Things Are Starting to Make Sense

A year after the ex and I got married he joined the Army. His MOS was a technical one... applicants had to have high scores to be considered and his training took a year to complete. Our first duty station was Fort Hood Texas. All of the men he worked with were very intelligent guys. The company was pretty tight and we all would often spend time together. Sometimes it would be dinner out, sometimes hanging out at the lake, sometimes a night on the town - I seemed to get along with the wives just fine. We had a support system going because we were often left alone while the guys were out in the field or on some mission (and then of course there was the Gulf War). But I usually ended up talking to the men a lot. It was never a super flirty type situation (at least I didn't think). Wives were never pissed off and the ex never seemed to be upset ... in fact he was proud. He once said he liked the fact I got along well with the men and that the men all liked talking to me. He explained that they all liked talking to me because I was intelligent and creative. I could keep up with them, engage in a conversation about any topic and hold my own.

On days I packed ex's lunch I would put it in a brown paper sack. One day something possessed me and I decorated the bag. I used markers to draw pictures, add silly quotes, and I include some jokes. I was a stay at home mom, so hey, I had the time. I was a regular Martha Stewart. Well, ex loved it. So I continued to do it. Those goofy bags became a hit. Ex would go to work and when lunch came around the guys would start in... "what's on the bag today!" I was obviously a source of pride to him.

At some point in our marriage that changed. I suppose it was a gradual thing. He left the Army when his contract was up... he knew he would have an overseas unaccompanied tour, most likely Korea for two years, and he didn't want to miss any more time with us. He didn't want to miss anymore time with his son, he wanted to be a husband and father that was involved and THERE. So we moved. We came back home, he found a job with people he liked. Things were going well, we bought a house, we had our daughter. He took a different job, he was traveling a lot. He stopped taking me along on social situations. Somewhere along the way I stopped being a source of pride to him. The things he once appreciated in me, my intelligence and creativity, became embarrassments. And so at some point I started looking at those things as negatives as well. I stopped nurturing them. I closed them up, hid them away, neglected them - my screwed up attempt at conforming or reinventing myself in a more palatable likeness - anything to find a way to make me acceptable to him again.

Now that I have had this "awakening" of sorts I have started to rediscover those things about me that are innately who I am... those things I tried to deny and ignore. This blog has become one outlet for me in that rediscovery. And the more I think about these things, the more I start to honestly look at where I have been, where I am now - the more things start to make sense to me. Ex wasn't a stupid man. I use the past tense, was, because now I think he has dumbed himself down... I think he has adopted an attitude that he is obtuse and unrefined in an attempt to justify to himself his behavior and choices. When he was in the Army being in that selective MOS was an honor to him, being around other smart men was an honor, and having a wife that was "exceptional" was an honor too. All of it was a marker of sorts... proof that he was of value. I think though, as he became sick, as the bipolar disorder started to manifest itself, his perceptions changed. He was surrounded by shallow people engaging in shallow activities; it fed his mania and excused his depression. It became proof he was worthless and because I had substance I didn't fit - I stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb. I was a reminder of who he once was... so he began to blame me, point to me as the problem, and I bought it.

I abdicated myself, my true self, to the idea of the marriage. I lost me in a futile attempt to save something that couldn't be saved because - in truth - marriage isn't about losing yourself - and when it crosses that line, when it becomes about that, the soul of the marriage is gone. Whenever we are in a relationship with someone it always requires a willingness to compromise. There are even times that love necessitates a sacrifice or two (or three or four...). But love - true, real, honest to goodness love - never requires us to be someone we aren't. Part of learning to love myself again has been accepting that and nurturing those inherent things that make me - me... those things that I had neglected all those years. It is all starting to slowly make sense, I just wonder why it took me so long to realize it.