Today is a birthday bonanza. I know at least four people who have birthdays today – including my ex-wife. Facebook will remind me to send birthday wishes – I’m not always good at that and I usually ignore Facebook. Aside from the occasional social media “like,” I’m not really in contact with many or any of them.
From time to time, I’ve written about my marriage. When I’ve done so I’ve tried to look at it in a reflective way – how did it impact me and make me what I am today? What lessons did I pull from it? We were together for 17 years (just shy of being married 10). We raised a pretty amazing daughter together. In the end, it was a long drift apart – emotionally, physically, intellectually. We pretty much stopped doing things together. We probably should have addressed it sooner. When we became empty nesters, the differences became more apparent. To the outside world, we were fine. We didn’t fight. I think a level of indifference had set in. I really started to resent the not doing anything together – I felt like I was putting everything on hold waiting for her to have time for me, for us. After my fiancee, B, left amid complaints of my “neediness” I wrote an honest and harsh letter to my ex. I never sent it, it was an attempt to tie one loss to the other, to connect the dots, to show causality for my neediness. It was probably more a letter to B than to my ex – explaining this is partly why I am who I am…
When I write about these things, I sometimes feel that I’m being too one-sided. The fact is, I don’t know how my ex felt – probably as alone and isolated and neglected as I felt. We really didn’t talk about our feelings. And when I think about these things, I think about the early parts of our relationship and how I may have set us up to fail. For the first few years together, I wouldn’t commit. Not committing probably did more damage than either of us were aware. I honestly can’t explain why. I suspect I wasn’t ready – I had just come out of a long-term relationship and while I thought I was good to go, I’m sure I wasn’t. I was also very confused about my place in the family. Being a stepparent is tricky. You have all of the responsibilities, but not all of the rights. It was often difficult to know exactly what my role was (which is more a reflection on my insecurity at the time than anything else). Sometimes I think that was why I wanted my own biological child – to experience those first moments of life, to know exactly where I fit. It’s hard to explain how a child is yours and yet have this feeling of the child not being yours. It’s not like I loved my daughter any less, but I felt like I had less of a right to love her. It took me years to develop the type of bond that my daughter and I have now.
I remember in the months leading up to us getting divorced, my wife had started to teach herself guitar and she was listening to a lot of different music. The playlists while she cooked suddenly felt different. They were more longing but also empowered. She had the Lumineers “Stubborn Love” and “Little Talks” by Of Monsters and Men on heavy rotation. Listen carefully and you see that they are filled with loss and hope and longing. I didn’t listen to the songs at the time… which in and of itself is a powerful statement on where we were – I probably wasn’t listening at the time. I suspect I was too caught up in whatever it was that I was feeling to ask if she felt alone or was unhappy. Later, as I entered new relationships, those songs took on their own meanings. Now, if those songs catch me on the wrong day in the wrong moment, they might just crush me momentarily.
On lots of days, I think about the person I am and how that has been influenced by the people who have been in my life. I spent 17 years with my ex-wife. We parted about as amicably and rationally as two people could. For a while after, I thought there wasn’t anything to sort through (emotionally) – connecting with B taught me otherwise.
My daughter tells me that her mother lives a very different life now. She never watches TV (it was one of the only things we did together). She’s also a lot less stressed. She’s taken on the role of being a stepparent. It’s odd, because I couldn’t tell you if she’s found the life she wanted. Something tells me that she has – which makes me very happy for her. If I have sadness about it, it’s that I’m not sure I knew the life she wanted. We had each retreated so far in to our own corners that we stopped talking about those things. We stopped dreaming together. I’m hoping that she has a great birthday. I’m hoping her brother still calls her and sings to her. I’m hoping that she has a good meal (assuming she’s still a foodie) and that she’s getting whatever it is she wants out of life – or at least enough of it to make her happy.