Monday, January 9, 2012

Husband #1 vs. Husband #2

I am currently about to go through my second divorce.  Just typing that and reading it bring about all sorts of feelings: shame, embarrassment, confusion, sadness.  I suppose I am following the statistics nicely, how's that for compliance?  Second marriages have a bigger chance of failing than do first marriages.  Yeah I knew that, but I went ahead and did it anyway.  Why? I'll get to that later in the post.

My first husband is responsible, hard-working, loyal, mature, sensible, outgoing and also quite boring--to me, at least.  We ran out of interesting things to say to each other after the first year.  He's not a particularly deep thinker, and is neutral on most topics to a fault.  Everything about him is vanilla--including sex.  He became more of a brother to me than a husband. The highest compliment I believe I received from him was an almost forced and very matter of fact, emotionless "you look good".  This includes the first time he saw me on our wedding day. Fast forward 10 years and I decided to exit the marriage in search of "true love".

Enter husband #2.  He is irresponsible, lazy, immature, socially awkward, mean spirited and saving the best for last: an alcoholic.  Now why on earth would I marry this guy??  Because from day #1 he treated my like a princess.  He complemented me non-stop.  Told me how beautiful, smart, sexy, hot, funny, amazing I was.  He made me feel like the only woman on earth.  He was affectionate and loving, compassionate, and generous.  Husband #2 was just what the doctor had ordered after such a long marriage without passion.  He was like the rain that had come and drenched my dried out, thirsty soul.  And I ate it up.  Bit by bit piece by piece, I was able to overlook all of his shortcomings (and there were a lot) just on the fact that he filled me up with happiness and love.  It's amazing what you can become blind to when you are so needy.  Eventually, the niceties began to disappear and the dark side began to show through.  We would fight frequently, to the point where we couldn't go more than a day, maybe two if we were lucky, without fighting.  Then the fights turned into full on battles.  They became so explosive and so frequent that I couldn't take it another minute.  I kicked him out of the house and told him we needed to separate.  At that point I believed that I still loved him so I viewed it as a chance for both of us to indulge in some space and time to clear our minds and cool off.  Unfortunately he didn't take this idea too well, and began threatening me with all sorts of things he could do to screw me over.  For my own safety, I felt forced to go to the courthouse and file for a legal separation.  Fast forward three months and nothing has changed between us. 

Two failed marriages with two men who are polar opposites of each other, and one me.  My first instinct is to blame myself, after all, I am the common denominator.  But everybody knows it takes two to make a thing go right...it takes two to make it outta sight (sorry couldn't resist)!  Now here I am, 35 and back to the drawing board.  I am trying to make a promise to myself and it is this: I will not get into another relationship until I have become a relationship pro.  How will I do this you ask?  By becoming a student.  I am going to therapy once a week. In almost every spare moment I can steal away I am reading relationship books, blogs, articles, listening to relationship audio books in my car on my commute to work.  Some of the things I am focusing on are taking care of myself and worrying less, if at all, about others.  Especially my significant other.  I am learning that I cannot control others, but I can control myself and my reactions to others.  I am also studying many relationship theories including "The Imago Theory", founded by Dr. Harville Hendrix. (Oprah likes this one ha ha). I have a long and arduous road ahead of me, but I am moving forward, one day at a time.

4 comments:

  1. You go, girl!! :-)

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  2. You have nothing to feel shame or embarrassment about. The failures of others are theirs, not yours. These men failed you.

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  3. Hello, happy Saturday (almost Sunday)! I came across your blog from the A to Z challenge, I really like the title and I applaud you for putting yourself out there. I'm sure if you surveyed multiple women across the country, they'd have very similar stories to yours whether they've been married or in committed relationships. What it sounds like to me is that both of these men aren't your soul mate and the good news is he is still out there for you to find. We live and we learn, I have a friend, who is a relationship expert and soon to be Psychologist, post an awesome blog on the joys of heartbreak. Yes, there can be a joy of falling in love with yourself and setting the bar a little higher (which it sounds like you are doing). Here is a link to the post, hope you like it. http://danielle-dowling.com/soul-mates-the-one

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    1. Thanks, Jaclyn! Nice to have you join! And thanks a million for the link!

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