After seeing a movie with a friend last night, we ended up hanging out in the theater lobby eating popcorn.
Somehow I was talking about deep gut wrenching moments in my life, marriage unintentionally. I spoke of how my husband helped pull me from the brink of absolute despair, how his words saved me, helping me to help myself.
I spoke of his bizarre manic episodes, how I was by his side, how frightening it was.. wondering how I could work, have a child and a spouse with that condition. He never wanted to be hospitalized, so we did everything possible to make sure that didn't happen.
With a divorce, history is rewritten. What was good in a marriage is supplanted by what was bad. In marriage you work as a team, embracing the strengths and work with the weaknesses. In divorce everything bad surfaces and everything good washes under its mucky surface. Perhaps it's the death throes of a marriage that causes all the emotional spewing, irrational behavior, entitlement, crazy legal fees and fear.
Those anecdotes shared revealed the unconditional love on both our parts in different times in our marriage. And the difficulties each of us managed with the other. Where we worked as a team. It was good to know snippets of what was truly love.
And yet.. the marriage failed. When fingers start pointing, there's no end.. and the hurt, animosity, blame, distrust grows. My thought.. "It was good. It broke. It wasn't fixed." sums up what happened. I can look back and wonder if he ever loved me, when he started pulling away, when I got angry and lonely.. but that's like doing gymnastics in an ice rink. It doesn't get me anywhere but hurt.
I guess.. at least for me at this point in my healing.. that it's not worth getting entangled about what was terrible or great. Emotional distress colors perceptions.
I'd like to get to the point where I don't fret about his actions toward me. And actually it's down just a few more bits to be wrapped up. And then it's done.
