Not entirely like Barbie and Ken after all

"We were regarded like the Barbie and Ken of the community," said a friend over coffee this morning, in reference to a marriage that had gone goodbye a few years before. "Everybody expected us to stay married forever. We were role-models for what a good marriage should be." He suggested that he and his ex-wife probably stayed together much longer than was healthy for either of them -- just because it was 'expected.'

I understood his words. I've been there. I've been there twice, I am actually quite ashamed to say. And, in the case of my first marriage, my wife and I probably did stay on board about a decade longer than we should have, mainly because it seemed to be 'expected' in our case, too. At the same time, I did suggest I was ashamed to admit to two divorces. That has something to do with failure. I don't like to fail. None of us do. In fact, I'll even venture to suggest that divorce is probably taken too lightly by many people, and that possibly fear-of-failure should guide us a little more than it does. But, divorce is much more than that. It is a life-altering trauma that is guaranteed to put anyone with a modicum of sensitivity and decency through a goodly amount of hell; and an even greater amount of grief.

We tend to think of divorce as being not so much more than the legal dissolution of a marriage. On the surface, that's what it is. Underneath it's very much more. It is a radical shift in your self-image, your self-esteem, and the dreams and aspirations you had for a life for the duration with somebody you were once madly in love with. And, even at the legal end, you don't get out easily. There are settlements and agreements and pissing matches over trivial bits of property, and alienated family members, and alienated friends and it all becomes a convoluted Shakespearian tragedy. And that's just when the process goes smoothly. When you throw kids, and joint properties and other little niceties in the mix it can get really messy. Messiest of all is if there is residual bitterness over somebody running off with somebody they had no business running off with. Fortunately, in both my cases those complications weren't at issue. But it was still unspeakably hard even without them.

The denouement of my first marriage came about because we had simply 'grown apart', as the saying goes. We had divergent interests, and those interests continued to grow increasingly divergent. We'd started out in the same professional field. We had that commonality. I left the field after seven years and entered another one that made me very happy in my work, but that she couldn't ever understand or show much interest in. And so it went. We didn't get hugely acrimonious, but eventually life became hollow for both of us, so when the day finally arrived, it was with more of a whimper than a bang.

In the second one, it was a fleeting rebound that grew out of a hugely torrid liaison with the most enticing piece of eye-candy I had ever met. I was besotted with her. She, it seemed was besotted with me. And so we frolicked and partied and had the sort of intimate life that was heavenly for a jaded mid-life guy. Eventually we realized that all we had in common was our interest in what lay within each other's undies, and not so very much more. It was, as I say, a rebound, and should have stayed at the fling level. But, I don't regret the adventure of it all. I am a romantic. And we still get along well, after some initial mud-slinging episodes. And, as I said in an earlier blog, the wonderful thing I got from that relationship was my amazing, and cherished (from afar, sadly) step-daughter.

I guess I am put in mind of all this stuff because my anniversary with my third (and utterly wonderful) wife. It is our seventh. I cherish all my moments with her and, if it pleases God, I would like it to stay that way. I do not want to go through the other ever again. I don't think I have the energy, nor do I want to lose a third house. Not with today's real estate prices.