I never set out to be a divorced dad, and I don't think anyone ever does. Unfortunately I think we don't guard against the situations that lead to so many divorces because we are to caught up in the minutiae of life. I know I didn't fortify my relationship and in the end my wife, my kids and I paid the price.
I will say "I" through this piece. It is true that in a relationship that both parties are responsible for the health of the relationship, but I am responsible for my actions and cannot speak for my exwife's. I also believe in extreme ownership, and that I am responsible for where I am in life. Thus there are always actions that I could have taken to affect the outcomes that I want. This does not mean that I knew of these at the time. In fact it has taken a lot of soul searching to see some of the areas where I went wrong, and I may never see the entirety of it. This is my attempt to examine and educate, if for no one else than myself. I do hope that sometime, somewhere, that someone else may find some help from my words.
When I look back at my life with my exwife I keep coming back to same place where we started to go wrong. It's like in the time travel movies. If you could go back and change one thing, then the rest of your life would have worked out great. This of course is the great fallacy of the premise. No one knows what would have happened if that situation had turned out different, but I do think that had I reacted in a healthier manner, that it would have had a healthier effect on both of our lives.
Our son was born soon after our first anniversary. I was still in the military and we were living in a crappy two bedroom apartment. Neither of us was really taking responsibility for our living conditions. The house was often a mess. The bills went unpaid. We were overall young and foolish and overwhelmed by life. Add post partum depression on top of that situation, and you have a little look into our life at that time. We soldiered on for the better part of a year until I got out of the military.
It was around this time that the ultimatum came. One night my exwife started packing her bags and stated that she was moving back home and taking our son with her. Back home was over 1000 miles away and somewhere I had never considered living. It was also over 1000 miles from where my family was. I should have been prepared for this because of how our wedding had gone down, but that is a subject for a different post.
That was the first worst night of my life. I was totally unprepared for this situation. My reactions were knee jerk and exactly the wrong things to do in the situation. I started with anger. I railed against her accusations and accused her of betraying everything we had talked about and planned. While some of what I was arguing about may have been true, it was not a helpful way to bring about the results I wanted. I eventually resorted to the tactics that would serve to slowly spiral us into an unhealthy and unsustainable relationship for over 20 years, and in effect doom us. I bargained and pleaded. This is vitally important. That night, I gave up any control I had in our relationship. Now I am not some he-man; I think control in a relationship waxes and wanes and should be shared. I however set a precedent that night that would be replayed many times over the years. In that moment I gave in and our relationship started down a path that would lead to divorce.
I see now, almost 25 years later that the proper response should have probably come before we ever got to that place. I should have been taking care of our relationship every day, keeping disciplined with the house and the bills, etc. That too is a post for another day. In that moment though I capitulated. It got stuck in my brain that if I did not give in, that I would lose my wife and child. The fear of that loss would be my guiding principle for far too many years. Fear is terrible basis for a relationship. I loved my wife and son so much that the thought of losing them was unbearable. I could not see what pitfalls I was setting us up for down the road.
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