love is tragic

I grew up in a houseful of books, and I’m certain I’d read just about everything on the shelves at least once by the time I was 13. By this I mean Anna Karenina, Jane Eyre, books by Wharton, Austen, Dickens, etc. — all before achieving a level of emotional maturity or ability to discuss and interpret the themes found in several of these novels.

Combine this with my parents’ off-and-on tumultuous relationship, and it’s no wonder I’ve grown up believing that tragic love is the norm. In fact, I think I’ve always expected that love would be romantic, passionate, dramatic, heart-wrenching and that there would be obstacles to be overcome.

The early part of my relationship with my husband was full of these things. My love for him was ferocious, we pined for one another when we were apart, and I was certain we could overcome anything.

And then our life together became routine and steady. Ultimately, it was the boring, staid comfort of sharing daily life that I loved the most. For many years, I loved going home to him, the warmth of his body next to mine in bed each night, communicating in the shorthand we developed over time, his scent each morning when we hugged in the kitchen.

I’d like to believe that I’ve learned and matured enough to turn around and run if love comes with drama, tragedy and the kind of obstacles with lingering effects. Sure, I’m still hoping for a little romance, chemistry and excitement in my future, but I’ll be holding out for loving behaviors tempered by steadiness, companionship and responsibility.

dedicated to my ex

I’m in a crabby funk of a mood today. And so I’m going to share a poem I wrote for my ex:

you are lying next to me

near, yet far away

I lie here sleepless, thinking

that even your snoring

is shallow.

I long dreamt of becoming a writer. Even while I studied Communications and Business in college, I audited creative writing and poetry courses to feed my passion.

You could call me a late bloomer. I wrote short stories in my twenties, struggling with characters I felt were incomplete and immature. It took me until after I had my second child to grow up in many ways. That’s when I began to find my voice, so to speak…er, write.

It’s also when my ex began to come across my writing (on his laptop) and criticize it. So this is the last poem I’ve written, probably four or five years ago now. But I have a feeling I may soon be churning out a whole lot more!

New Year’s sex

Did you have sex with your spouse, mate, lover, partner this weekend?

I always thought sex on New Year’s Eve was a given in a relationship, kind of like the free space on a Bingo card. But after we had children, my spouse seemed to think the little ones were a great excuse to stay home and go to bed early.

I wouldn’t have objected if “going to bed early” meant some extra quality time for us. I enjoyed sex, and my libido remained strong through most of our relationship, even the difficult times. Furthermore, more time in bed meant more time to connect, catch up and enjoy pillow talk. Sex can help keep the lines of communication open.

And sex acts as a barometer in a relationship. It’s not the most important thing, of course, but it’s often a good indicator of how things are going. Regular sex — or desire, the potential for sex, for each other — indicates the passion and love are still alive, that there’s still a connection.

My own appetite for sex with my husband was certainly an indicator of how our relationship was going. I put on a few pounds after our second child and, along with the added demand of a new baby in the house, our sex life dwindled. I didn’t feel great about my physique, and my husband’s lack of desire certainly didn’t provide reassurances to that end. But we blundered on.

A few years later, it was a bit of a surprise to me when my husband charged, “I’ve already given up sex. What more do you want from me?!”

Wow! By this time, I was already convinced our relationship was doomed. Add to that the fact that he hadn’t seemed interested in me in months. I couldn’t even look him in the eyes, much less imagine sharing myself in that way any longer.

I responded, “You’ve denied me emotional intimacy for months. How could you possibly think I could be physically intimate with you?”

For women, sex and talking, sharing and connecting emotionally are two sides of the same coin. One is unlikely to happen without the other. And, in my experience, women are likely to want to communicate and connect emotionally before sharing physically, while men often prefer the physical before they open to the emotional. Herein lies one of the great balancing acts, the yin and yang of intimacy in a relationship.

So, if you haven’t already, log off and have some slow and steamy New Year’s sex, along with a side of snuggling and pillow talk, to begin the year right for your relationship.

death of a dream

The holidays can be a potent, emotionally charged time — especially among families that have suffered divorce. In fact, I’ve been so busy for the past week or so that the emotions of navigating all this family time by myself didn’t really hit me until it was all over.

