I just wanted to be his wife. I didn't care how it happened. By August, we had started seriously talking about just getting a marriage license and eloping. I never thought he was having second thoughts. The day we went to get the marriage license, he seemed as excited as I was. If he was having doubts, he hid it very well. That night, I made a bouquet and we went to my brother's house.
I remember it so vividly in my mind. The engagement ring we'd used was my grandmother's wedding ring. I handed it to him and we began. My brother wasn't completely prepared, but he did the best he could. He asked Paul if he would love, honor and cherish me and cleave only unto me. Paul smiled as he said, "I do." The tears spilled hot down my cheeks as I promised the love of my life that I would love him for the rest of my life. My sister-in-law took pictures as I stood next to Paul with tears streaming down my face as I said, "For better or for worse". The way he kissed me... the way he held me... I couldn't imagine that he wasn't as happy as I was that night.
We took dozens of pictures... and even now... looking at them? Does he look like a man who didn't want to get married? I just don't know.
We went home and made love for the first time as man and wife and it felt like the first time all over again. That is how it was supposed to be... married... joining as one. The next day things went on as they always had... except that now it was, "Hello, Husband", "Hello, Wife" and giggles and smiles. The stress of our lives at the time was probably a 6 out of 10... I guess I thought that getting married would be one less thing to worry about. We could now plan a wedding at our own pace... because we were already married. I was proud to be his wife. I loved when he introduced me and said, "This is my wife, Shannon".
I never thought we'd ever NOT be together. When we'd get in a fight, he'd tell me the only way I'd ever get rid of him was to kick him to the curb. When he wrote the bad checks and I left, he called me and left a message on my voicemail. He told me that he loved me and was going to spend his life proving it. He swore he'd never do anything to harm our marriage again. I believed him with all my heart and let him come home. I wanted my marriage to work. I wanted it to get better.
Months later, when the truth came out about him quitting his job and having the secret MySpace account, I packed his things. I left them in the living room for him. He came home and I cried for hours as we sat on the couch and I told him that I couldn't let him disregard my feelings anymore. I held him, unable to let go as he started loading his stuff up in the truck. Before the night was through, he was back in my bed and it almost seemed like nothing had happened. Because I lacked the ability to be angry for more than a an hour, it was easy to pretend that everything was okay again. I blamed myself because every time we got in a fight, he'd tell me that I was passive aggressive (I was) and that if I'd just open up and tell him how I was feeling, we'd be okay.
The other times I'd packed his things or my things, it was always because of something he'd said or done and every time, he'd somehow convince me that it was warranted because I nagged or complained or didn't give him the space/freedom/respect he desired. I bought it every single time... because I was passive aggressive and I did have low self-esteem and I did ask him a lot of questions... because I didn't trust him.
He would lie to me to my face and when I'd express any kind of doubt in what he was saying, he'd throw in my face that I didn't trust him and without trust we would never work. I kept thinking to myself, "Good grief, man! All you have to do is TELL ME THE TRUTH!!!!! Spend a little time with me. Hold me at night. Watch a movie with me. Pick up your freaking clothes off the floor! I'll be putty in your hands and we'll have a happy marriage! It's not that difficult!!!!!!" No amount of telling him what I wanted seemed to get through to him. It was always my fault. It was always me not understanding that all he wanted was respect and trust. It was all a sham.
Just before he walked out on me, I told him I wanted to go stay with my parents for a while and he talked me out of it. I had no idea that soon he'd be the one who would leave and that my life would soon be spinning out of control and imploding on itself.
With all of this writing... and all of the reflection... I've begun to see things I was blind to for a very long time. In the past day or two I've asked Paul to tell me about his feelings and I've mostly been ignored. I finally got the nerve to ask him if perhaps he had somehow developed cold feet before we married and tried to sabotage things. He told me that he had felt pressured to go through with it and had agreed to elope because he didn't want to hurt me.
