Til Death Do Us Part?

 Apparently not.

I first met my wife right after graduating college during a local bar's $1 Long Island Night (it always irritated her whenever I told people that).

She seemed cute, sweet and a bit naive. She also seemed to find me entertaining and funny (although the $1 Long Island Iced Teas could've helped her with that).

At the time, she was still in a relationship with another man but we were instantly attracted to each other. Normally, I wouldn't pursue someone who was attached. However, it had been portrayed to me (both by her and a few mutual friends) that their relationship was practically over. So, we began our love affair.

Not long after we did, their relationship did end. For months though, her ex would continually call her, text her, leave notes on her vehicle and even follow her home from work. While looking at it from the outside indicates that he was stalking her, it's also very possible that she was still leading him on. I have no proof of this but it's a major possibility.

After several months of dating, she did go back to him briefly. This only lasted a couple of months before we got back together and she permanently broke things off with him. 

On New Year's Eve that year, we became engaged, as we agreed that we couldn't imagine spending our lives with anyone else. It should be mentioned though that this all happened within approximately eight months.

Looking back, it's obvious now that we moved way too fast. Part of it was someone claiming her biological clock was ticking and it was imperative that we act as fast as possible. Part of it was also being (in my case) that love was absolutely blind to any reason.

We got married that following October and started working on having a family about a year later.

This turned into but one source of conflict between us, as we began having problems to conceive. While she did have some medical issues that would've caused difficulties in getting pregnant, my swimmers also weren't swimming as well as they could. So, we went through lots of tests and efforts to try to conceive a child.

In the meantime, other problems were popping up. As I noted, from the time I met her until the time we got married was only 18 months. We'd barely gotten to know each other or test our living together before we jumped into a "lifetime" commitment. As such, we were still exploring each other's likes, dislikes, and boundaries.

When I couldn't be the happy, fun loving, smiling, adventurous man that she first met all the time, she began responding with verbal and emotional abuse.

I'd bend over backwards to help around the house or do nice things for her and yet it never seemed good enough. 

I'd buy her a Raggedy Ann doll for Christmas to replace the one that meant so much to her as a child or plan a surprise birthday party with all of our friends and family but somehow I didn't know how to be romantic, sentimental, or spontaneous.

I'd take all day to do the dishes, do the laundry, mow the lawn, sweep the floors, and even start on dinner but somehow I was lazy and never did anything around the house.

So, while I continued to do things like that because it needed done or it was the right thing to do, after dealing with this attitude for a while, it just felt like I was going through the motions. I'd grown tired and bored of her because of how she treated me.

Explaining my feelings to her was also a cause for arguments. She felt like any issues I had were a direct attack on her person and her character. She'd respond with yelling, personal attacks, and petty responses for the rest of the day. Yet, she'd always tell me, "you know you can trust me with anything, right?" Right.

Needless to say, dealing with someone who drives you crazy with their attitude, you don't feel much like conceiving anything with them. This was another case of me going through the motions.

When I stopped trying, she began looking elsewhere for attention. When I had enough evidence of such a dalliance, I confronted her. I was ready to end things...but I just couldn't. To her credit, she did break things off with the other man immediately.

We'd about given up hope on having a child of our own and were preparing to adopt when we got a little surprise not long after our anniversary. Amazingly, we had become pregnant finally. And yes, I was the father.

Almost nine months later, we had our daughter (somehow, my wife didn't find it nearly as funny as I did when I asked "so who's the father?" as I signed the birth certificate).

While we did our best in raising our daughter, we were still having problems together. It wasn't long before she began having her dalliances again. 

This time, I confronted her during a counseling session with our pastor (which was made under the pretense that I was being lazy and not trying anymore). By this point, neither of us was the hero of the marriage as I'd all but given up and she was cheating again. The pastor noted that I had to do more to show I was trying again while she had to cut off contact with the other man and be more open to my feelings and issues.

She was talking to him again the very next day and her attitude improvement also lasted all of two weeks.

Once I found out that not only was she still seeing the other man but that he'd also been helping take care of my daughter, I knew that I had to end it. I confronted her again and initially offered a separation. We agreed on a full divorce about a week later.

So, we sold the house to get out of debt (always a major source of problems for any relationship and ours was no different), she kept her car and I moved back home while she moved in with him.

They wound up getting married and having a child of their own as they moved into an expensive house in a gated community. Our daughter though did keep my last name and we shared custody.

Now, I know that my daughter will ask me someday on what happened with her mother and I. While I'll tell her this story, I'll also preface it with this: this is simply my version of the events and it's not absolute. There's always three versions to every story: my side, her side, and the truth. So, while you listen to my side, please ask your mother to listen to her side as well.

I'll also say that it's obvious that we weren't meant to be together. We're much better apart and sharing custody of our daughter than we ever were together. We did have fun together but the stress, the lies, the cheating, the problems we caused each other just weren't worth it.

However, if I could go back in time, I wouldn't change anything. My marriage lead to us having our lovely daughter and to change anything (possibly removing her from existence) is simply a timeline in which I wouldn't want to live. 

I wouldn't mind living in a timeline without the current political administration though, if I'm being totally honest.

That'll do it for this week, loves. I'll be back with you all on Monday. Enjoy your weekend!

-Trixie 😘 ❤️