Bitterness

This is an advance warning to my children. You may not want to read this blog posting. It has to do with how I feel about my marriage and my ex-wife.

Several people have commented lately on how I talk about my marriage with such bitterness. It's true, I do. This comment has come from friends online, from home care workers, and from counseling professionals. It's true, I am bitter. I was so unhappy for so many years. I was such a fool to stay in a bad marriage simply because I believed that marriage should be for life.

I spent a lot of years convincing myself that I was doing the right thing, the responsible thing. It would have been far more responsible to admit the failure, deal with the anger, and leave. I even did that once, but like a fool I went back for more. She told me we would go to counseling and things would change. What she meant is I would go to counseling and I would change. I did, then I left her for good.

My marriage was a 32 year disaster. After a few years of reflection, I am at a point where I realize that my ex-wife didn’t really love me as much as she saw me as a revenue source. She was certainly loving, at least some of the time, in our marriage. We were certainly sexually compatible; in fact the sex was great and I miss it constantly. We did lots together with each other and as a family. But there was always a layer of judgementalism. I was never good enough for her.

Then I had some financial troubles, a period of under-employment, where money was tight. I don’t think she ever forgave me for this. I was responsible for being the economic engine of the family. I failed. The whole “for richer or for poorer” thing went right out the window. I failed, and our life situation was my fault. It was my job to fix it, my responsibility alone to make more money.

Over the years she got more and more controlling about money and just about everything else in our life. She basically taught the kids to not respect me or listen to what I had to say. In the end, when I left, she actually told the judge in divorce court that I had contributed nothing to the marriage and deserved nothing out of it. In court she said I was lying about having ALS so I didn’t have to work and pay alimony. Yes, she demanded alimony in court. She ended up with about 75% of our family assets. I ended up with ALS, and freedom.

So yes, I am bitter about wasting most of my life with someone who didn’t love me. That is my one true regret in life, that I have never been loved by a woman for who I am, without condition or correction. I was a fool. I left her after 20 years. I went back when she said things would change. They didn’t. Another 10 years later I left for good. I had been having symptoms of ALS for almost a year by then, but I didn’t know what it was. So here I was going through a very nasty divorce and the diagnosis stage of ALS, both at the same time.

These days even sex is out of my reach. Both of my Health Care Nurses have said I just need to get used to that idea, that I would likely never find a woman willing to look past the ALS, the short life span, the lack of body capacity. That makes me bitter too. If I am angry about one thing most of all, it is the loss of this one thing, this part of my life where I had a chance for real intimacy.

Like most men, I equate intimacy and closeness with sex. It's where we get to be vulnerable. Yet here I am, at a time when I am most vulnerable, when I most need intimacy and closeness, and the woman I devoted my life to is not here. I did my part, far more than just my part. I am going through this and she gets of scot-free, with a house, with grandchildren right there at hand, healthy and active. This is how it ends for me. No wonder I am bitter.