As for all the things he'd done... he had just grown tired of putting on a facade. He had made one mistake and instead of working to fix it and make things right, he quickly reverted to the person he was pre-prison. That's not to say he didn't fight it. I can see that he did on several occasions. But it was a losing battle because at the end of the day, he just didn't want to be married. The responsibility and confinement wore at him. It was just easier for him to lie and hope he didn't get caught and when he did get caught to put the blame on anyone or anything so that he didn't have to deal with the truth.
There is absolutely no excuse for the things he has done and I did not in any way deserve to be lied to or cheated on. He never should have married me if he had felt in any way, shape or form that he wasn't ready. We'd talk about marriage counseling, but it never happened. Part of me will always wonder if there wasn't something else we could have tried... but really... I did everything I could. At the end, when I was kicked in the teeth and there was no where else for me to go, I began to lean on God again. I gave Him back my life. I realized I couldn't go on the way I had.
With my husband standing in front of me telling me he had fallen out of love with me and that it was nothing I had done and this and that and a million different reasons as to why he wanted out... I felt completely at a loss. I looked at this man that I'd given my heart to and I saw a stranger. The man I'd fallen in love with had slowly disappeared in the days following our elopement. He started lying and turning into the man he'd been before I knew him. The man who told me he wanted a divorce wasn't MY Paul.
I picked up The Love Dare and that, along with God moving in my life, changed some of what I had been. Paul did notice... but he was unwilling to open his heart to it. It had not yet come out about his infidelity. I honestly believe he never thought I'd find out. He was going to walk away letting me believe that it was something I had done that had made him fall out of love with me and end our marriage.
The truth is that Paul wasn't ready to get married. He wasn't ready for the commitment and requirements that came along with being a husband. I never understood because in reality, things didn't change much after we got married... we acted like a married couple before we ever got married. We lived like husband and wife. I don't wan to trivialize it and say it was just a piece of paper... but in a way... it was. When he suddenly felt trapped, he reverted back into the man he'd been... and the choices he made after that... was his way of trying to escape.
Not all of our marriage was bad... but somehow, in the last year, he stopped being affectionate. He stopped saying, "I love you" as much. He started shutting down and pulling away. As our first anniversary approached, I saw a renewed hope in him. We were at a very low point and the business was beginning to really effect everything. There was a substantial amount of debt and we were struggling. Yet, through all of it, he was planning a romantic anniversary vacation. He wrote the plans on the back of a map and at the bottom wrote, "Work hard! Work hard! Special first anniversary! I love this woman!!!" When he showed it to me, I was overcome with emotion.
And then I shut him down. I had no idea how we were going to come up with the money to pay the bills that were overdue and he was asking me to go on vacation with him. I knew we needed to get away, but I couldn't let go. I was terrified by the fact that the house payment was late and money was tight... yet he was willing to spend $1,000 on a trip for our anniversary. Yes, some of the money he had won in a poker game... but I couldn't let go. When the day came that we were supposed to leave... and we didn't... he changed completely. He wasn't nice to me. He couldn't fake it anymore. He'd barely touch me and hearing, "I love you" was few and far between.
Priorities had always been skewed. There was bowling and football and gambling and card games and a million other little things that took him away. That was his spare time and he felt he deserved it for having worked 60 hours in a week. Working on his marriage wasn't a priority because he didn't really want to be in the marriage. He loved me and wanted to be with me in theory... but at the end of the day, he didn't want to have to answer to anyone... even me. I was a liability and he wanted out. I was just the woman who had shut him down every time he asked me to do something with him.
I was holding on to a lot of anger and hurt myself... for all the times he chose something over me. When he would ask me to go to the movies, he'd throw in that he could be doing something else but was choosing me and that was not the way to get me. All I heard was that he'd rather be doing something else, but was choosing me to get me to stop complaining. The anniversary... I couldn't get past the fact that we were broke. I wish with all my heart I'd have just shut up and gone with him...
I cherished my role as a wife. I loved having someone to come home to. Someone to talk with and laugh with and cuddle up with at night. I loved being part of a team... being a partner in life. I loved that if I had to run to the store, I could ask him to go with me. I loved that if I wanted to see a movie, he'd take me. I loved having someone to be accountable to. Yes, I made a lot of mistakes along the way. I was passive aggressive. I was demanding. But I was faithful and I loved him enough to try to work on my own issues.
