8 years ago today, on the 22nd of April 2018, my life was irreparably and irreversibly changed. It was the day that I was told I wasn’t wanted, and I knew from that day that my life was changed for good, and that it wasn’t always going to be good.
The hardest thing about the day my then wife said that she couldn’t live the life we had was the realisation that the dream I had held onto since I was a teenager – to be a Dad – was not completely taken away but it was from that point on going to be a struggle mentally and emotionally, and it would affect me in ways that I could not begin to fathom at the beginning.
I knew that we had our issues and differences of opinion, as well as being two completely different people. I am very easy going and probably frustratingly so to someone who likes to be in control of pretty much any given situation. We were incompatible as it turns out, but we had 15 and a half years together so there must have been something good between us, and when you love the person who is the mother of your children you accept that you will not be mirror images of each other.
I confess that for a long time I held a bit of a grudge against my ex wife and it was all to do with her failure to communicate how she felt. As I said, we had our disagreements but I was the one who was made to feel that I had to change and modify my responses to difficult situations or just in general. Hindsight has shown me that there was a bias to one side about who needed to be better within the relationship. Communication was not our strong suit – from either of us – and my part in that was my inability to put my own views across and to stand up for myself. I am a pretty placed, placable personality and do not like to rock the boat. I like to let things evolve, and looking back now I can see how that might have been a challenge for my ex wife at the time.
Why did I not stand up for myself? It was partly because of how I devalue myself against other people and I also did not want anything to jeopardise my dream – that of being a loving father and husband and part of a strong, happy family unit. Would we have stayed together if I was a different person, or had communicated my opinions and feelings more positively? Possibly, but as time has gone on I believe that what happened on this day 8 years ago would probably have happened at some point in the future.
I blame myself as much as I do my ex wife about how things ended. It has been made clear in these past 8 years that we didn’t communicate effectively and we – in my eyes at least – ended up living like house mates as much as anything. There was no intimacy, no passion, no real spark to our relationship in the end.
She said some things (in emails and text messages, never verbally) that hurt me and although I have thought to respond, these things were written way back at the start and I can no longer see any reason to do so, if in fact I ever did entertain the idea of putting forward my side of things. I know I will never change her perception and perspective of how our relationship fell apart, and the only thing that was happening with me holding grievances was that I would be the one who ended up with an ulcer.
It took me about 5 years after our separation to begin to let go of any angst or hate I was feeling. I eventually saw no point in destroying my chance at happiness and it was also not going to be fair on the kids if their Dad was miserable and not nice to be around. The kids are my life now (and always have been), and I owed it to them to come through the red mist and embrace full, proper, intoxicating happiness through accepting what had happened and that it happened for a reason, as everything in life does. I am at that point now where I honestly believe that it was for the best, albeit not a nice experience for the kids but they have shown remarkable resilience and courage from the first day and it is that which makes me truly happy.
My dream didn’t die, it just got shone in a different light and shown through a different lens. 8 years has been long enough to dwell on things.
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