Suzanna Danna

Have you guys ever seen ducks mating? One female is basically being chased and bitten and suffocated and drowned and held underwater while a flock of boys try to fuck her.

Yeah.

So anyway.

October… oh how I adore thee… what? (Angry whispering) Seriously? Good Lord. Oh FINE. NOVEMBER! Oh how I adore thee! Better? [raised eyebrow] Good.

The crisp, cool air, the … what the hell is that smell? No seriously? It smells like someone is grilling Apocalypse Now on the patio below me. OH GOD! It’s in my nose! It’s attached itself to my face! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH! :: sneeze :: Bless me. It’s in my hair!!!!!

The above mini-melodrama was brought to you by the day Monday and the letter O for “OW, the smell of Napalm hurt my face.”

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I have no idea where I was going with the information above, but apparently that was last week and I jumped the shark.

Okay, so. Without further adieu, I want to touch a toe tentatively* into something that so many of you have been very polite to not get all up in my grill about for almost six months now.

*Say THAT five times fast. Wait, call my cell… wait for the beep, THEN say it 5 times fast!

Let’s talk about the divorce.

I look back at the first post of this blog (I know, I know, my formatting still isn’t fixed… deal, there are bigger things to attend to) and I see how sweet and kind and wary and excited I was to be in this… thing… this relationship… to have a boyfriend, a May-an! Then the courtship period, then the engagement, the wedding, the first downward spiral that we came out of stronger and completely convinced that we could handle anything together. As long as we were together, everything would be fine.

On Mr. X’s bulletin board there was a card I gave him. It had two kids with yellow rain slickers on. The jist of the card was this, “As long as we have each other, it’s gonna be cool. And by the way, I brought snacks.”

You know what? It wasn’t cool. And the snacks didn’t make a flip of difference.

For those of you who have been through this before, or if you are going thought it now, I would love to hear your stories. And by “this” I mean the dissolving of your relationship. I would love for us to just … I don’t know. Discuss this in an open forum. What happened to your romance, your love… the one(s) you thought was(were) your soul mate(s)? What is your damage? What is theirs’? Are you happier now? Are you more hopeful for your future? Tell me about you. If you are struggling with a relationship/marriage that is floundering, let’s talk about it. What things have worked for you, what has gone disastrously? What is the one thing you have done that you swore you’d never do?

Mr. X is still a very nice man. I still respect him and wish him well. But somewhere in all of that time that we spent together as a couple, an engaged couple, and a married couple we lost our way.

We were partners y’all. We could handle ANYTHING that life threw at us. Or so we thought. Within the first three weeks of our wedding we had a medical emergency (his appendix almost burst), we had a lay off (thanks, Bob), we had … Lord, I don’t even want to think about it, but we covered the “in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer” part of the vows quick. We thought we were invincible.

We have both sought therapy (I’m heavily medicated for anxiety and sleep disorders) and I am not going to lay blame on either one of us as being the sole partner to hold responsible.

I wanted to be wooed and put on that pedestal that he had me perched on since the moment we met. I am not sure when the pedestal was taken away but I couldn’t find it for the life of me. I went from being a self assured, independent sexy thing to … this invisible, unattractive nuisance. Yeah, how does that happen?

I think he… just wanted to be left alone.

We had no children so it was never a matter of “should we stay together for the kids” which I believe lays an incredible amount of responsibility on the fragile shoulders of a child, and we never had amazing amounts of debt, or … really anything to stay together for. Sure, there is love. But what is love when you strip away all the comfort, replace sighs of contentment with eyes that are tight around the corners, thin lipped smiles and the feeling of always being off balance?

I can and could probably never point to one instance; one small little, or one BIG HUGE thing that caused things to start to crumble around us. I just know that things began to die. It sounds so dramatic, but face it, when a relationship is in trouble and no one is actively trying to revive it. Or one person is doing all the resuscitation, while the other sits and ponders their navel or pelts you with JuJu Bees, that’s not working toward the same goal.

Small things die off.

Time holding hands, time playing games, time dating, time loving, time laughing, time cooking and thinking of special things to do for one another… not because it is a unusual occasion, but because it is Tuesday. Thoughtful things for one another. Acts of service, words of affirmation, physical touch and affection, small gifts, TIME.

These things get sliced away. Teeny little bits here and there. Those small paper-thin cuts of hurtful words, neglect and trying to out-polite one another because you are so freaking uncomfortable. No words are right, regardless of what you say it is just noise to your partner. Things get sliced away when affection is met with a startled reaction or a physical jump. When you don’t talk any more, just go about doing your own duties and chores. When you start resenting your partner because they are more into “fill in the blank here” than you… WAY more.

Sleeping in different bedrooms because of one excuse or another, then it becoming a habit. No pillow talk, no dating, no laughter, uncomfortable silences, awkward advances that are refused again and again.

Oh, there was never any cheating or beating going on in our home. It was more subtle. I am strangely prideful of that fact. No cheating or beating. Kind of a sad thing to be proud of. But I am. I say that like it’s a good thing.

What is left unsaid is the unraveling of a great love.

The pain of not being seen. The day that you realize that you don’t have butterflies when you are on your way home from work, and the butterflies you normally got because you got to SEE THEM! are… just… gone. When you realize that your partner is embarrassed by you. The vocal honesty and heartfelt emotion that once was a source of deep conversation and reflection are now referred to as “flammable”. Issues are asked to be given in writing.

Small little cuts. Teeny slices of what you were together are being flayed in miniscule amounts.

Tissue thin pieces of your partnership are torn away with neglect, with trying too hard, giving too many options on what to do for the evening or dinner, with leaving things left unsaid or on the opposite side of that coin… saying them, and being met with a blank stare.

Larger chunks are torn and ripped away when you ask direct open ended questions. Blunt things that you should know, but are very unsure and insecure about. Being told that sure, your partner wants to make it work... with the caveat of “if everything improves.” “Everything?” “Yes, EVERYTHING.” “Could you be more specific?” “You want examples?” “Yes please.”

Big chunks. You are somebody’s bitch, and you are not being paid for it… like your relationship with your boss (or cellmate). You do your chores, you are not seen. You cook dinner or do the dishes or the laundry, you are not seen. You try to be affectionate, you are not seen. You try to touch and be touched and are met with logic and physical stiffness, you are not seen. You try to talk, you are not seen.

Finally.

You realize, life is too short.

How much longer are you willing to wait for your partner to see you? The hundreds of small slices, the larger tears, the big chunks… can those be replaced? Have you turned into yourself for protection? Have you built a wall? How much longer are you willing to be invisible?

Will you just fade away if you stay?

Why are you staying?

If you have a more verbal relationship with yelling, screaming, abusive words and anger, how much more stress are you willing to tolerate? If you don’t fight fair, if you use hurtful words, how can you build yourself up as you are each being constantly torn down?

Are you afraid to be alone?

I was in a house with a man I loved and yet, I had never felt so lonely. To me, that was worse, somehow.

What are you going to do?