Marriage is not something I take lightly. I believe that once you're married, you do everything in your power to stay married if at all possible. Sadly, there is nothing Paul has done that cannot be fixed. If he were willing to be honest and to give up lying, gambling and the deceptive nature, we might have a fighting chance. If he would step away from the things that have caused us problems... including the woman at the gas station, I would be willing to work hard to trust him again and to let go of the things he'd done that has hurt me. He'd have to give up gambling... put his priorities in the right order and have an open mind to counseling...
However, that is not something he wants. He doesn't want to try. He doesn't want to put forth any effort whatsoever. For him, it's easier to give up... to cut his losses and move on. It's easier for him to walk away and hold on to all the things that give him grief... even though it means giving up the one person in the world who loved him in spite of himself.
I have reconciled myself to the fact that it's over. No amount of praying, hoping, begging or trying will change his mind. I did everything that I could and now all that's left for me to do is pick up the pieces and move on. I believe that someday he'll look back and he'll realize what he threw away. God could change him... God could move in his life in a powerful way... but Paul would first have to make that step and he tells me that he's not ready. He's not ready to let it go. The grief and pain he's caused me doesn't seem to register to him... he says that I'll be happier without him and he means it.
I will never be happy with the fact that my husband chose all of these poisonous things in his life over me. I will never be happy that he couldn't put forth the last ditch effort of counseling. I will never be happy that he chose selfishness over love. He has to tell himself whatever he needs to so that he doesn't have to think about what the truth actually is: that he's walking away because he's scared of changing the things about himself that he knows are destroying his life.
As for me... it's a day at a time and one, terrifying step after another.
Part seven to be continued.
I never thought we'd ever NOT be together. When we'd get in a fight, he'd tell me the only way I'd ever get rid of him was to kick him to the curb. When he wrote the bad checks and I left, he called me and left a message on my voicemail. He told me that he loved me and was going to spend his life proving it. He swore he'd never do anything to harm our marriage again. I believed him with all my heart and let him come home. I wanted my marriage to work. I wanted it to get better.
Months later, when the truth came out about him quitting his job and having the secret MySpace account, I packed his things. I left them in the living room for him. He came home and I cried for hours as we sat on the couch and I told him that I couldn't let him disregard my feelings anymore. I held him, unable to let go as he started loading his stuff up in the truck. Before the night was through, he was back in my bed and it almost seemed like nothing had happened. Because I lacked the ability to be angry for more than a an hour, it was easy to pretend that everything was okay again. I blamed myself because every time we got in a fight, he'd tell me that I was passive aggressive (I was) and that if I'd just open up and tell him how I was feeling, we'd be okay.
The other times I'd packed his things or my things, it was always because of something he'd said or done and every time, he'd somehow convince me that it was warranted because I nagged or complained or didn't give him the space/freedom/respect he desired. I bought it every single time... because I was passive aggressive and I did have low self-esteem and I did ask him a lot of questions... because I didn't trust him.
He would lie to me to my face and when I'd express any kind of doubt in what he was saying, he'd throw in my face that I didn't trust him and without trust we would never work. I kept thinking to myself, "Good grief, man! All you have to do is TELL ME THE TRUTH!!!!! Spend a little time with me. Hold me at night. Watch a movie with me. Pick up your freaking clothes off the floor! I'll be putty in your hands and we'll have a happy marriage! It's not that difficult!!!!!!" No amount of telling him what I wanted seemed to get through to him. It was always my fault. It was always me not understanding that all he wanted was respect and trust. It was all a sham.
Just before he walked out on me, I told him I wanted to go stay with my parents for a while and he talked me out of it. I had no idea that soon he'd be the one who would leave and that my life would soon be spinning out of control and imploding on itself.
