I had been hesitant to mention this for a variety of reasons, but have instead decided to face this head on. A fair portion of the mission of this project is to share my philosophy on life with the world. I would hope any future clients would know the man they have hired to represent them in court or to trust to meet a deadline for a writing project. I feel I would be negligent to pass on a topic as important as this. I will soon post a full mission statement, but I think this is a topic whose time has come.
My wife divorced me about a month ago. I hold no hatred toward her, but I believe it to be a mistake and has put me in the darkest point in my life. I’ve survived two wars, been disowned by my parents, and lost more than a few friends violently. I never would expect something like a divorce to be able to lay me so low. In fact, it was my expectation that I would settle into a new normal within two weeks or so. Yet, I stand well over a month typing away at 0315 on a Sunday night/Monday morning, the Ambien failing for yet another night to put me to sleep.
Why did she leave me? Well, I would imagine both of our explanations would differ. We fought. We did not make time for each other. We took each other for granted. We both became lazy and unproductive. And, as one could expect, there was another man in the picture to take the pressure off for her. We allowed the stress of parenthood and simple grown-up responsibilities to turn us against each other.
I’ve learned an exceptional amount from this. For that I should be grateful. I’ve learned about the power of denial and I’ve learned who my true friends are to name a few. Something I’ve found very interesting is the foolish power of the mind and the self-destructive nature of testosterone fueled creatures. I’ve been having suicidal thoughts. No, that wouldn’t be accurate; I believe urges would be the right word. Now, mind you I would never engage in suicide. Worry not my friends. I believe suicide to be a cowardly act. In my case, I have a little girl who I would deprive of her father. I hold my honor in the highest esteem and to forgo my duty to my daughter would be perhaps the most vile thing I could do.
But here I sit with these urges. In my more lucid moments I’ve always said that were I the type to do something of the sort I’d first grab a rifle and do some good in the world until someone succeeded in stopping me. Yet that urge isn’t there. It’s a very here and now, reach under the bed and end it all kind of feeling. Why am I feeling this? It goes against every bit of intellect and feeling I had prior to having the feeling. I always have said, and actually at this moment still feel that life is so incredibly beautiful that I couldn’t imagine ending it. Were I feeling too bad I always assumed I could crack a book, look at a painting or listen to some Simon and Garfunkel and pull myself back from the precipice. I mean, how could you end your life while midway listening to “The Boxer”? But despite the recognition of beauty, the urge is there.
So, what brings the urge? In part I think it’s the fear of mentioning it. We refrain from admitting our urges, lest we be judged by them. We don’t tell the person we find so annoying to leave us be. We don’t tell our significant other about our more unusual sexual triggers. We keep our prejudices tightly sealed and deal with those that make us uncomfortable. This makes us feel trapped, removing options, removing our liberty to be our full selves. In this case I have so conditioned my body to avoid tears that even in my privacy I can barely squeeze one out, never being able to let go enough for the desperately needed endorphines that come from crying. I cannot release my sadness or rage, or else I wake up my friends and force people to deal with my problems. Selfish indeed.
But there are the simple physical triggers. The crushing pain in my chest I figured would be gone within a week. Yet, again, here it is, preventing me from sleeping. When I sleep I awake 4-5 times a night and am met again with the panic and pain from having lost something so valuable.
So friends, the point of this post: how to deal with grief.
Well, for starters I’m sitting behind a keyboard listening to Godsmack. I acknowledge that the saying is that time heals all things. Foolishly, I’m going to say that isn’t going to work here. I’ve never felt the rules of the universe applied to me personally, nor to my relationship with my ex-wife. I’ve come to accept being single is in my future and I’m embracing it. This is a unique opportunity to accomplish things that I’d put off in the name of being a good husband. In some ways, it’s pretty exciting! Despite my severe grief over this I maintain my usual optimism and expect 2012 to be one of the best years of my life. It is my deepest hope to regain the heart of my ex, but there is little I can control in that regard, so I manage my grief some by just accepting that there are things I can’t control. This is hard for me. I try to control everything.
I’ve managed grief by talking to good friends well more than they deserve to have to listen to me complain. I managed the grief at the beginning with anger. I said that my ex was crazy and I sacrificed too much for this relationship for it to fall apart. That actually worked pretty well. The problem is, that I married her because I loved her. It’s hard to hate someone you love. Eventually you have to listen to them. Even if you don’t agree with them, you have to understand what they’re thinking in order to have things make sense. That is where I was the day before yesterday. That is the hard part. At some point we have to accept our own responsibility and humble ourselves rather than try to protect ourselves. Only by humbly recognizing our mistakes can we grow stronger and learn from them. I learned that I have a terrible habit of projection. If I considered her my Dagny Taggart, clearly she felt that love regardless of what I said or did. Well, it doesn’t exactly work that way.
I’ve learned a lot about jealousy. I expected that her sleeping with her new boyfriend would be what set me off. While the concept hurts me, it isn’t what keeps me up. I had an incredible woman who made me feel like the greatest man on earth. It was the way she looked at me and the way she talked to me that hurts. It’s the fact that all of those incredible things are being said to another man. The idea that she would take that esteem and love and bestow it to someone else that keeps me up. It scares me. And most of all, it makes me feel as I will never recover her.
It is now almost 0400 and I feel my eyelids actually drooping. Perhaps the Ambien IS kicking in. I will attempt to continue this tomorrow.
