I love a movie with a good plot twist. Something that has a key that unlocks the story. It reframes the entirety of what you thought was happening. When you watch it again, you are armed with more knowledge and have the ability to see through what is happening on a surface level. You KNOW what to look for. Sitting through 2 hours of entertainment, it’s a pleasant surprise to see what the director had hidden up their sleeve. In my opinion, that is always worth the price of admission for a movie (and a large popcorn).

I can’t say the same in terms of a relationship however. Although the clarity is appreciated, the cost is immeasurable.

I’m usually not the guy who spoils the movie for everyone else. In my opinion, talking during a movie and giving away the ending say a lot about the character of a person. I mean come on, have some respect for the people you are with! However, given the price I paid for this reveal (20 years of my life), it is my ending to give away. Well, and the fact that I’m not writing this to be some blockbuster movie. I wonder who they would cast to play me? Before I get to the plot twist, a bit of context…

I struggled HARD for nearly twenty years to make my marriage work. This isn’t to say I was perfect. I certainly am not. That is an important distinction though; I know I am not perfect and have never pretended that perfection was the goal. My thinking was that I was marrying a partner, someone to go through the ups and downs of life WITH, not AGAINST. When we hit the inevitable bump in the road for us as individuals, as a couple or as a family, I thought we would turn towards each other as partners. I’ll just say, the casting department didn’t exactly pick two people with great chemistry for this drama.

I was the one to ask, even beg to see a therapist (yeah, that was a big red flag that I should have paid more attention to) but she refused for over a decade. I read books. I suggested marriage retreats. I tried all the ‘things’ you are supposed to try to work on a relationship. Nothing mattered. I heard over and over it was all my fault. My family was to blame. I didn’t love her well enough. If I did better, she wouldn’t have to behave that way. I was terrified to start conversations with her because I had enough experience to know things would go off the rails. She would threaten me with divorce or taking the kids away. Those threats began almost immediately in our marriage and for years, she terrorized me. I can honestly say, I was in an abusive marriage but like the movies I love so much, I couldn’t see what was really going on while I was in the middle of it.

I suffered in silence. I didn’t tell people what was going on behind closed doors. I was alone in a toxic situation and out of some mixed up desire to be respectful to her privacy, I kept my mouth closed. About five years ago, thanks to the suggestion of a therapist I had gone to on my own, I started to work on myself. I sat my wife down and said, “What is going on in our marriage is not working. I am going to start by working on myself and I suggest you take some time to do the same.”

Needless to say her reply was not helpful. She wanted to know if that meant I was going to divorce her. I replied, “I don’t know what this means beyond what is going on cannot continue.” Instead of taking the invitation to be introspective (later I would understand that this would be terrifying for her), she lashed out by saying, “I have been working on myself. Everyone but you can see it.” I’m sure I didn’t exactly shrug that one off; it took me some time to learn how to not get drawn into those kind of conversations. However, I didn’t let her unwillingness to participate slow me down. I began down a very intentional, and WAY longer than intended, path to figure out; did I have it in me to make this marriage work?

Although I will explore that journey in other posts, the answer to the question turned out to be both yes and no. Yes, I worked HARD to come to a place where I was willing to work on the marriage. However, when time and time again I shared my needs, she refused to see, hear or value me. I realized there was nothing left to save. I could not stay in a relationship with someone who could not, on the most basic level, care about me as a person. There was no hope of anything different and when I came to that realization, over a very, VERY long time, I knew it was over.

Just as a death certificate doesn’t kill a person, a divorce only acknowledges the relationship has already ended even if it isn’t legally dissolved. I was ready to face the truth; there was no relationship worth saving. I filed for divorce.

I didn’t tell her I was going to file. I was not interested in making it a threat. If a covenant relationship is supposed to be based on love & trust, there was no point in telling her divorce was on the table. In my mind, if she changed her behavior out of the fear of a divorce, we wouldn’t have an honest, loving marriage anyway. She had threatened me for years with divorce. I refused to use it as a weapon. Only after my attorney had filed the petition did I tell my soon-to-be-ex-wife (but not soon enough).

She raged at me for days. She lashed out. She criticized. She belittled. She accused. She told me, “real Christians don’t get divorced.” She offered to live in the garage. (Huh?) She begged to “just wait until the kids move out.” She called through all of our friends and told them what I was doing. (I found this out when I reached out to a few of my closest friends…ugh.)

Basically, she behaved in a way that confirmed I had made the right decision. I had come to understand her lack of emotional regulation was a core problem for her and this was giving me a brutal reminder of that truth. I was waiting for her to talk to a lawyer so we could start moving forward with the process.

Then, there was a shift. Maybe she realized her first tactic wasn’t working. Maybe she had enough time to gain a little self control. Maybe she finally understood I would not participate in more of the same? I don’t know what brought it out of her but it was time to finally get the missing puzzle piece, to reframe what I knew about the last two decades of my life…

*** SPOILER ALERT ***

She confessed to keeping something hidden from me our entire marriage. Actually, she told me she had never spoken to anyone about it. She shared a revelation about a long term traumatic event from her teen years. She had been in a relationship with someone that was abusive and had left her with deep wounds. She told me that a few months before, she had a conversation with someone about abuse while at a church event. That conversation had given her the revelation that what happened to her as a young girl could still be impacting her and our marriage. She talked about the desire to be close to me but also push me away because she feared rejection. Finally, almost 5 years after I had extended the invitation, she asked for time to work on herself.

There were pieces in what she was saying that I knew and could verify. I knew about the meeting at church. I knew the topic had been abuse. I knew enough to know she was telling me about someone I had pushed for details previously but had been rebuffed. There was a sliver of truth. A small seed of hope. (Are you throwing popcorn at the screen shouting, “No, don’t open the door. DON’T DO IT!”? I can’t blame you…)

Even as I write it, I feel like a sucker. “Come on, Cap, you fell for that?” The answer is again both yes and no. If there was hope of addressing the actual problem that was at the root of our issues, shouldn’t I try? On the other hand, no. I had already made my decision and like I already wrote, was it even possible to trust what behavior would come after she knew the divorce was already in process?

I acknowledged that she was putting me in an impossible situation. (She would later gaslight me by accusing me of saying it was impossible for her to change.) I wrestled with what I should do. By this time, I had rebuilt a support network of friends & family. A therapist who knew what was going on. A lawyer who could give me advice. I gathered information. I had conversations. It was incredibly painful to have to make the same decision all over again but I felt I owed it to myself, and the kids, to be able to say that I had tried everything. (Hindsight would tell me something different but that is for another post…)

I decided to put the divorce on hold. I didn’t have to rush the process. I could give her time. I explained that I would not withdraw the divorce petition but I also would not push the proceedings along. At the time I thought the worst case scenario was that I would have an opportunity to better understand what this past trauma meant and she would get some therapy. Even if we didn’t work out, she would be a healthier person. (Uh, NO!)

Whether my decision was right or wrong, it is in the past. Along with so much more…

The last two decades of our marriage.

Her trauma.

My choice to divorce her.

To give her a pause.

My decision to follow through with the divorce.

To be fair, I think she was as honest as she could be in the moment. Although, I suppose that isn’t saying much. From the next few months of therapy it became more and more clear that she was more interested in working on our relationship than the trauma from her past that she claimed was so damaging. The problem was we were never able to get to a static place where we could stay in a holding pattern. There continued to be events that unfolded, reinforcing my decision had indeed been the correct one.

I finally had enough and told her I was moving forward with the divorce.

It was time for the credits to roll.

Cap

#living40andfree