The Unintended Mess

We talked and agreed to try to work things out. The year of working things out just made more of a mess. Every attempt to reconnect just left me feeling more disappointed and overlooked. I had started my weight loss journey at 354 lbs, and I had finally reached onederland. My gynecologist finally agreed to the hysterectomy I had asked for after Olivia was born. Not just to not have more kids, but because of hormone disorders and endometriosis. I was fed up with the added pain. I tried to prepare my family for the recovery period. I warned them of all the limitations, yet three days after surgery, my floors were covered in garbage and toys and food. After asking countless times for help cleaning it, I started very carefully cleaning. Nothing heavy, no lifting, and then in a moment of stupidity, I bent down not thinking and picked up a piece of cardboard. I tore a stitch and hit that floor so fast I don’t know how I didn't do more damage. I screamed and screamed for help... no one heard me.

I laid on that floor for what felt like forever. Trying to think of a way to wake them up, and then I saw it just out of reach. My daughter's roller skate. I pulled myself across the floor just enough to grab it and start banging it as loud as I could. Finally, my dog came running. Rebel, my sweet little protector, ran upstairs and didn't stop until My Exhusband woke up out of his drunken stupor.

When he finally came and picked me up off that floor, I wasn't met with "Are you okay?" or "What happened?" He knew. I was told, "Why the fuck couldn't you just leave it on the floor?" and I thought silently to myself because you can’t be enough of a man to handle it. That's when I realized I was stuck in a marriage where we hated each other.

The thing with me, though, is I was born to never give up. Things were cold at home, and I was at the point where I woke up every morning dreading being alive, but I stayed and I tried to find the love I had for him at one point. During this time, an old friend resurfaced, someone I cared deeply about as a teenager, and he was not doing well. I told Mike about him. He and I had been texting about family trauma he had gone through. Like I said, he was a mess, and I'm not going to say he didn't say things he shouldn't have, but until the day Mike left me, I never reciprocated. I would tell him it was inappropriate and stop talking. He'd apologize when he was sober, and we would move on. This was all happening around July, and when the 19th came around, I spent that birthday crying in my porch swing, devastated and completely alone. My kids were in Sultan. Mike and I were supposed to do something together for my birthday, but my own anxiety about him disappointing me again had me on edge.

I woke up and had my morning salt soak so I could move, but when I went to get out, there were no towels. I asked him to bring me one and got an attitude, and I’m not sure why I threw a fit like a toddler. We had been awake for hours, and he hadn't even acknowledged my birthday. Not a word, not a gift. Not a mention of the plans he was supposed to make. Turns out he didn't make any. His plan was to let me do whatever I wanted, and he'd buy me something I liked… so once again, unless I did it, nothing was happening. I told him to forget it and to go fuck himself. That going forward, I was going to match effort with effort because

I was tired of doing the most and never being considered.

We talked later that day and the next day we tried to have a redo. We were supposed to go hiking and tour around Manitoulin; he had never been, and I hadn't been since I was a kid. While we were there, I saw a necklace and pointed to it and said, "Oh, that's beautiful," and don't get me wrong, it was a beautiful necklace, but a giant pendant is not something I would have wore. I understood that it was supposed to be a nice gesture, but honestly, it felt half-assed. We were married for almost six years, and you're going to buy me a random necklace I would never wear that I randomly pointed out in a shop.

Had this just been a gesture of "you liked it, and I bought it," I would have been so grateful, and I was grateful that he at least heard me say it was beautiful. Here's the thing, though, we were celebrating my birthday a day late. He hadn't bought me a birthday present, so here we were outside this store, and he gave me this mesh bag, and I was immediately grateful he was trying to make up for it. Then I pulled it out of the bag, and it wasn't even the necklace I pointed out. It was one he preferred the color of. I pointed out a beautiful blue-grey like my eyes, and he bought me a deep purple one. This wasn't a mistake; they were on completely different ends of the display. His reasoning: purple looks better. The reality is purple was his favorite color, and yes, I love purple, but a gift is not supposed to be for your preferences; it’s supposed to be for theirs.

I think in that moment I realized I was never going to be someone he cared enough about to put effort into. A 40+ year old man should have had a gift pre-bought for his wife, should have put thought into it, should have made her a priority on the one day a year she should be. Here's the thing I learned from that marriage: when someone repeatedly shows you that your only value to them is cleaning up their mess, it’s time to go.

I didn’t, though. In the back of my mind, I made a commitment. I said for better or worse, and yeah, it was getting worse, but I again excused the behavior because he was in pain. The marriage ended a week later, seven years to the day he proposed. I had asked Mike to check my phone, and when he saw the face lock, he accused me of cheating on him.

The Hypocrisy that ended it all.

Here this man was accusing me of cheating after he had destroyed any intimacy we could have had two weeks into our marriage. Now don’t get me wrong, I'm not innocent; it was an emotional affair. I will never deny that, but what I do hold against him is that when he was accused, he was given the benefit of the doubt, a chance to explain himself, a chance to discuss things. My guard going up was based on the lies I sensed in that conversation. I explained the face lock; I offered to let him read my conversations with Derek. As much as emotionally I knew I was attracted to the way Derek spoke and saw me, I refused to act on any of it, and I had no fear in him reading my conversation.

When he shut down that night, told me I was useless, worthless, and the biggest mistake of his life, I actually laughed. I'm not sure if I finally snapped, but I walked to the fridge, grabbed his six-pack of beer, and headed to the sink. He caught on about three beers and lost it. Mike never hit me; let's be clear on this, but that night he pushed me into the fridge over a can of beer, and I saw instantly on his face how broken he was. I couldn't save him, and he wouldn't save himself. We lived together in hell after that night for three months, and now, even a year later, I still can't afford to divorce him. Continue Owls Story