Even if I don’t miss my ex, I do miss several of the traditions and memories we created and shared together. He’s Jewish; I come from a Christian background. We were blessed to celebrate Chanukah and Christmas. I miss sharing the season with him and his family. And while I’m in contact with some of the former in-laws, I’m no longer part of the family celebrations. I have to experience them through my children’s stories.

My ex missed this, too. When I dropped the children off to spend a few days of their break, he gave me a hug and told me he misses me. I’m smarter than to believe I should take this to mean anything of substance. I still love him. But I don’t miss living with him. And I doubt he misses living with me, aside from some of the happy memories we created together. After all, how can the holidays be recalled with anything but fondness?

So if we remember and reminisce about family celebrations, especially holidays, what is the impact of divorce? It’s the death of a dream. Certainly when we came together, vowed to love one another and brought children into the world, we did so believing that we would be together. We dreamt of a stable family life for our children and creating traditions of all kinds together.

And having failed at maintaining this, I can’t help but wonder what of our children’s dreams we have dashed?

Festivus for the ex of us

Happy Festivus, everyone! Today is the day Seinfeld followers honor with traditions including the Festivus pole, Feats of Strength and the Airing of Grievances.

What a great opportunity to send a back-handed holiday greeting to my ex, right?!

It would be easy to be bitter and place blame when you come out of a relationship like mine. In fact, I’ve spent much too much energy on these very behaviors. And I know damned well how unproductive that is!

Most of the time, I try to be conscious about the energy I’m putting out in the world, my language and my general outlook on life. I believe what we put out affects what we get back. (There are some excellent books on this topic by Michael Losier and John Assaraf, among others.) So I try to stay positive, express my gratitude and always view my cup as overflowing.

This can be difficult when, throughout most of my relationship, I was the primary or only breadwinner. I earn a healthy living. Nothing spectacular, but I’m able pay the mortgage, buy groceries and take my family on an occasional vacation. The designer clothes and handbags of my days as a single are no more, and my car has celebrated its 15th birthday. Still, I recognize that I am blessed. This is kind of a big thing for me…

You see, there have been times in my life when my outlook was not so bright, when I was incapable of feeling genuine happiness for a friend who met a great new guy, got engaged, had a baby or got a fabulous new job. I was jealous of those I perceived as having more or better. These were things that I wanted! Why weren’t they happening to me? Probably because I was focusing on the lack.

Going through a divorce, turning forty…I’ve felt a lot of lack these past many months, along with a powerful urge to place blame. It was easy to believe that I drove an old car and lived in a house with some urgent repairs needed and skimped on my wardrobe because my ex wasn’t contributing enough financially. I thought that if he loved me enough, he would work harder to help provide the things that were important to me and our family. But neither this belief nor my resentment has produced positive results.

For my birthday, a friend took me to a Michael Franti & Spearhead concert. If you’ve never been to one of these shows, I recommend it: it’s as much a spiritual experience as it is an opportunity to see a pretty cool live show. The band and the fans are happy, smiling and joyful. Everyone is dancing and waving their arms. I imagine it’s something like a revival.

There I was at the show, jumping up and down, smiling so hard that my face hurt, as Michael sung these lyrics: “Wise men count their blessings; fools count their problems…” I had an ah-ha moment, quickly recognizing that I was being a fool, counting my problems.

So now I’m focused on counting my blessings; I’m monitoring my thoughts, my words and the people with whom I choose to surround myself; I’m working to be conscious and deliberate about the energy I allow in my life. I’m noticing when good things happen, even small things, and I’m writing them down in a gratitude journal.

And I’m not indulging the ugly little urge to be petty. Today it felt good to send my ex a Festivus greeting with a positive wish for the future. I left out the long list of grievances altogether.

And, in case you were wondering, the very next line in that Michael Franti song is “…but you’re both of them to me.” How apropos!

making plans

If you are following this, you may understand that much of what I’m writing happened many months ago. I’m jumping around a bit. It seems right to disclose now that my mind is adept at forecasting far ahead and logistics. Perhaps this makes me calculating. You decide.

To recap my timeline:

It was autumn (just over two years ago) when I saw my OB and had the major realization that it had literally been years since my spouse and I were friends.
I stopped wearing my ring that winter, two years ago.
About 21 months ago, in the spring, I decided finally that our broken marriage was irreparable. And I met Max.

