I'd like to say this was an anomaly of news I've seen as of late, but if I think about it, since my own divorce two years ago, I've know half a dozen people who've gone through the same thing, and at least another dozen who were in non-married relationships that fell apart as well.
Considering I don't have that many friends to begin with, it's not a great statistic.
Now I'm not going to make this a political rant and I am definitely not one of those condescending, sanctimonious clods who stands on a soapbox and bangs the ol' "Family Values" drum when it comes to marriage. But as someone who suddenly found himself thrown into the dating pool while the relationships of people around me continue to come unraveled, it leaves me feeling very conflicted.
As a guy who wants to be in a relationship and can say I'm in love with an amazing woman, with how fragile such things have become in the 21st Century, is it really worth it to try finding that person anymore?
The reason I got divorced was actually quite straightforward. Seven years into my marriage, I was tired of my life being nothing but jumping from trivial job to trivial job every year or so, making tiny salaries and barely being able to contribute to the plans my wife and I had for our future. So I made the decision to go back to college, and my wife wasn't thrilled about it, but I didn't give her a choice.
When we first got together, we'd made an agreement that I would quit school to work and help pay the bills while my ex finished her college education and at some point, we would reverse it and I'd get my opportunity. So I called in the favor and were it not for the fact that I'd already started the ball rolling on it, I truly feel she would've done everything she could to make sure I didn't do it.
In hindsight, that decision sewed the seed for the destruction of our marriage, because my days went from working in sterile, mind-numbing cubicles to being in class eight hours a day, then working one of three jobs at night or on the weekends, and doing homework until I finally passed out. I threw myself into getting my education and our relationship suffered because of it, because I wasn't home very much and when I was, I was preoccupied with other things to not give my wife the amount of attention she wanted.
And she wanted a lot of it.
Because I was also going to a college where women outnumbered men 2-to-1, there was also the not-so-subtle inferences made by my ex that because I would sometimes have to spend nights on campus and I was making new female friends, I just HAD to be sleeping with at least one of them.
*For the record, in my 16 years as part of a monogamous relationship, I never cheated. Not once. Nor did I ever even consider it, no matter how many female friends I had. I will have words with anyone who says otherwise.
On this point, I want to be crystal clear. Yes, I realize my decision was selfish. I wanted to have my life be more meaningful to me than it was, and I didn't care what anyone else said about it, including my wife. But I also did it because I knew (as most of us think we know) that having a more advanced education will lead to better opportunities and help not only me, but my wife because the burden wouldn't be entirely on her to bring home the proverbial bacon.
Ultimately, the final straw in our marriage, sadly, was when we made the decision to start a family. With college over and my journalism career underway, the expectation was we would have a child, now that we were both approaching our mid-30's. So we did, even though we were in massive financial debt due to my college loans and fiscal irresponsibility on both our parts (I'm as guilty of it as she was and I will freely admit it), and even though I'd hoped to be able to work one job after I graduated, I was still working three of them.
Keep in mind, this was 2010-11, when we were up to our necks in the Great Recession and that had a HUGE impact on not just us, but a lot of other people, whether we want to admit it or not.
By the end, we both instinctively knew that we were in trouble, and tried to talk about it. Unfortunately, it didn't work and when I finally imploded and suffered a total nervous breakdown following the birth of our son, my wife was done. So she left and the rest is history.
Divorce is complicated. It's messy and I don't care who you are, it puts your heart and self-identity in a blender and then hits "Pulverize." And I don't know a single person who ever went looking for it when they made the promises and commitments to their spouse. We don't, because we want to love that person, unconditionally, and we've all grown up knowing that "lucky" couple who managed to stay together for 30, 40, 50 years or more and thought if they could do it, why the hell can't we?
I have no idea. As I said before, I'd like to think I'm as worthy of being in a stable, loving relationship as anyone else on this planet. But with how gut-wrenching it can be when those relationships fall apart, I also have to consider whether or not it's better for me to put myself back out there and try again.
At this moment, I'm really not sure about that either.
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