The beginning of the end: my divorce story part one

“Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering – and it’s all over much too soon.” ~ from Annie Hall

Up until about three and a half years ago my life was about as storybook as you get and happily nearly devoid of misery, loneliness and suffering. I married my best friend from college, finished a graduate degree and got a good job, had two beautiful daughters exactly when I planned it, moved to a big house out in the suburbs and spent my time planning birthday parties and redecorating my house. I got the bug to go back to school again so I started law school when my girls were 2 and 5. Did pretty well. Got a job offer from a firm. Planned on starting that job in the Fall of 2004 after a summer preparing for and taking the bar. Took the bar in July and was set to start my new career in October.

Things were good. I was married to the love of my life, my best friend, my soul mate. Someone I have known since high school. We had been together for 16 years. We had an endless supply of inside jokes that only we thought were funny.

But then one evening after the girls had gone to bed and my husband and I were sitting on the couch watching the 2004 Olympics – the men’s diving competition to be exact – the light of my life very calmly turned to me and said, “I am having an affair.”

ta-da.

I am sure it would not be possible to capture the surreality of that moment in words. I can, however, rememember quite distinctly that my first, knee jerk response was, “why is he telling me this now?” As if the most important point to all of this was the lack of a proper segue. For some reason, I needed to know how his statement had anything to do with this particular summer event. Why did he want to forever taint men’s competitive diving with this, I ask?

Then I did something way more predictable (although perhaps equally lacking in logical transition). I ran to the bathroom and threw up. I vomited beyond the point of the action having any usefulness. I threw up (or more accurately, dry heaved) for what seemed like at least a solid 24 hours but which more realistically probably lasted about 15 or 20 minutes. At some point during my self-induced, gastronomical exorcism, my husband, all wrapped up in his own pain, peeked into the bathroom and looked sadly at me sitting on the floor with my head resting on the toilet. “Are you okay?” he asked, furrowing his brow in a perfect little frown to show he really, really cared.

Seriously? Am I okay?! That is all you can come up with? I looked at him blankly and slowly lifted my head as if to respond. And then I turned to wretch up the rest of my stomach lining.

With his revelation, my world as I knew it came to an end. A second before he opened his mouth and uttered those words, I was as naive as they come. I believed in storybook romances and marriages that lasted forever and fidelity and trust and love. I believed, for instance, my husband when he said he didn’t go to strip clubs and he liked it better when girls didn’t wear makeup. Mostly, I believed in love. Total, full-on, give it all up for one person for the rest of your life love. It has taken me more than three years to come to terms with it all and I guess in some ways I will never truly come to terms with it all but I am at least now in a place where I can look at things more objectively and begin to look forward instead of backward.

With all the shit and all the the dark, scary moments of these last three years came moments that have somehow transcended the ugliness. Happy moments, awe-inspiring moments, and moments of startling, self-revelation. And, most importantly, the funny shit moments because it is the funny shit moments that make it worthwhile.

So I begin this blog at the beginning of what I consider my coming of age. The point in my life when I became aware that there is indeed a dark side of the moon.

There is a great quote from the movie Moonstruck (can you tell I am into movies?) where Ronny Cammerari says to Loretta Castorini: “Loretta, I love you. Not like they told you love is, and I didn’t know this either, but love don’t make things nice – it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren’t here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die. The storybooks are bullshit.”

I like that. The storybooks are bullshit.

But in good way.

Click to An affair by any other name: part deux here.

An affair by any other name . . .my divorce story part deux

Funny that the word “affair” sounds so much better than it is. It sounds festive. Happy. Pretty and frivolous. Perhaps it is for the people in it. I remember my mind turning over the scant details I knew about my husband’s “affair” over and over in my mind. What hurt me the most was thinking about how much planning it took. So much planning. The big lie built on a mountain of tiny little lies told over days and days. Where did they meet? When did they meet? What did he tell me about where he had been? I have a hard time lying to a friend to get out of a dinner party. I cannot imagine how you lie at that level. That is the big leagues of deceit.

After the revelation, my husband wanted so badly for me to tell him: “Hey, these things happen. You fucked up. I forgive you because you look like you are really sad about this.” If only it were that easy.

I did not do what in retrospect I should have done the moment he told me about his affair. I should have thrown his ass out of the house. I should have dramatically thrown all of his clothes in the front yard. I should have taken a bat to the windows of his BMW. I should have torched something. But I have never been one to do anything impetuous. I am CAUTIOUS. I don’t make split decisions. By nature I get quiet and go inward when something is more than I can handle. I do not flail. At least not on the outside.

So, after he told me about his affair and after I wretched out most of my insides, I went to bed. Well, technically. I got in bed and laid there totally still. I listened to my dog breathing as he slept on the floor next to my side of the bed. He had run after me into the bathroom and had been right next to me ever since. Like all dogs, he sensed I was in trouble and he was not about to leave my side. Unlike my husband.

At one point my husband – who I had not seen since I retreated to the bathroom – peeked his head in the bedroom and asked me if I wanted him to leave. I told him I didn’t care what he did but that he wasn’t coming in here. I guess he slept on the couch that night. I remember that being a very long night.

My body was completely still but my mind has never been so frantic. Churning so fast I could not fully process any of the thoughts racing through my brain. I was in reverse, living through my entire marriage – trying to find the point of no return. When did we jump off the tracks? When did he meet her? When did this start? Were there clues? But I was also in fast forward – wondering what I would do if I he left. Could I do this all by myself? Could I support myself? Could I be a single mom? When was garbage day? How would we tell the girls.? Oh God, how would we tell the girls?

The next morning I heard my husband and my daughters getting ready for school. I heard him tell them that I wasn’t feeling good. They came in and gave me a kiss before they left for school. I started crying when I heard the front door shut. And I could not stop. I cried that big ugly snotty wailing crying. After awhile I got out of bed to get some kleenex and started roaming the house while I cried. I picked up photos in the living room and cried. I sat on the beds in my daughters’ rooms and cried. I sat in the middle of my closet and cried. At some point I got back in bed. I pulled the covers up to my chin.

My husband came home and made me lunch and brought it to me. He sat on the side of the bed. Who is she, I asked. He told me she was the girl who worked the front desk at the gym where we both worked out. I had a vague recollection of her. Long black hair. That is all I could conjure up. I was getting nauseous again. How old is she? 26. Ten years younger than me, I thought. How so fucking stereotypical, I thought. How Lifetime, made-for-tv movie.

Why, I asked. I don’t know, he said lamely. (To be fair, three years later and thousands of hours pondering this question I still don’t think there is a pat answer to that one.) What do you want to do? I asked. I don’t know. He said. What do you want to do, he asked.

I want to sleep. I want to eat. I want to be able to get out of bed. I want to stop crying. I want you to stop the internal bleeding. I want to erase the last 24 hours from my life and start over. I want you to take it back. I want you to leave. I want you to stay. I want to throw things at you. I want you to hold me and say you love me and will never leave me. I want the Earth to open up and swallow me whole. No, I want it to swallow you whole.