This isn’t an easy topic for me.  But I figured if it’s tough for me then it’s probably tough for a lot of other poeple, too, and it might do us all a little good to read that we’re not alone in our struggles.

I met my husband in 1987, on a blind date, in a bar in Burlington, Vermont.  I fell in love with him that night and he felt the same.  I was living in Boston, MA at the time and working at Logan airport for USAirways.  He was working for the same company at the Burlington airport.

We met.

We fell in love.

We got engaged within 6 months of meeting.

We were married just 13 months after our first blind date, in February of 1988.

I wish this story were prettier, and had a happy ending, but the reality is: it’s not pretty or anything resembling a fairy tale. 

I’m sure that no one on Earth could have talked me out of marrying my ex-husband and I’d never want to go back in time and change a thing.  At 22 years old I was sure he was the only man for me and nothing would have swayed me back then.  We were married for 5 years before we had children and within 2 years we had two new babies, 2 vehicles and a house in the northern suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts.

If you’re wondering what happened, I don’t have any easy, cookie-cutter answers.  I don’t point a finger at him, and I don’t believe it was all my fault either.  What I think happened looks more like; two people, going through the motions of being married and getting too comfortable and maybe even a little neglectful (at least I know that was part of my thing) and very subtly at first, our paths started to stray away from one another and before we could do anything about it — we weren’t invested in the work necessary it would take to repair what needed to be repaired.

Before we knew it, we were so different, we barely recognized one another.  There was some fighting, but not like I’ve heard about; I mean there’s no way to end 15 years together without some really ugly bruises but I think we did the best we could to not totally destroy one another.  I’ve heard horror stories and I’m thankful to my ex-husband for being able to resist the temptation to really hurl the nasty stuff at me and vice versa.

He moved out of our house in February of 2003 and a year and a few months later we were divorced.

I’m writing all of this because I want it to be clear that what I’m going to say is heard in context.  I’ve never regretted the decision to seek a divorce.  By the time he moved out, we really needed the space between us and as much as I wished we could have found some way to work things out, I believe I did everything in my ability to try to mend our wounds but it just didn’t work.

Since the day he stood with me in the driveway of our house and said he thought it was time we moved on until today I have never had much sadness about the fact that things ended.  Until that is, last Wednesday night; February 13th, 2008.

It would have been our 20th wedding anniversary and I couldn’t do a thing to get out of my own way that day.  I felt deep sadness and it was a shock to me because it’s the very first time I’d felt anything remotely like it in five years. 

But I spent the entire day looking at the clock and thinking to myself, “Well, 20 years ago today, at this time, we were doing xxx.”  I mean every single memory that is still in my head from that day was put in my line of vision and I sat with each and every one.  From getting up in the early morning and talking with Louise, my bestfriend who introduced us, to driving to the church where our wedding would be later that day and meeting with the minister in the back of the church in a tiny chapel where he gave us an opportunity to ask for forgiveness of any sins we made need forgiving for. 

I guess the welling of emotions was a surpise to me but I’m glad that I didn’t try to make the feelings go away.  I just let them be.  They were sad and I have to admit that I had quite a few tears that I shed that day too, but that was all I needed to do to get to the other side of the feelings.  I was crippled with pain, I didn’t feel helpless or hopeless, I just felt sad for a day and that helped me realize that my mother, who would always say, “If you’re feeling down, just hang in there for another day, and it’ll be better,”  really knew what she was talking about!  Thanks, Mum.