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Marriage: Chapter One

Posted by djingodjango on Friday, May 13, 2011

Let it be made clear from the outset that this post is not one of bitterness, anger, or vindictiveness.  Too many years have passed for those words or thoughts to have any meaning in my life.

My first marriage lasted over a dozen years and I would not trade one second of the time spent in that marriage because it has given me a chance to know four of the most beautiful children a parent could ask for.

My oldest daughters birthday is today, and I began postulating about the time before the divorce and then the time after.

I have been afraid for years to talk of this time forI felt myself a failure and looked on those dozen or so years as a failure.  Because, you see, it was always about me; a short-coming on my part that I grapple with daily.

My first duty was to those four children, but I was so devastated by the break-up that I retreated into a hole (translate that as living with my mother) and simply would not face it.

The year of the breakup was the same year my father died suddenly of a heart attack, and I lost a job I had held for several years.

There are studies that show one life tragedy spikes the scale of psychotic disturbance in a person. Two in one year and you are in deep do-do mentally. And three in a year. ...Well, let's just say I couldn't hack it.

And that realization is what brought me to this point today. I couldn't hack it because I was too cowardly, too self centered, too scared, and lacked the tools and knowledge of how to react to the issue of divorce.

It is also the reason I have tried to block the memories from that first marriage, because I thought I was a terrible father. 

Our marriage was, in many ways, somewhat how  the late A. Bart Giamatti described the game of baseball:  "It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in spring when everything else begins again and blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leave you to face the fall alone."

That describes it perfectly.

A spring of hope, two children immediately, two more to follow and each of us, husband and wife, trying to figure out how to make everything work.

We did the best we could with the tools at our disposal.

But too much of life got in the way and soon the chill rains came.

I will lay the blame of my divorce on no one, because, if you are reading this and have gone through a divorce you know that there is usually no one or no one thing to blame.  Most of the time it just happens.

I used to curse my parents who had allowed me the freedom to do pretty much anything I wanted to do; until I realized that they did what they did because those were all the tools they had. They didn't know any better.

Enough of the beating up of ourselves. None of us try to purposely ruin a marriage or treat our kids with less then a decent upbringing. We just do the best we can.

And, by the way, as the years passed by, I met a woman who was to become the light of my life and who gave me five more to add to the list of good things in my life.

By the way, in case you're wondering, I am still learning the job of parenting.  Remember; no matter how old your kids get, they are still your kids!

(C) 2011 George Locke

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



3 comments on “Marriage: Chapter One”

u k sandra Says:
Friday, May 13, 2011 @1:33:56 PM

Oh George, none of us are born knowing how to be good parents. We hopefully pick it up along the way. We do our best and hope it`s enough. We`re only human and we make mistakes. You clearly love your children and that means a lot. I`m pleased things finally worked out for you.

Jane C Says:
Saturday, May 14, 2011 @5:29:05 PM

Hi George, You've probably done as good a job as any of us. You've taken responsibility on your shoulders now throw away that guilt.
Kids don't come with a user manual and they don't look for signs of perfection only signs of love ..... and the PIN to your credit card.

Lady Bird Says:
Sunday, May 15, 2011 @7:29:54 PM

Hi George
I agree with Jane C with marriage and child bringing up we don't get a manual, we look at what our parents did, some things we change somethings we stay the same.
We hope whatever we do it works out OK, sometime it does sometime it doesn't, we try to get it right as best we can.
Marriage, is a hard one, cause the husband has to bring home the wages, sometime he doesn't even get to see the kids much, I have found my husband enjoyed the grandchildren more because he then had the time to spend with them.
It still sounds like you have done OK, looking forward to chapter 2, not a baseball fan so can't say much on that one.

Jill

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