Posted by:
Tal Bachman
(
)
Date: July 03, 2014 03:57AM
Leaving the church rocked my once-amazing marriage. Life after Mormonism was especially hard for my (now ex) wife.
I tried hard to help her, and to keep my marriage intact. I read counseling books, relationship manuals, sex manuals, seduction manuals, asked advice from friends, strangers, and relatives alike, lined us up with a series of counselors, researched depression and various forms of therapy, initiated activities and date nights and adventures, tried to really up my game as a husband and dad...all sorts of things. I wanted my ex to once again feel stable and settled, and to be who I had always thought she was. I wanted us all to make it together.
But in retrospect, I made a mistake. I mention it now in hopes that others can learn from what I did wrong.
The mistake I believe I made was in valuing temporary peace over long-term peace. Certain behaviours and attitudes persisted between us which were just totally incompatible with happy, healthy union; but rather than confront them fully, with my wife, I often tip-toed around them in order to avoid triggering blow-ups. So, often, I would either keep silent, or try to be as meek, and even circuitous, as I could, while addressing things, in order to keep things calm. So, the problems remained.
And because they remained, something began to happen to me: I began to split, emotionally and psychologically. Half of me yearned for what I had once had, and would have done anything for my beautiful, but lost and troubled, queen. But, more and more, after failing so many times, the other half began to give up, and even began to yearn to find someone else - someone who I could make happy, who got me, who enjoyed life in the way I did, etc.
And I would sometimes find myself driving around, obsessed with trying to figure out how to get my wife back, while at the same time wondering if that would be the day I would find the woman I perhaps should have been with all along - the woman with whom things would be easy, and fun, and with whom there could be the intense connection I craved. I felt like I was turning into someone I had never been before - someone who was in two different places at the same time, or like two different people jammed into the same body.
What I now believe I should have done was to stop, and *throw down* - even if that meant triggering another blow-up. Fully confront the issues with her - not in a mean way, but in a way that was focused, positive, and motivated by love and genuine concern. "This is what I see - I want to know what you see - Neither of us is happy, and I want us to work together to change that - Will you? - What can I do as a husband? Here is what I need from you...etc."
But I didn't do that - at least not at all that directly. I just...tried to keep the family going, tried to limit the blow-ups. I kept date nights going, adventures, notes, flowers...but the problems remained, because I never did fully jam a stick in the spokes, and stop the spinning long enough to be able to fix it.
And guess what happened?
I grew lonelier, and lonelier, and lonelier. And then, one night, it happened. I met a hottie who I really clicked with. There was a group of people there; but she and I chatted. A lot. We laughed. We got each other. She seemed to get me more in two minutes than the woman I had married fifteen years earlier, and who I lived with. For me, who always appreciated, even craved, a beautiful feminine presence in my life, and which I had lacked for a long time, the experience was like a shot of some mind-blowing drug.
And as with a forest in a long, hot, dry summer, just one simple spark was enough to make me explode into flames (of infatuation). A blaze of hormones consumed me. I couldn't stop thinking about her. I wondered how to see her again. It was terrible, thrilling, dangerous, weird, addictive, and bad, all at the same time.
Luckily, I managed to get possession of myself before anything happened. But I wonder if something might have, if, during those early throes of madness, we had found ourselves in different circumstances. Maybe then, my willpower would have broken, and I would have just gone berserk and made hot raging insane lion love to the only woman in years I had felt any connection with (she did seem open to that).
And that was the problem. By valuing "not dealing with a meltdown" more than I valued "being honest with myself and her, and confronting and hopefully eliminating problems once and for all", I not only allowed problems to remain, but allowed myself to get into an emotional state in which I could easily have ended up doing something terrible. I think I should have manned up much earlier, before it ever got that far, and just said, "hey...I love you, but we are completely broken, and we need to either both dive in to fixing it, or call this for what it is - sadly, over - and move on".
I'm not suggesting being a jerk - only being honest, and brave, and aware that when you don't fully confront and solve problems as they arise, you usually get them back with interest. Those are things I wasn't - or not enough.
Now, my marriage is over. Maybe, in the moment we realized Joseph Smith was no more a "prophet" than L. Ron Hubbard or the local taxi driver, it was destined to fail, no matter what. I don't know. What I do know is that tip-toeing around issues didn't help any, and it got me in a position where, given a few changes of circumstances, I might have done something I would regret far more than not fully confronting the problems which plagued us.
I hope the wives and husbands reading this, who might be in a similar situation, will be more vigilant, and brave, and honest with your spouse, than I was. Maybe your marriage can be saved, and you and your spouse can be happier than ever.
Best wishes,
Dr. Love
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/03/2014 03:38PM by Tal Bachman.