Let's Get Personal: Part II: Divorce & What I've Learned

Our wedding in December 2008

I got married young - 22, to be exact. And I was in looove. Like head over heels, over the moon, drunk-in-love kind of love. My now ex-husband and I were both in the military (though we had known each other since the third grade), and he was getting ready to deploy. So, after one year of dating, we decided to get married before he left. Our wedding happened on a magical winter night, with the snowflakes lazily floating down around us and the fireplace and twinkling Christmas lights glowing warmly behind us. I remember I laughed a lot that night and my smile was so big my cheeks hurt. After we got married, and after he deployed, I transferred across the country so we would be stationed in the same area. I moved into my little apartment, learned my way around my new duty station and my new job responsibilities, and eagerly awaited my husband's return from war. This was the happiest and most exciting time of my life (it was also, at this point in time, the most stressful - having your loved one fighting in a war zone is some scary and nerve-wracking shit. Mad props to all of the military spouses out there). I had found my person, you guys. I had found my soul mate. Someone whom I not only loved but whom I genuinely liked and respected and admired and truly wanted to spend the rest of my life with, making a home and babies together. He brought out this joy and yearning for life in me. We brought out this passion in one another that was electrifying and like nothing I had experienced before. He returned from deployment, straight into my waiting arms, and we quickly and happily began our married life.

It didn't take long to realize that that passion we brought out in one another swung in both directions. We loved hard and we fought hard. We would have moments of pure ecstatic bliss, followed by heated and bitter exchanges that would leave my head spinning. It was a romantic roller-coaster. But here's the thing, we really fucking loved each other. And we wanted each other. And we wanted to make it work. So we did. We loved hard and we fought hard and we made it work for a lot of years. And it was during those good times that we created our beautiful son. We can both honestly say that our child was made out of love and he was wanted for the right reasons. He wasn't a means to fix our relationship. He was a product of our love. 

Homecoming after one of his deployments

Over the years, our heated and bitter exchanges turned more and more hostile. These awful moments started to become more powerful than the wonderful ones, and the wonderful ones started to become more and more rare. I wasn't always happy (okay, yeah, there were a lot of times I was downright miserable and questioned how healthy our relationship actually was), but I kept going along, thinking we would continue to make it work because we fucking loved each other and that's what you did, right? And more than that, my heart still belonged to him. I still didn't want anyone else. I still wanted this life with him. And then, on a cold February night in 2016, on my bathroom floor in the middle of the night, my world came shattering down around me. Everything I knew ceased to exist.

This happened over 3 years ago and still my heart aches and my eyes tear up as I type this. I can honestly say that, along with my marriage, a piece of me died that night. Over the last 3 1/2 years I have tried to resurrect that part of me, with weeping and journaling and therapy and chocolate and booze and sex, and nothing has brought it back. I have made a sad peace with the knowledge that it may never come back. I have been loved and I have loved since my divorce, but it has never felt quite the same.

Out of respect for my ex-husband and the father of my child, I don't feel comfortable going into specific or dirty details of our marriage. But, I will say this: A lot of bad shit happened. We both fucked up in our own ways. We scarred one another. I don't think either one of us will ever be quite the same. It was a traumatic and heartbreaking experience, and I think it's because we truly, fiercely and deeply loved each other. And only a love like that can provide the level of heartbreak we experienced.

But, I have learned, that just because you love someone doesn't mean you need to be with them. I have learned that you can hate someone but love them more. I have learned that forgiveness is one of the hardest things to do, but it can be done if you truly want it, if not for the other person, then for yourself. I've learned that carrying hate around in your heart will corrode it and make you an ugly person, because hate is so ugly and it will transform you from the inside out. I have learned that love is the most powerful force in nature. I have learned that, while it has burned me, I am grateful to be able to say that I experienced a love like that because, while it was fleeting, it was one of the most beautiful things I've ever experienced. And it was the gateway to an even deeper and more powerful love - the pure, unconditional and unadulterated love a mother has for her child.

My little love

Divorce ripped me apart and many times it felt like I was left for dead. Almost 11 years of my life was spent "knowing" things would be a certain way, devoted to the concept of marriage and family and traditionalism. To have that knowledge and that truth taken away from you, ripped from your hands even, is one of the most soul-shattering and life-crushing experiences. But I'm here. It didn't kill me. It did make me stronger. I proved to myself that I can pick up the pieces and slowly put them back together. I'd like to think that I'm repairing the cracks of my broken life with gold, much like Kintsukori (meaning "golden repair"), the centuries-old Japanese art of fixing broken pottery with a special lacquer mixed with powdered gold, silver or platinum. The results are beautiful seams of gold glinting in the ceramic ware, giving a unique and special appearance to the piece.

So, what have I learned? I have learned that without divorce, I would have learned none of these things.