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Before I launch into what's currently on my mind, I'll give you a very brief tour of my romantic life:
I met my first husband when I was in the third grade. We went to different schools, but were both in the school district's gifted program, so we ran into each other through the years at district-wide 'gifted events' (science fairs, field trips) and competed against each other in Math Bowls every year. That said, I didn't really know him until we went to high school together. A very rapid synopsis goes like this: we married insanely young (we were 16. Seriously), had four beautiful children, beat the odds and were still happily married when he had a sudden and unexpected brain hemorrhage. We had been married for ten and a half years when he died. Our youngest child wasn't quite a toddler.
I remarried much, much too quickly and before I had fully grieved Ron's death. Joe (not a very original fake name, eh?) was absolutely nothing like Ron and I was glad--marrying someone too similar would feel like I was trying to replace him. In retrospect, this is silly. If you find all these fabulous traits that you like and have a proven compatibility with, why would you decide it's best to marry someone without them?!
A side note: All of that aside, I loved Joe. When we decided to have a baby, we both believed we'd be married forever. I know that despite my best efforts, our beautiful daughter may someday find this blog and read this post. If she does, I want her to know that she was conceived by two people who loved each other and wanted her very much.
Despite that love, our incompatibility became more and more obvious as time went on. By the time he asked for a divorce, we were tainted by the weariness that came with hanging in too long and the pained effort of trying to get along with each other every single day. To be sure, we had some really great times. But we were (and remain) a portrait of extremes. Our good times were really good, but--and I think he'd agree with this--when he's mad, he's very very mad. And when he's very very mad he's also very, very frightening even if for no other reason than his size and his verbal lashings.
To this day, what's more intimidating than his size are the extremes of his words. I remember a PSA spot that used to show up on daytime tv. The tagline was "words can hit harder than a fist." I can attest to that, although now that we've been divorced for years, they don't usually bother me as much anymore. The words that get to me now are those that describe me as the exact opposite of who I am. People say I shouldn't let it get to me, because I know who I am and my friends have no doubt about who I am. And maybe they shouldn't bother me but they do, because if he believes what he says when he's angry, he never knew me at all. It's eerie to think I went to bed every night, had a child, and tried to create a life with someone to whom I was a stranger. Because I told this man my most intimate secrets, protected insecurities, and deepest fears, he can cut me to the core in five words or less. He doesn't consider these intimacies 'protected' when he's angry, so he doesn't have a problem using them to hurt me when he’s angry.
Our marital problems were not all his fault, and my therapist has made a good deal of money on my role in our falling-apart. I've analyzed and dissected my own character flaws to the nth degree, because I never thought I'd be divorced and wanted very much to make sure I never made the same mistakes in another relationship. I wish I could redo a lot of things, but I believe our basic problem was that we are simply fundamentally incompatible. Even if we had a rewind button, we'd fail again.
He has plenty of good traits, but his worst one--and the one that still affects me and those around him--is black or white thinking. When he's angry with someone, he believes that person is deliberately doing things to him, can't see any good in the person, and forgets all he really knows about him or her to focus, magnify, and extend that person's bad traits. Most of the time, he'll eventually calm down and apologize for what he said, but too often, the damage is done.
I do nearly the opposite. When anger is eating at me, I very specifically tell myself that whatever happened probably didn't happen with the specific goal of hurting me. It's like this: there's no point in getting mad at my child for throwing a ball through the kitchen window while playing out back. The kid would really rather it not have happened and it wasn't done with malice. When I'm really angry with someone I love, I often journal and list everything I like about the person. It's not selfless--I hate conflict and dislike my own discontent when I'm angry. My thinking is that the person will probably remain in my life. I love them after all, so I tend not to lose track of people and keep them around for a very long time. Many of my good friends I've known since elementary school. There are only two people with whom I used to be friends until we had a 'falling out.' One of those fallings-out was because she didn't like my (now ex) husband, and we've since reconnected.
Anyhow, if I want to get over the anger quickly, it's good to remember why I love these people. In theory, this is a great idea and it works. But being too eager and willing to forgive is not always a good trait. Taken too far and done too many times, it can turn you into a doormat. Forgiving the kid who threw the ball through the window is all well and good, but if they've done it five times and each time you just repair it, say "that's okay Johnny, it was an accident", and buy them a new ball, you can be pretty sure it's going to happen a sixth. Eventually, you need to put up barriers or forbid Johnny from playing ball in the back yard!
All of that preliminary stuff was leading up to something, but I typed more than I meant to and I can't even remember exactly where I was going with this. Broadly, I was writing about love. Relationships. Ex wives. New lives. It doesn't really matter now anyway, because I'm out of time. Even if I remembered right now, my lunch break is over and I have to get back to work.
It'll come to me and I'll write more, I'm sure. So consider this, my unedited Part I, a cliffhanger.
