The Price of "I Love You" Everyday
Everyday for six or more years I told my wife I loved her and she did the same to me. About three months ago that stopped. I don't remember the last time exactly. Within three months we went from "I love you" everyday and deep, open conversations together to divorce papers and total communication breakdown.
Once the relationship is over, whether your spouse died or left you or you left him or her, the price of saying "I love you" everyday for six years is that you are left with questions and choices about how to live with yourself in the present, with your past, and with your future. Did you mean it? Or didn't you? Were you lying? Or not? Did you know what you were saying? Would you do it again?
I have chosen to commit that I meant what I said, that everyday, every time I said "I love you" to her I meant it. That has made the divorce very hard for me. I am faced with my own past, my own words haunt me, challenge me. What did it mean? Why did you say it? Look at what it got you: nothing, no merit.
My spouse took another route, which is the route of historical revision. She now claims that when she was happy in the past, she wasn't really happy. She claims that love wasn't love. All that past happiness was sham, deception, delusion.
In life, you may be lucky enough to learn some things that matter, things you can only learn the hard way, by living through them. Some lessons come at a terrible cost. One of the lessons I learned is that love should not be taken for granted. Love, not romantic love, but real love, unconditional love -- the love that I came to have for her even though I didn't always find her the most beautiful woman or the most intelligent or perfect in every way. I knew I did not need to deceive myself that she was all these things all the time. I just knew I loved her, as family, as a wife, as my closest friend and companion.
I need to say these things. I need to share them out loud. This divorce is the worst thing I've experienced personally since one of my closest friends was murdered when I was 19. That loss affected me incredibly deeply. So deeply that it transformed my life. It moved me. It taught me about life and love and reality. It made a 19 year old high school dropout, burn out kid into a healthy, athletic young man who graduated in the top of his class from college with a degree in, of all things, Greek and Latin. The kid who spent his entire teenage years high and drunk, chasing girls and listening to Aerosmith and Guns 'n' Roses, became a respectable citizen, a professional, a tax payer, a husband, a home owner.
So what's the price of "I love you" everyday? The price is who you are, the decision of who you are going to be in this world. If it goes bad someday, either by death or disfigurement or abandonment, will you backtrack? Retreat to revision of the past? Or will you accept what you did, own it, live up to it? Maybe fear of the difficulty of owning it is why many people have trouble telling others that they love them. That plays it safe. Safe is fine, but I don't want to tip-toe through my life just to lie down in my grave (thanks, Cheri). I don't see a clear, painless way out of the divorce and the 8 year relationship leading up to it, such as by starting a new relationship and keeping really, really busy. I was married for six years and I loved my wife and I worked hard to provide for us and to ensure a future. It's not so easy for me to stop the ship in mid-ocean and just sail it off in a new direction without wondering "Why should I? Where the hell am I going?" I didn't get where I am without a lot of hard work, and now I'm stunned, confused, doubting everything. Let's sit still for a minute.
I have my own theory and excuses for why my marriage (actually, screw the marriage, all that ever really mattered was the relationship and the people in it) fell apart. But I don't buy it. There's no excuse. At the end of the day, either you make the commitment or you don't. Either you take the vows and live them, or you don't.
So where to now? I really, really do not know. Where am I going? I have a chance to be free here, but free to what? What do I do now?
Once the relationship is over, whether your spouse died or left you or you left him or her, the price of saying "I love you" everyday for six years is that you are left with questions and choices about how to live with yourself in the present, with your past, and with your future. Did you mean it? Or didn't you? Were you lying? Or not? Did you know what you were saying? Would you do it again?
I have chosen to commit that I meant what I said, that everyday, every time I said "I love you" to her I meant it. That has made the divorce very hard for me. I am faced with my own past, my own words haunt me, challenge me. What did it mean? Why did you say it? Look at what it got you: nothing, no merit.
My spouse took another route, which is the route of historical revision. She now claims that when she was happy in the past, she wasn't really happy. She claims that love wasn't love. All that past happiness was sham, deception, delusion.
In life, you may be lucky enough to learn some things that matter, things you can only learn the hard way, by living through them. Some lessons come at a terrible cost. One of the lessons I learned is that love should not be taken for granted. Love, not romantic love, but real love, unconditional love -- the love that I came to have for her even though I didn't always find her the most beautiful woman or the most intelligent or perfect in every way. I knew I did not need to deceive myself that she was all these things all the time. I just knew I loved her, as family, as a wife, as my closest friend and companion.
I need to say these things. I need to share them out loud. This divorce is the worst thing I've experienced personally since one of my closest friends was murdered when I was 19. That loss affected me incredibly deeply. So deeply that it transformed my life. It moved me. It taught me about life and love and reality. It made a 19 year old high school dropout, burn out kid into a healthy, athletic young man who graduated in the top of his class from college with a degree in, of all things, Greek and Latin. The kid who spent his entire teenage years high and drunk, chasing girls and listening to Aerosmith and Guns 'n' Roses, became a respectable citizen, a professional, a tax payer, a husband, a home owner.
So what's the price of "I love you" everyday? The price is who you are, the decision of who you are going to be in this world. If it goes bad someday, either by death or disfigurement or abandonment, will you backtrack? Retreat to revision of the past? Or will you accept what you did, own it, live up to it? Maybe fear of the difficulty of owning it is why many people have trouble telling others that they love them. That plays it safe. Safe is fine, but I don't want to tip-toe through my life just to lie down in my grave (thanks, Cheri). I don't see a clear, painless way out of the divorce and the 8 year relationship leading up to it, such as by starting a new relationship and keeping really, really busy. I was married for six years and I loved my wife and I worked hard to provide for us and to ensure a future. It's not so easy for me to stop the ship in mid-ocean and just sail it off in a new direction without wondering "Why should I? Where the hell am I going?" I didn't get where I am without a lot of hard work, and now I'm stunned, confused, doubting everything. Let's sit still for a minute.
I have my own theory and excuses for why my marriage (actually, screw the marriage, all that ever really mattered was the relationship and the people in it) fell apart. But I don't buy it. There's no excuse. At the end of the day, either you make the commitment or you don't. Either you take the vows and live them, or you don't.
So where to now? I really, really do not know. Where am I going? I have a chance to be free here, but free to what? What do I do now?
posted by Scott M. Stirling | 12:38 AM
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