Hold On Just a Minute

Today I went to the gym and did a lovely yoga practice and a weenie-workout that nonetheless left me feeling quite worked. There's this thing that happens when I'm exercising, and I can't explain it. Maybe it's because I don't have the energy to tangle myself up in mental knots. The clouds in my mind open a little, and things become clear and easy that before had me all in a muddle.

And, I hadn't grumped about Dave and my marriage in...days... so I thought it was probably time.

I've been repeating this nauseating platitude that the marriage was a failure for both of us and needs to be put to rest. I was trying to make it be true by repeating it -and then I was surprised when it kept sounding hollow and silly. That's because it's not true, for crying out loud.

Here's the thing. Dave had ALL the resources in the marriage. He had the power. He had all the money, for longer than I've admitted. He could keep me from having something just by quietly being stubborn. Things just plain didn't happen if he didn't want them to happen.

It absolutely IS true that I could have called him on this nonsense, and possibly by demanding an equal role I could have saved the situation. And even if I couldn't single-handedly have saved the marriage, it would have been better for me if I had done that. But if, with all the resources, all the power, and all the love by the way, he STILL feels that the marriage truncated him, I'm thinking the problem wasn't me. That's saying that my very existence is so strong that, even with money, time, and love he couldn't live his life fully. Wow, I'm quite the force of nature. If that's true, divorcing me doesn't matter. I'm still here, exerting my dark will, working my magic. Or maybe my magic only works if you're close to me. Who knows???

The simpler answer is that he took all the resources to shore up his crumbling sense of personal power. However subconsciously(or not), he made me small and made it clear that he was more powerful than I was-so he was powerful, by definition. How sad is that???

So my bizarre fantasy (or fear)that we'll stand in front of the judge at the end of the month, and Dave will see the error of his ways and ask to stop the proceedings in the nick of time.... not only will it not happen -which I knew. But even if it did happen, I should say no. I would just do the thing I do -love with my whole heart and forgive as best as I am able. He would do what he can do, which is somewhat less than that.

That marriage didn't fail him. He failed him -and the rest of us besides.