I was married once, after a relationship of several years that weren't really abusive but were in no way healthy for me. I put myself in that position and went through with being in the relationship and even marrying the guy because I thought I had to (I got kicked out of home and moved in with him, which sealed the eventuality as far as my messed up mentality went at the time). My ex-husband isn't a bad guy. He's not the best guy, he was never the guy for me, and he had his faults, but as much as I wish I could forget everything and write him off as an asshole-- and oh ho ho, let me not lead you to believe that he behaved as a saint during our relationship or especially our divorce, because that is also far from the truth-- it's not like he chugged vodka, hit me on a regular basis, called me names, or... you know, did the stuff crappy boyfriends/husbands on TV specials do.
My life now is good in all the ways that time in my life was not: I am honest with my significant other, I believe that he knows and loves me (it helps that I am honest with him), I want to be with him because it makes me happy without hinging on saving him, and I do not feel the need to keep myself small to satisfy him or his sometimes batshit crazy family. True of the ex, not of my boyfriend. Truly I lucked the fuck out in his parents and really in his whole family; they are great.
I look back on that time with regret and shame and sadness that decrease in intensity as all that bad stuff gets father away from the present, but also with a sense of deep relief. I could have at many points saved myself from what already felt like impending doom, and went through with it anyway. I can't believe I ever felt like it wasn't alright to find a way out. When I get deep enough in conversation with someone about it I cry because I am so relieved to be free of all that weight, all that crazy, all those eggshell rules, and so relieved to be somewhere better so few years later. I don't really like having a divorce under my belt, but the bad times help me savor the good times, when I get reflective.
My ex's sister had a baby with her husband, conceived in a tumultuous relationship, born in a crazy marriage, and quickly the child of a divorced couple. That poor family: desperate for marriage and babies, and all three kids married and divorced. Anyway. The one grandchild was a sweet enough kid--I felt like his mom got a better deal than she deserved, in my pettier moments-- and I really liked being his aunt and buying him clothes and spending time with him. Naturally this drew to an abrupt close when I told my then husband that I wanted to end our marriage. Which is the one time he hit me. I think I would have let it go with more grace (not an action I would have expected from him) if he hadn't lied about it to our friends or to me. 'Cause, you know, all you've got to do to make sure a girl doesn't remember getting hit is to hit her in the face with your fist. That doesn't count!
Right. So that kid graduated from preschool sometime recently, and a friend on Facebook (someone I knew through the sort-of sorority that eventually led to my meeting the family I married into) was tagged in the album of preschool graduation pictures. His parents flank him in most of the photos, and to all appearances they look like happier, healthier people. At the very least they do not appear to be clawing at each other. In a very, very far-away detached way, it makes me happy to see they can be like that for his sake. And his grandparents, who are crazy but were as good to me as they knew how to be, are still alive (the patriarch of the family is almost in his 80s, if not yet there). And the kid might be a godawful hellion now, it is in his DNA, but I remember him as a sweet little boy. And from that far-away detached place I know I don't want to think about these things or people, because I was so dishonest with myself when we were a part of each other's lives. But there they are. I can't deny their place in my history or their intrinsic part in my growing up.
I am happier, healthier, and honest-er on the other side of my time with them than I was before or during it. I hope that the relationships I have and am forging now will be lifetime ones, and that when the little boy I babysat today and adore the snot out of even (or at least very soon after) he pulls the carbon monoxide detector out of the wall, setting off a VERY LOUD ANGRY SUSTAINED BEEP graduates from preschool, I will be there.
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