In a very small ceremony in Toronto's Civic Hall, I married the man who completed me. Together, we embarked on a three year journey characterized by security, comfort and love. We had our moments and arguments, but we enjoyed a really good marriage. The overwhelming feeling I remember experiencing in those days is safety.
People are often surprised when I tell them I'm divorced. In my head, I desperately tell myself this is because I look far too young to have been through this particular mill, or because I'm simply so amazingly wonderful that no-one could possibly imagine anyone wanting to divorce moi. I tell myself these things to stave off the fear that they're astounded that anyone would be daft enough to marry me in the first place. And of course, the next natural question for them to ask is "What happened?!"
I find it hard to know how to pitch my answer. Its pretty much impossible to hit the right tone in an everyday conversation. I have no idea if its even possible to convey-within a few sentences of a polite conversation- what it feels like to have your entire world shattered, being forced to give up all your hopes and dreams and worldview in the process, and yet also how you are utterly amazed at yourself for getting through it all relatively unscathed. At least I can now just give them this link and tell them to get back to me in twenty minutes
I usually find myself sounding far too dismissive of it, as if it was all a bit of a breeze and I barely even noticed it happening. But the other alternative is to sound like I'm still a gibbering wreck because of it, which I'm really not.
It was all very sudden. There was an inclination that something wasn't quite right for a week or so before, but nothing too terrible. On Christmas Eve I was feeling a bit wistful. I told him I was worried, to which he said "Don't be so daft. We'll be together for ever." That's an exact quote, by the way. I feel like its burned into the inside of my skull, and can actually see the words scrawledin sooty black. Two days later, on boxing day, he told me he wanted to divorce. He had decided he wanted children, and there was no longer any place for me, and my lack of desire for children, in his life. This was not negotiable. There was no room for trying, marriage counsellors, pleading, nothing. He'd decided that I just wasn't worth fighting for, and that was that. This may have been the best and worst part of the whole thing. Its utterly crushing to know that you're not worth any effort, but his absolute certainty that this was It meant that I was saved from having to hang on for months on end, telling myself that he might just change his mind. I was saved from limbo, but tipped into hell.
The embarrassment is possibly the worst bit. Having to acknowledge that you've failed at what you consider to be the most important and central bit of your life- if not your entire life itself- is truly awful. To this day, I'm terrified of meeting anyone who i haven't seen since it happened. I'm going to a wedding soon in which there will be people there who I haven't seen from school, and I'm already preoccupied with how much of an utter failure they will think i am. I don't think I'll ever quite shake this feeling.
I used to honestly believe that he was my world. I used to worry about him getting ill and dying and whether or not I'd survive without him. I always concluded I wouldn't. I used to think that love was the single most important thing that could ever happen to me, and that if I didn't have it with this man then my life meant nothing at all. I thought I was quite pathetic, emotionally, and that I would never be able to cope with half of the things that most people go through as part of their daily lives. Other people could cope with divorces, but not me, I thought. I'm left both terrified that I won't ever feel like that over someone again and terrified that I will. I thought he made up for all my faults and that as part of a couple they would be forgiven, whereas on my own I wasn't worthy of anyone's consideration.
However, approximately two weeks after that fateful Boxing Day, I had my own flat and I was absolutely loving living on my own. My friends- who I had mildly neglected during my marriage- rallied round and were and still are properly, properly amazing. All of that love that used to be directed at one man is now spread liberally over all of them. I've discovered a fierce loyalty that I didn't know I had. I've gotten myself involved in many things that I would never have dreamed about being brave enough to do during my marriage. these things would seem tiny and inconsequential to anyone else, but to me they are a lifeline.
I totally surprised myself. I didn't sail through it all, by any means, but I surpassed my own expectations of how I would cope with flying colours. I know now that I have a capacity to cope with things that I would never have discovered if this hadn't happened to me. I have a renewed confidence that, when terrible things happen, I'll survive in my own right. I have faith in my own personality, and know that I don't need another person as a prop. A relationship is an optional extra, not a baseline requirement. My friends come first, above all things. I've learned that support comes from the most unexpected places (@eyeswideshut75, I'm looking at you, amongst others), and that asking for help is not in any way shameful. These are lessons that I'm bloody glad I now know.
I'd love to end on that positive note, I really would. But alas, its not that simple. I'm left with an inherent distrust of anything nice that's said to me. All of my beautiful ideas of love are shattered and I now know that its most definitely not All You Need. I've been unable to say and feel the word ever since in relationships, and have purposefully shied away from a few opportunities because of the terror of letting myself go. I have to fight with the cynicism that raises its ugly head every time a friend announces an engagement, or I go to a wedding. It's not the done thing to laugh bitterly out loud at the vows, I hear. This doesn't mean I'm not genuinely happy for them, I really am. I just hate the fact that my right to feel the excitement and happiness that blissful ignorance brings has been taken away from me.
If you ever visit Toronto Zoo, you'll find a little brick in the pavement just outside the gift shop which commemorates my wedding. It'll be there forever (or at least whilst the Zoo is still there), but the concept of forever has been ruined for me, and I don't think I'll ever get it back. Sometimes I think about how we have let that little brick down.
Anyway, there you have it. I'm not one for mystery, and prefer to have things out in the open. It's cathartic to tell you all, dear readers, this sort of thing, and I'm pretty sure that if this really was just a blog about skepticism in healthcare you'd be bored shitless by now. So forgive my oversharing, and this muddy little puddle of melancholy in an otherwise bright and beautiful day.
Hxxx
