More deep thoughts on the “wasted” fifteen years. I’m working on it y’all, thank you. Still, the thing I hold on to is that I gave him my body’s best years. I mentioned elsewhere that I am the equivalent of a first gen Acura NSX and I was only rarely taken out for groceries. The rest of the time I was left alone in the garage with my battery dying. But taking everything into consideration, I’ve put some thought into how these years were actually spent and come to some surprising conclusions. This will help me reshape this chunk of time into something else I can be grateful for.
I married two people who weren’t there. The first one was deployed half of the time. Second one was not committed to being someone else’s true partner. When you are in a relationship where both partners enjoy giving equally in every way you will not feel alone. It’s when that equation gets off balance that a disconnect can happen. Sure sometimes one partner may have to carry the other for awhile when one is going through a tough time but I believe a healthy relationship pulls towards equilibrium.
A woman named Robin Clark on Instagram summarized the demise of my relationship in a nutshell. Taking it all in, a voice inside screamed, “YES THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED!” This is the reason I was lonely in my marriage! It also confirmed what the good therapist told me in my first of three visits with her; I was codependent. Disclaimer: post may be a little over-dramatized.
To clarify the above, this refers to emotional labor. This exhausted me and when he started pulling away even more towards the end, years of resentment shot to the surface. People. I can’t express this enough. Regular check-ins. Weekly. Start now. Make sure each of your needs are being met AND if you don’t feel like you can even ask for your needs to be met then it’s time to move on. This is the hard truth and you’re going to want to deny it because it is SO HARD to let go of the other things that marriage can provide like comfort, security, stability, a home etc. Please trust me; put yourself first and move on.
But lonely and alone are two very different things. Only child. Gen X. I am accustomed to being alone and actually quite like it as an introvert. (Before you argue with me about me being an introvert you must understand the difference between them. Put simply, an introvert is drained by social activity whereas an extrovert is energized by it.) I am energized by being alone and enjoy solitary activities like art making, playing video games, and working on my car. That’s kinda where I am now. It took about a month after I was told that I was getting divorced for me to start waking up feeling relieved. I also noticed that I was no longer lonely, I was alone.
But here is what I was thinking, to get back to my thoughts from the first paragraph. I danced alone. I did belly dance, house, popping, breaking, a little krump and hip hop. I still dabble from time to time. I traveled alone. My previous blogs, “Around the World in 80 Days,” “Sue Anne You’ve got Some Spaining to Do,” and “Furaido Chicken Crossing” tell of my travel adventures in several different countries. Roughly eight months alone doing that. I took up autocrossing alone but I am so not alone in this sport. I have an adopted family within each car club helping me make unforgettable connections and memories. I learned to work on and wrap cars alone. Oh, also I wrote a book alone. It was long ago. Took me two years and I never published it. Too much work for what it is. And the last big thing I can think of is that I floated this house alone for a year while he attended an art residency in another state. Once again I float my house alone.
Y’all. This helped a lot. I think next I should go through my photos again to remind me of activities I missed. Even the small things. The memories I’ve made by myself. My life has been pretty solitary and quite pleasant when I shift the perspective. Thank you for nudging me in this direction.
I love, love, love you all so much, ~Sue Anne
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