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As regular Blender readers know, I divorced Chris around this time last year. It has been a strange year, made stranger by the fact that my ex-husband and I both continue to contribute to the Blender. Although technically we met through Yahoo personals we told everyone that we met at the Blender of Love because that is where I directed Chris to in the first e-mail I ever sent him.
There are many "if"s that I have considered since leaving my ex-husband last spring, the main one being if I had been at a better place in my life when we met online, most likely we would have been good friends and left it at that. I was in a horrible place, however. I had lost my job writing for the Index, the weekly newspaper in Bridgeport, Texas, and was still hung-up on a guy who had dumped me several months ago. I was trying to secure a job as a live-in nanny because I had no money for rent and I had no desire to move in with my grandparents or mom and stepdad. So when Chris started e-mailing me and that evolved into phone calls and love letters, I was elated. It was the one good thing I had going for me. When I flew to New York to meet Chris I knew right away (and I think Chris knew, too) that there was no chemistry. We slowly built a rapport but it wasn't what I had expected. There had been months of build-up with marathon telephone conversations and exciting letters and gifts. I guess we both thought that when we met it would be a "reunion" of mythic proportions, like something you would see in the movies. We fought from the very beginning. I am ashamed to admit this, but I actually thought that Chris was my one shot at marriage. That sounds crazy but that shows how low my self-esteem was at the time. By Texas standards I was an old maid. I was tired of one-night stands and unrequited love. I wanted the emotional and financial security of marriage. So we fought and made up again and again. It didn't help matters that when I flew to New York to meet Chris I had just quit Paxil, an anti-depressant, cold turkey. I slept all the time and felt dizzy whenever I stood on my feet for any period of time. I was in no shape for a serious relationship. Still, despite all the bad drama, Chris proposed marriage and I accepted. There were good moments to our marriage because we felt a genuine affection for one another. We respected each other intellectually. Chris knew that I had been through a lot and I think he wanted to compensate for that somehow. He was always bringing me little surprises like candy and magazines. There was a joke between us that I liked the little surprises he gave me more than I liked the jewelry he gave me on special occasions because I was always losing the jewelry. Chris tried to be a good husband to me but I was so deeply depressed that all the gifts and trips to Las Vegas in the world could not make me happy. I have a history of depression that began when I was nine years old, but I don't think it helped my depression any that I married a man primarily out of fear and anxiety. Last March I made the decision to leave Chris with the clothes on my back and not much else. I had made some new friends for the first time in years and those friends were my top priority. One of those friends was Michael, whom I married on April 22nd of this year. I was in love with Michael when I left Chris but I had no idea what would happen. There was no security, no safety net. I was risking my heart because there was no guarantee that Michael saw me as anything other than a lusty fling. For a long time I had been numb. I was feeling powerful emotions again and it was scary as hell. But I knew it was time to go, time to live a more honest, gutsy life. I regret hurting Chris. I wish I could have left him on my own without bringing another man into the equation. The reality is, I never had the money, confidence or practical life skills to just pack up and leave. I was a mess. I'm still pretty much a mess but I haven't been on anti-depressants in over a year and I don't have crying jags anymore. I pay bills now. I'm with a man I married for the one reason everyone recommends...I can't live without him. If it weren't for Chris there would be no Michael. Life is fucking weird. |