Getting a Clue

Anyone who has followed my blog will know that I have maintained a marriage with a man who, for the most part, was not involved actively as a father, and even less so as a husband. Devoted was not a word I used to describe our relationship.

So, after thirteen years of marriage, fourteen years of being together, I had finally suffered enough insults and emotional/psychological, and to a degree physical, abuse that filing for divorce was inevitable.

The question is, why did it take me so long, and how can I keep from feeling stupid as hell for believing that someone like him would change, and that I would be the one to change him?

I consider myself to be a logical and rational human being, with a good head on my shoulders and down-to-earth expectations from life. How could I fall prey to the biggest relationship blunder in the world? Why did no one (whose opinion I trusted) tell me I needed to get out?

I can only hope not to repeat my mistakes and, better yet, show my sons how not to repeat them when they get older.

Mistake #1: Believing that a “Happy Home” requires two parents

I grew up in a single-parent household. My parents had not been together since I was six, and my dad had a peripheral role in my life, at most, some weekends and occasional holidays. Because my relationship with my mother was so contentious (still is) and not one of mutual respect, I was determined to prove the world wrong and do better than her. When I got married, I was going to show her, and the bastard that I was unfortunately married to, that I WASN’T going to turn into my mother by ending up a single parent.

I didn’t have anything to prove to anyone. I have since learned that a happy home is what you make of it. And that can be with only one parent present. Having two guarantees nothing if the two aren’t working together.

Mistake #2: Talking to my mother about my marital concerns

I don’t trust her opinion. So when my Mother tried to point out to me (in the least effective way possible–by arguing with me about it) that I should get out if I was so unhappy. If things weren’t going so well…Aargh! Why does she have to be that way? As a result, I stubbornly stuck to my guns and refused to budge, and berated her for trying to break up my happy home. What a fool I was back then.

However, her point of view and opinion were suspect. She would waver back and forth between telling me I needed to be a better wife, and that I was lucky to be married, and then to the other extreme, that he was a terrible husband and I needed to get out. So I wasn’t going to listen to her anyway, as it was no better than a coin toss. That she might have been correct 50% of the time, and who knew when that might have been?!

So, the lesson learned from that nonsense is that a happy home is a myth, and a single parent is no worse off than the two parents making home a living hell.

The mistakes didn’t stop there. [Mistake #3 was the one that really broke me.]