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Anybody remember back in November, when I announced I was getting married?

I bet you can guess what this blog is about…oh no! you may cry. Or you may laugh, given that all my sarcastic predictions of “looking for my next ex-husband” have indeed come to pass–only seven months after our marriage.

I thought about not mentioning it here–I mean, who really wants to read about my personal life, especially when it’s a trainwreck..? But then, I thought, eventually everybody IS going to know and this will totally spare me having to repeat it multiple times to multiple people–whoever doesn’t read this, if in future they ask me Hey, aren’t you married..? I can just hand ‘em the url and move on with my life.

I’ve always found writing to be therapeutic–I am trying to start up a journal in the hopes that it would help me work my way back towards what’s good in life, but it wasn’t really helping like I’d hoped it would. What I needed, as it turned out, was somebody real to care. But before I get to that, here’s the synopsis of what occurred, so nobody ever has to ask me and make me feel obligated to choke it out ever again–try not to sneer at me TOO much! I swear to God I’m doing enough of that my ownself, I got it covered. In short: he decided that he’d rather be with his ex-wife after she showed up on our doorstep and subsequently made that offer–loves her more than me, sadly for me–and also decided that the person he had been being for me wasn’t who he really was. Given that the person he had been being for me was the one I loved, the fact that we are getting divorced isn’t what’s sad for me–it’s actually a pretty big relief. What’s sad for me is that even if the person he was being for me wasn’t real, my love and commitment to that person was. People’s feelings change–what was it that Woody Allen said? “The heart wants what it wants.” I don’t hate him for deciding he wanted somebody else more than he wanted me. And if he keeps his promises of remaining friendly, accessible and accommodating during the divorce proceedings and afterwards and keeps contributing to the mortgage payments for the specified time frame in our separation agreement, then I don’t think I’ll really have severe and permanent problems with him.

I just gotta get past this hollow feeling in my tummy that crops up every twenty minutes or so. And of course feeling like the World’s Biggest Marital Loser Idiot Dumbass.

I do promise and swear to keep this personal posting to a minimum! This blog is not going to turn into PunkAssTinyLittleDivorceViolinBlog. (I bet all my fellow PunkAssBloggers are extremely relieved to hear that.)*

But back to what I needed was somebody to really care about me…I let myself get completely isolated in my marriage, to the point where I really have lost all of my local friendships! All I’ve really got now are the few I maintain through email correspondence with friends who have moved to other states (a shout-out to Lisa and Karen–you are wonderful women and I miss ever getting to see you in person!) As I may have mentioned in the past, I haven’t had any real family relations in years. So I found myself, when my divorce lawyer reminded me that I would need a witness, totally alone.

It was shocking. I’ve never been totally alone, without friends or family. But I could think of absolutely nobody I could call upon in my time of need…not one single, solitary person (other than Lisa and Karen, who live hundreds of miles away and therefore can’t come hang with me tomorrow into the foreseeable future–jobs, their own families and friends, you know..?). All I had left was my kids…and I had let this happen to myself. I was mighty, mighty low.

Then my divorce lawyer suggested my ex-husband–my first ex-husband, my kids’ dad. Well, I thought cautiously, we do have a good relationship now and have for quite a while…maybe he’d be willing..? I was of course hideously ashamed to ask, for multiple reasons. But I lacked choices. I picked up the phone, and I called him.

And was completely blown away. He was incredibly kind, caring and supportive. He and his current wife (who is also a wonderful person, btw) agreed to let J (that’s my first ex-spouse) be my witness, but it’s a lot more than that–he didn’t get rid of me as soon as he’d agreed. He actually stayed on the line a bit to talk to me–and talk to me in a way that showed that he didn’t think I was a stupid, worthless, p-l-a-y-e-d individual that had deserved everything that had happened to her. I mean, he could have been a complete ass, or he could have just been tolerant–he wasn’t. He took the time to show me that I’m not completely alone after all–that somebody does still care about me (not to give anybody the wrong impression–he’s totally into his current wife and new daughter, absolutely no question about that!! but he doesn’t want me to hurt, thinks I deserve better and is willing to go out of his way to give me a helping hand). Hey, that last part–isn’t that what the definition of a friend is? Apparently I do still have one left that lives close by me.

When I blogged about getting married back in November, I talked a lot about the reasons my marriages prior to this one had failed. (This one failed for a whole set of entirely different reasons I had never encountered before–never let anyone say I make the exact same mistake twice.) I didn’t say anything about the good things in our marriage, my marriage to my first husband (other than I’ve said more than once what a great father he is, which is still and always true). I will say now that he is a genuinely good person–he’s made mistakes, unpretty ones, in the past of course, but God knows I’m not gonna start throwing stones at making mistakes now, even if some of those mistakes were with me. But talk about coming through for a person you really don’t owe anything to at this point in your lives–just, wow.

Talking to J really helped, and that’s probably one of the two biggest reasons I’m writing this blog post–to thank him as loudly and as publicly as possible for being so good to me when he really didn’t have to be. The other reason is because, well, this is what has happened to me being married, and me dancing around it trying to avoid talking about it is going to result in the whole thing coming out over time in bits and dribbles that will end up being a lot more painful AND embarrassing than if I just tell you all now, in its entirety.

And yes, I am done joking about future ex-husbands. It turned out to not be very funny after all, and when a joke’s not funny at all? It should be dropped. So I am.

Chat with yalls later.

*But there will probably be periodic updates, as I do find writing therapeutic as I said.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 25th, 2009 at 5:47 pm and is filed under Family, Relationships, Wedding-big mistake or bad idea?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.