I Wish I Had Learned Sooner That...

It's another one of Katie's topic suggestion cards; I wish I had learned sooner... She may not like the outcome but here goes. Just a warning. This entry expresses a bit of anger.

I wish I had learned sooner that being happy was more important than being married. I was married for 32 years, many of them unhappy years. I left my wife for the first time in the year 2000. It was the start of a New Year and a New Millennium. It was going to be the start of a new life. Yet I went back, reconciling with her, putting my happiness aside for what I thought were the needs of my children, my family. I was wrong. I was unhappy and my unhappiness spread like a virulent virus around to my children. My wife was unhappy and she spread that disease too.

It wasn't always like that. When we first got married we were happy, mostly. It was a challenge for me. I saw her as coming from a perfect family with sound ideals and strong ties. It was something I wanted for myself and my children. She was able to win almost every argument with a form of circular discourse, never really addressing my point of view but simply asserting hers. I asked myself if I wanted to be right, or married. Even then I realized I could not have both.

Over the years I put my happiness aside, telling myself that I should appreciate my family, love my wife and children, care for them. I did what I could to be momentarily happy, what I could to find joy. Yet underneath it all, I was unhappy, mostly in my marriage. But I said to myself, it is better to be married than happy. Even then I realized I could not have both, at least not in that marriage.

Then I got my first sailboat. I found a place where I was happy, a domain where the things I wanted actually mattered, where clutter and crap and corruption could be swept away and life could be good. I started going to the boat each and every Sunday after church, and for trips whenever I could. She complained and said I had to stop spending so much time on the boat and start spending time at home. I had a family and what she wanted for it came first, before my happiness. So I decided to stop doing what made me happy and to do what made her happy, or at least made her feel in control. After all, wasn't that the right thing to do, to put aside my happiness for the happiness of my wife and children?

Then I started working out of town, away from home. I found I was happier when I was away than when I was at home. She was too, happier with me not in the home. She pushed aside all my possessions and belongings and created a house where she was happy, a home where I was irrelevant. She was happy: I was absent. She was comfortable; I was out but still married, with no real home and no real happiness.

One day I realized that I would never be happy living in those conditions, under that rule. I realized that happiness had its own price. I could be happy, but not married to her. I could have an interesting life, a home where I counted, a place that felt like mine, but not while I was in that marriage.

I wish I had learned sooner that it is better to be happy than to be married.