to be filed and L had taken to sleeping in the guest room every night by this point. It made sleeping even harder than it already was, so I barely slept. Barely ate, and when I did eat it was total garbage. We settled on me moving out completely on May 5th. It was over. I wanted to give up as much as I wanted to keep fighting it.