For now..back to work..
I met my first husband when I was in the third grade. We went to different schools, but were both in the school district's gifted program, so we ran into each other through the years at district-wide 'gifted events' (science fairs, field trips) and competed against each other in Math Bowls every year. That said, I didn't really know him until we went to high school together. A very rapid synopsis goes like this: we married insanely young (we were 16. Seriously), had four beautiful children, beat the odds and were still happily married when he had a sudden and unexpected brain hemorrhage. We had been married for ten and a half years when he died. Our youngest child wasn't quite a toddler.
I remarried much, much too quickly and before I had fully grieved Ron's death. Joe (not a very original fake name, eh?) was absolutely nothing like Ron and I was glad--marrying someone too similar would feel like I was trying to replace him. In retrospect, this is silly. If you find all these fabulous traits that you like and have a proven compatibility with, why would you decide it's best to marry someone without them?!
A side note: All of that aside, I loved Joe. When we decided to have a baby, we both believed we'd be married forever. I know that despite my best efforts, our beautiful daughter may someday find this blog and read this post. If she does, I want her to know that she was conceived by two people who loved each other and wanted her very much.
Despite that love, our incompatibility became more and more obvious as time went on. By the time he asked for a divorce, we were tainted by the weariness that came with hanging in too long and the pained effort of trying to get along with each other every single day. To be sure, we had some really great times. But we were (and remain) a portrait of extremes. Our good times were really good, but--and I think he'd agree with this--when he's mad, he's very very mad. And when he's very very mad he's also very, very frightening even if for no other reason than his size and his verbal lashings.
To this day, what's more intimidating than his size are the extremes of his words. I remember a PSA spot that used to show up on daytime tv. The tagline was "words can hit harder than a fist." I can attest to that, although now that we've been divorced for years, they don't usually bother me as much anymore. The words that get to me now are those that describe me as the exact opposite of who I am. People say I shouldn't let it get to me, because I know who I am and my friends have no doubt about who I am. And maybe they shouldn't bother me but they do, because if he believes what he says when he's angry, he never knew me at all. It's eerie to think I went to bed every night, had a child, and tried to create a life with someone to whom I was a stranger. Because I told this man my most intimate secrets, protected insecurities, and deepest fears, he can cut me to the core in five words or less. He doesn't consider these intimacies 'protected' when he's angry, so he doesn't have a problem using them to hurt me when he’s angry.
Our marital problems were not all his fault, and my therapist has made a good deal of money on my role in our falling-apart. I've analyzed and dissected my own character flaws to the nth degree, because I never thought I'd be divorced and wanted very much to make sure I never made the same mistakes in another relationship. I wish I could redo a lot of things, but I believe our basic problem was that we are simply fundamentally incompatible. Even if we had a rewind button, we'd fail again.
He has plenty of good traits, but his worst one--and the one that still affects me and those around him--is black or white thinking. When he's angry with someone, he believes that person is deliberately doing things to him, can't see any good in the person, and forgets all he really knows about him or her to focus, magnify, and extend that person's bad traits. Most of the time, he'll eventually calm down and apologize for what he said, but too often, the damage is done.
I do nearly the opposite. When anger is eating at me, I very specifically tell myself that whatever happened probably didn't happen with the specific goal of hurting me. It's like this: there's no point in getting mad at my child for throwing a ball through the kitchen window while playing out back. The kid would really rather it not have happened and it wasn't done with malice. When I'm really angry with someone I love, I often journal and list everything I like about the person. It's not selfless--I hate conflict and dislike my own discontent when I'm angry. My thinking is that the person will probably remain in my life. I love them after all, so I tend not to lose track of people and keep them around for a very long time. Many of my good friends I've known since elementary school. There are only two people with whom I used to be friends until we had a 'falling out.' One of those fallings-out was because she didn't like my (now ex) husband, and we've since reconnected.
Anyhow, if I want to get over the anger quickly, it's good to remember why I love these people. In theory, this is a great idea and it works. But being too eager and willing to forgive is not always a good trait. Taken too far and done too many times, it can turn you into a doormat. Forgiving the kid who threw the ball through the window is all well and good, but if they've done it five times and each time you just repair it, say "that's okay Johnny, it was an accident", and buy them a new ball, you can be pretty sure it's going to happen a sixth. Eventually, you need to put up barriers or forbid Johnny from playing ball in the back yard!
All of that preliminary stuff was leading up to something, but I typed more than I meant to and I can't even remember exactly where I was going with this. Broadly, I was writing about love. Relationships. Ex wives. New lives. It doesn't really matter now anyway, because I'm out of time. Even if I remembered right now, my lunch break is over and I have to get back to work.
It'll come to me and I'll write more, I'm sure. So consider this, my unedited Part I, a cliffhanger.
For now..back to work..