After a much needed long break from writing my memoir, I’m back at it. It’s almost finished, then will need beta readers and an editor. I see why it takes some people ten, twenty years to write their memoir, especially when it brings up difficult feelings.
Part of writing memoir, is talking with others in your life to verify facts, jog your memory and hear their perspective.
It was most enlightening to talk with past co-workers. Co- workers who worked with me and my ex-husband back in the early 90’s. They were eager to speak with me. I was thankful for their generosity of thought and time.
I was stuck by how blind I was back then, hungry for connection, and how much I wanted a family.
My ex-husband, who was not my husband at the time, I’ll call him Matt, and I worked side by side behind the customer service desk in a beautiful bookstore. He was so kind, so helpful, showing me where to find books, telling me about the latest best reads.
When my young daughter was dropped off at the end of the day, he would drop everything, read and draw with her. He was winning me over. He won me over. He eventually divorced his wife and married me.
Without asking, in the interview with one ex co-worker they remarked, he is like all the Matt Lauers and Jeffery Epsteins of the world and getting away with it. He never got his work done, he was so busy chatting, flirting with customers, cheating on his wife.
I remembered how I used to take up for him at work. Our boss would be upset with him for not getting work done. I would argue, “Matt is so busy helping customers, he doesn’t have time to get the work done, let him focus on customer service, he’s good at it.” What I didn’t know was he had lost thousands of dollars for the store by not doing his duties with publisher co-advertising, that another co-worker was having to hunt down the incomplete special order slips that he had scattered in and out of his desk.
Meantime, I was being showered with gifts, love letters and attention. He became a “father” figure to my daughter, reading with her, painting, playing and getting down right silly. His fun loving personality won the hearts of my siblings and parents.
He was this single mom’s dream come true.
My nausea increased when my co-worker said, “it used to give me the creeps, the way he was with your daughter.” Again, I had been blind.
When Matt confided in me about the times he strayed in his previous marriage, he blamed the marital troubles on his wife. I believed him. I believed him when he told me I was the one for him.
I felt his earnestness when he begged for forgiveness the first time he stepped out of our relationship. I forgave him the 2nd time. I wasn’t strong enough to leave when I should have. I was raised in a culture that sent a message that a woman isn’t complete without a man.
Years into our struggling marriage, I discovered the porn he was watching of boys having sex. He refused to discuss it. Not knowing if he was a perv or exploring his sexuality, I was left to think the worse. I kept all this to myself, drank and became depressed. After I discovered his viewing habits, he treated me as if I didn’t exist in our own home. In counseling, as I broached the subject he stared into space with pinched lips. We had always celebrated birthdays, holidays with gifts and fanfare. On my 40th birthday there were no gifts, not even a happy birthday was spoken. He was angry at me for finding his secret.
Talking with my ex co-workers felt validating. They knew what it was like to work along side someone who to outsiders was the nicest guy in the world, but didn’t carry his weight with his workload or admit when he was wrong.
I realized the same traits that made Matt hard to work with; unable to take responsibly for his mistakes, avoidance and denial, also made it hard to be in a marriage with him.
Towards the end of our marriage, my body rebelled, cyst on ovaries, endometriosis that required a hysterectomy. The power of sudden hormone imbalance deepened my depression. I was a mess.
After years of counseling Matt and I sat down to discuss our options, we mutually agreed a separation was our next step. As we sat down to tell my daughter, he piped in, “I want you to know none of this is my idea and I am not for it.” I looked on as my daughter cried in his arms.
I had hoped we could at least end well. That we could still co-parent with love. But he needed to remain the nice guy as much as I had wanted a family of my own.
My family didn’t understand why I was leaving such a “nice” man.
I became angry after his ambush, taking no responsibility for his part in our failed marriage. I did crazy things. I called the woman he had an affair with and was seeing again, yelling into the phone that she was a whore.
In an attempt to find the right hormone replacement after my hysterectomy, one combination sent me into a black tunnel with no light in sight. I didn’t want to live. My teenage daughter became frightened by my drunkenness and erratic behavior.
The process of our divorce was messy. Since I had initiated the separation, he didn’t feel I deserved to keep the house we owned even if I bought him out. My goal had been to at least provide the stability of staying in the same home for my daughter until she left for college.
In my daughter’s second year of college, she planned to spend Thanksgiving break with me. A few weeks before, she phoned to say she could not get off work and wouldn’t be coming home for break. I offered to come for a visit before break. She liked the idea and asked me to stay with her. My first night there, we shared a dinner before she went out to meet friends. Since she didn’t have a car, I lent her mine. She gave me permission to check my email on her computer while she was gone. I clicked on the screen saver, up popped her email. The one from my ex-husband with Thanksgiving in the subject caught my eye. Curiosity got the best of me. He was letting her know he would be at the airport to pick her up the day before Thanksgiving and was looking forward to having her at his wedding.
Shocked and hurt, I grabbed a bottle of wine, gulping it as I paced the floor. My hurt turned to rage. When my daughter returned home, I yelled at her, “how could you do this to me, lie to me, why didn’t you just tell me the truth.” “Because of how you would react” she yelled back. I did have the sense to tell her it would be best for me to stay at a hotel and left.
The next day I discovered she had left her wallet in my car. I stopped by her house to drop it off. She cracked the door after my knock, “what are you doing here? If you don’t leave, I am calling the police.” I handed her the wallet, shocked, turned and left.
That night I attempted suicide.
We have never recovered from that terrible time.
My unattended to wounds caused me to hurt the one I love the most, my child.
We can’t go back in time and change what’s been done.
We can reflect, we can dig deep into ourselves, discover the open wounds that weren’t tended to, dig to a depth of discovering our true selves, let go of anger, make better, more mindful choices. Forgive ourselves, forgive others.
Thank you for reading and allowing me to be vulnerable.
Fscottwrites 