What If

August 17, 2020

What if I decided not to worry about things I should have said or done or thought or considered or worked on?  What if I decided that I didn't need to consider whether I had regrets?  What if I just moved forward rather than looking back?  Just this once, just for a while.

What if?

What if I decided that I did work hard enough at marriage and that I don't have to debate that point any more?  What if I decided that I wasn't a failure -- in my eyes or my children's or my husband's or my in-laws' or my family's or friends' or those of people I don't even know -- to get separated and maybe divorced?  What if I decided that I am doing everything right rather than waiting for assurance from someone else?  (I don't ask for the assurance, but not doing so is an act of restraint, hard-nosed determined restraint, when I talk with those closest to me.)

So let me try this now.

I was right to separate from my husband.  I have worked hard enough at my marriage over the last eighteen years (tomorrow, our actual eighteenth anniversary).  I am not a failure.  I am a success in finally emerging from this marriage with every truth that I need to say, not just to myself, but out loud to my husband and even to others.

This is the right thing to do.  I have faith that it is the right thing to do.  And as with right steps, good will follow.  There will be challenges, but the rewards will be great.  We moved our family to Italy for a year, confident that it was the right thing to do, knowing that we would encounter challenges both for ourselves and for our children.  And there were challenges: being the outsiders for a long while at their new school; not knowing the language; having only each other to play with for months; no outside space to play in each afternoon and weekend; an apartment in the city for four kids; missing people from home.  But not once did I think that we were doing the wrong thing, even amidst the fights of four siblings in our living room.

So I'm going to decide to have that kind of confidence, that kind of fearlessness.  

Good will follow.  As with Italy, the immediate good may not be obvious, but it's there, under the surface, taking root, growing in me, and maybe growing in my husband and kids, too.

This separation is the best thing for this moment in time.  I don't know what's next, but I know that my not living with my husband is ultimately good.  I will come out of this stronger and happier in ways I cannot know yet.  Our kids will come out of this stronger -- I can't guarantee happier, but I do think that there is potential there.  My husband will come through this ultimately stronger and maybe even happier.  Like me, he won't be able to blame his problems in life on a spouse, on someone else.  He'll have to figure out how to get what he needs in life to be happy.  I even believe that our relationship will be stronger and happier because of the steps we are taking now.

When I imagine that relationship, I struggle a bit.  

Sometimes I imagine us together again, happier, healthier, growing older together.  But that picture makes me feel like I'm getting smaller, pushing myself to the side of the frame, not keeping myself right in the center with my husband.  I imagine that I would be or we would be in the center together for a while, but over time, I would be closer to the margins, morphing into a self that is fluid, flexible, accommodating again.  

Other times I imagine us happily divorced, living in separate houses, the kids splitting time between our homes.  We help each other out with pick-ups and drop-offs, and we coordinate the kids' schedules amicably.  The six of us still do family dinner together every Sunday, at either house, with one of us cooking.  We do the kids' birthdays and holidays together, even if we're getting together with extended family.  We enjoy and respect each other, really value the other one, but don't depend on the other one for our emotional, physical, spiritual, social needs.  Eventually we both find other partners, and they are welcome at birthdays and holidays, too.  We co-exist with peace.

We are ourselves, and each of us shines with joy.  And our kids are happy.  And he can have the other women relationships he needs and the social life he needs, and I can feel grounded and secure in myself and not trapped, and grounded and secure and excited in perhaps another relationship.  We are friends, real friends, and we are happy for each other in our successes and compassionate towards each other during difficulties.

We are not married, but we support each other.

Could we have that joy and light and happy and stay together?

Perhaps.

But too much has passed now.  Too much light has gone out, too much joy diminished, too much trust lost.  I have worked hard enough.  I am open to communication, I am.  But I don't actually want to work to understand better, to make friends together, to forgive and let go.  

And I am going to allow myself this.

No regrets.  I was clear in my mind when I chose to separate, as clear as I have ever been about anything in my life -- having babies, moving to Italy for a year.  Some decisions I've made and been almost shocked that I'm doing them, that people believe me and my decisions become reality, e.g. moving to California with no job; getting married.  But I never doubted getting pregnant or moving to Italy; once I'd made these decisions, I never looked back.

No looking back at this moment either.

No need to look forward either.

This is a space I needed, and now I'm in it, a good space, a space to breathe.  

Stay here for a while.

Breathe.

See the light.