It's been strange to go through this process of letting go of my second marriage. It's been devastating and painful and revealing and rewarding. When my first marriage ended, I learned very little from it. My first wife and I ended our marriage so amicably and with such mutual understanding that I never went through a thorough process of self-evaluation like I have over the last few months.
Ending a ten-year relationship and your-year marriage still surprises me - but it's just the course I am now - and so I have to accept it and turn it into an opportunity to grow and learn. Over the last few months I worried, over and over, that by allowing this marriage to end that I would be setting a terrible example for my children - as though I would be allowing them to think that when a marriage gets tough, one should leave or give up. That is not my belief - I believe marriages require attention and work - and a commitment - though I have also come to see that if I were to stay in this marriage I would be sending my so the message that if you love someone it's okay to be treated badly by that person - to be abused by that person - and insulted by that person...and I cannot let that be so.
Since B has moved out I have talked with my S11 about many things - and have heard him say many painful things about how he perceived my relationship with B - and of her relationship with him - and I see that I was making far too many excuses for how she behaved toward him and me.
But here's the most important thing I've learned through the last ten months of horrible sadness...I've learned that I have go to take much more responsibility for myself and my life - and how I live it - and how I fulfill it. I thought I had been doing that for years - and I was trying - but I was not taking on full responsibility for my life - and that is a big things that is going to change. Moving forward, I am confident that I can be a better role model to my children - and I know that I can and will offer my sons an example of how to be in a healthy relationship - not a perfect relationship, since I believe any claims to perfection can only be made at the expense of reality - rather - a relationship in which conflicts are resolved with respect - and in which that same respect guides me in accepting that not all conflicts (maybe even most) are not resolved through love - rather a healthy love can help us remain detached from the person we love while still maintaining all the connections that make a relationship possible.