During this time, I was making mental preparations, beginning to envision my life without this relationship, without the anchor…unfortunately, none of the ways I could describe what our relationship had become were positive. And if it sounds as though I was doing this work alone, I was. My husband and I had long since ceased to have adult conversations about difficult topics. He was unable to engage in calm and thoughtful discussions that required maturity. He withdrew, avoided conflict, or became angry.

So, given that I was going down this path alone, I created milestones, or hurdles:

I would have to get through the summer, during which I had a demanding work load including a great deal of travel.
My children were in different schools and, pending the outcome of an arcane lottery process, they might finally be in the same school, on the same schedule, in the autumn.
And THEN I could ask my husband to leave.

Why not just cut it off quickly, move on, put an immediate end to the agony? Why all this planning and thinking ahead?

My spouse performed more of the physical, functional chores of parenting than I did: preparing meals, making lunches, driving the children. (I provided the nurturing, comfort, homework assistance; I read to them and tucked them into their beds each night.) My work was (and is) demanding. I needed to reach a point where I could envision managing the logistics of parenting on my own, while still doing my day job. I knew I couldn’t expect much partnership or cooperation in creating a schedule or shared responsibilities. And there was still the risk that he would fight for primary physical custody.

If I acted slowly and deliberately, that was by design. There was a lot to think through, create and plan for. Slowly was the only way I knew I could manage.

on failure

I’ve had some interesting reactions from friends and followers as it relates to the title of this blog, failed at forty. Most — those who know me well — issue forth a quick guffaw and exclaim “awesome!” or “hilarious!” or some such. They know my quirky, cheeky sense of humor and ability to poke fun at myself.

Others sincerely tell me I shouldn’t think of or call myself a failure. It’s as though they believe failure is a bad thing.

For a time in my life, I had frequent occasion to downhill ski. I recall letting some of my friends know that I felt good, was getting in my groove, hadn’t wiped out in a long time. And then one of them piped up: “If you haven’t wiped out, you’re not pushing yourself hard enough.”

Let’s pause for a moment to look at the silver lining inherent in failure:

To fail means we’ve taken a risk, acted boldly, pushed forward out of our safety zone.
We’ve gained some clarity about what doesn’t work, and can now adjust course to create a more positive outcome.
We’re afforded a new beginning, an opportunity to confess that we didn’t really know it all anyway, made mistakes and are ready to move on.
We’re older, wiser and can choose to endeavor forth with much already gained.

As for me, I can point to some rather spectacular results of the past decade of my life:

I have two amazing, beautiful, loving children.
I have a home in a lovely neighborhood.
I’ve increased my income by more than 60% over this time.
I’ve met amazing new friends and colleagues, as well as continuing to nurture old friendships.
I’ve had some tremendous, remarkable, memorable experiences.
I’ve healed, matured and grown in more ways that I can recount.

Do I really think of myself as a failure? No. But I’ve had some pretty spectacular moments. You could say failure and I are on a first-name basis. So let’s raise a glass to failure. Failure, you haven’t beat me — I’ll always persevere. And I’m grateful for the lessons!

my best friend

Two and a half years ago…

One of the turning points in my decision to admit the failure of my marriage was this:

I was in my OB-GYN’s office for an annual. She asked generally about my health and specifically about my stress levels, which I admitted were pretty high. I told her my spouse and I had been having marital problems and were discussing a split.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “When did he stop being your best friend?”

This simple question had blown me away. I was stupefied. Dumbfounded. I had long since forgotten that we were supposed to have been on the same team, working toward the same goals, cheering each other on. I had forgotten what it felt like to have someone there supporting me.

And then it dawned on me: he had been my best friend for the first year. Something changed after that, and he turned me into an adversary. Everything I said seemed to be filtered through a different lens, interpreted in a way so negative that anyone who knew me would surely know it couldn’t possibly have been meant that way. Was it because I had become comfortable and less careful with my words? Was it the stress of starting a family? Or moving to a larger home?

Whatever the case, I recall it being distressing at the time. I recall trying to remedy this disturbing change. And I recall hoping it was a phase that would pass. Instead, I must have just grown accustomed to it.

I wonder: is it even realistic in today’s world to believe that we can find a mate who, years later, will still be a best friend and confidante? Is it a pipe dream to think that maybe I, too, can be that elderly woman holding hands with an elderly man as they stroll companionably through the park, their love worn and comfortable, having together weathered years of adversity, triumph, joy and loss?