I received a comment on my post about "Sybil" from my cousin's wife and it got me thinking further about how things have changed, why they did and how I coped (and didn't) with the effects.
You see, when my husband started to change it had begun waaaaayyy before I became conscience of it. The same probably went for him too. When I recount the straight facts about the last few months of our marriage - how my long-haired and bearded formerly clean-cut accountant husband took off for a Buddhist abbey on the northern tip of Nova Scotia to spend 3 months in red robes and exited skinny and sheared only to decide to plant himself in a different monastery for another year while gathering up the ammunition and momentum to divorce me - the story tumbles forward so fast and furiously as to be almost unbelievable. Unfortunately it is all too true. But there is another reality other than the piano dropping from the sky version.
It has lots to do with the human capacity to try and make sense of senseless and scary things. My husband began to meditate in an attempt to wrestle with his demons over 10 years ago. All the while he insisted that there was nothing wrong with me or his life - just with some inner part of himself. Okay, sounds good - we all could do with some inner self-housekeeping - my husband was just ahead of the curve, or so we both thought. Fine, on we went, struggling the daily struggles, managing the long lists, doing the things that we thought we were supposed to do - stuff that was supposed to make us happy.
And all the while his volcano inside continued to build up steam. People constantly evolve and change, we continue to grow. The advice that "the experts" (who are those guys anyway?) always give when it comes to the secret of the lasting marriage is to "grow together". Easier said than done. Especially when half of what is really going on is hidden - from both parties!
For me - I am unfortunately the eternal Pollyanna. Everything is fine or will be okay soon - don't worry, I believe you, blah, blah blah.........and then wham mo - that stupid piano again. I think that they call it denial.
My husband used to get so angry with me when I would remember something that he had told me in the past, some truth that was no longer true. That was so confusing - I would wonder why I was wrong to remember what he had said. Didn't that mean that I had been listening, wasn't that a good thing?
Problem was that he had been in the midst of shedding a "self" that no longer fit. The newly emerging self was not so nice. He was often withdrawn and quick to anger over little things - don't stand behind me, you walk too fast, you flip your pillow too often at night.............This new self didn't want to participate in fun things with friends, he was too tired; he was sick of shaving; he decided that it was time to grow his hair to his shoulders; who needs shoes anymore when flip-flops will do and so on. It was all too weird. But like any experienced mother will tell you - I believed that "this too shall pass". Except it didn't. Well on second thought, it did sort of pass. All those things were part of the "old him" passing through to some new, unrecognizable person. Even he didn't know who he was anymore.
My husband often used to joke about "running off to Brazil" when he couldn't think of a solution to some problem or other. I never took him seriously - turns out I probably should have. Especially when I was forced to take a hard and realistic look at his past. Turns out he had "run off to Brazil" several times in his past already. Shutting the door on a life he no longer wanted to lead and never looking back, bringing no one and next to nothing forward. Turning into a new person to fit the next new life. He had been proud of his ability to be a chameleon. Now I think his "ability" is dangerous and scary.
I could go on probably too long in this vein but on to the second half of the first sentence in this post. My coping skills or lack thereof throughout my partner's rollercoaster. But let's be fair here, I was changing too. Change was not the exclusive domain of my soon to be officially ex-husband. I was changing enough to inspire a move to another country half way around the world. To Paris, where I knew no one and didn't even speak the language. Now that I am here, I cannot imagine not being here, not knowing who I know here, not having my life intertwined with the French lives that are now part of my life.
This is not a morale of the story but a thought: Change is difficult and painful and some things are lost forever in the midst of it. That part is sad. But then good things grow out of the bad. Many of these good things would never have been if it hadn't been for all that pain.
So all in all, there is little I would yet regret from my death bed. Just having said that is a small victory for me.
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