Epilogue

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Journaling & goofing off...

I was just surfing around on this forum - hey, it's Friday afternoon, you don't think I'm actually going to work on something productive, do you? - and found a great post by AloneAt35. This jumped out at me:

"Truth is, two broken people can never fix each other."

My W and I were two broken people when we met each other. We screwed up our first marriages, thought we could "fix" each other, paid no attention to the mess we left behind us or the red flags waving in front of us and went skipping down the lane tra-la-la. After only two years we were in counseling. After only three sessions we decided we were fine.

We were not fine.

Last night, lying in bed, I thought about the last seven months, the last few years, the last ten years. What a mess we made of things.

Again.

But I think there is a difference this time. I have looked inside myself to find the garbage in there and to try to get rid of it. I have discovered traits and habits and behaviors and attitudes that have been almost horrifying to find. I have thought that if I was married to the old me, I'd leave me, too. It's been very sobering. And empowering. Because I've finally faced all of that crap and decided to do something about it.

Another member made a post earlier in this thread that was deleted...it was pretty harsh, but it also had truth in it. So I read his other posts. I cannot decide if he is really angry, really passionate, really sarcastic or just a troll. But he had one post that struck a nerve. To paraphrase:

We spend years hurting our spouses, whether we are aware of it or not. They spend years taking it, sometimes fighting back but most times not. This goes on until they can take no more, and that is when they announce, "Enough. Goodbye." Or find comfort in someone else. Or both. And we, the LBS's, get the wake-up call and suddenly begin to try to reverse everything. We do 180s, work on ourselves, make these big changes and then get upset when our spouses do not simply embrace the new, improved versions of us when we think they should. So we wave our new selves in front of them even harder and say, "See? See? I'm all better. you should be, too."

But they are not. Years of marital strife have made deep wounds, too deep to be healed with our band-aids. We wait for the healing to be complete. Some of us have the strength and patience to wait until the wounds are healed, but I think most of us do not. So we give up, or they run away from us as fast as they can.

Did they contribute to this? Most certainly yes; either by matching anger with anger or withdrawing so that we had no idea what was going on inside them. Neither way helped solve the problems.

I did not get my wake-up call in time to save my marriage. We could not fix ourselves, let alone each other. Two broken people. But the awareness of my own faults, and insecurities, and destructive behaviors allows me to heal my own wounds. I am learning how to fix me. It is a full-time job plus overtime, but eventually I hope I will be healed enough to enjoy my own company and perhaps share it with someone who doesn't need to fix or be fixed.