With all of this writing... and all of the reflection... I've begun to see things I was blind to for a very long time. In the past day or two I've asked Paul to tell me about his feelings and I've mostly been ignored. I finally got the nerve to ask him if perhaps he had somehow developed cold feet before we married and tried to sabotage things. He told me that he had felt pressured to go through with it and had agreed to elope because he didn't want to hurt me.
As for all the things he'd done... he had just grown tired of putting on a facade. He had made one mistake and instead of working to fix it and make things right, he quickly reverted to the person he was pre-prison. That's not to say he didn't fight it. I can see that he did on several occasions. But it was a losing battle because at the end of the day, he just didn't want to be married. The responsibility and confinement wore at him. It was just easier for him to lie and hope he didn't get caught and when he did get caught to put the blame on anyone or anything so that he didn't have to deal with the truth.
There is absolutely no excuse for the things he has done and I did not in any way deserve to be lied to or cheated on. He never should have married me if he had felt in any way, shape or form that he wasn't ready. We'd talk about marriage counseling, but it never happened. Part of me will always wonder if there wasn't something else we could have tried... but really... I did everything I could. At the end, when I was kicked in the teeth and there was no where else for me to go, I began to lean on God again. I gave Him back my life. I realized I couldn't go on the way I had.
With my husband standing in front of me telling me he had fallen out of love with me and that it was nothing I had done and this and that and a million different reasons as to why he wanted out... I felt completely at a loss. I looked at this man that I'd given my heart to and I saw a stranger. The man I'd fallen in love with had slowly disappeared in the days following our elopement. He started lying and turning into the man he'd been before I knew him. The man who told me he wanted a divorce wasn't MY Paul.
I picked up The Love Dare and that, along with God moving in my life, changed some of what I had been. Paul did notice... but he was unwilling to open his heart to it. It had not yet come out about his infidelity. I honestly believe he never thought I'd find out. He was going to walk away letting me believe that it was something I had done that had made him fall out of love with me and end our marriage.
The truth is that Paul wasn't ready to get married. He wasn't ready for the commitment and requirements that came along with being a husband. I never understood because in reality, things didn't change much after we got married... we acted like a married couple before we ever got married. We lived like husband and wife. I don't wan to trivialize it and say it was just a piece of paper... but in a way... it was. When he suddenly felt trapped, he reverted back into the man he'd been... and the choices he made after that... was his way of trying to escape.
Not all of our marriage was bad... but somehow, in the last year, he stopped being affectionate. He stopped saying, "I love you" as much. He started shutting down and pulling away. As our first anniversary approached, I saw a renewed hope in him. We were at a very low point and the business was beginning to really effect everything. There was a substantial amount of debt and we were struggling. Yet, through all of it, he was planning a romantic anniversary vacation. He wrote the plans on the back of a map and at the bottom wrote, "Work hard! Work hard! Special first anniversary! I love this woman!!!" When he showed it to me, I was overcome with emotion.
And then I shut him down. I had no idea how we were going to come up with the money to pay the bills that were overdue and he was asking me to go on vacation with him. I knew we needed to get away, but I couldn't let go. I was terrified by the fact that the house payment was late and money was tight... yet he was willing to spend $1,000 on a trip for our anniversary. Yes, some of the money he had won in a poker game... but I couldn't let go. When the day came that we were supposed to leave... and we didn't... he changed completely. He wasn't nice to me. He couldn't fake it anymore. He'd barely touch me and hearing, "I love you" was few and far between.
Priorities had always been skewed. There was bowling and football and gambling and card games and a million other little things that took him away. That was his spare time and he felt he deserved it for having worked 60 hours in a week. Working on his marriage wasn't a priority because he didn't really want to be in the marriage. He loved me and wanted to be with me in theory... but at the end of the day, he didn't want to have to answer to anyone... even me. I was a liability and he wanted out. I was just the woman who had shut him down every time he asked me to do something with him.
I was holding on to a lot of anger and hurt myself... for all the times he chose something over me. When he would ask me to go to the movies, he'd throw in that he could be doing something else but was choosing me and that was not the way to get me. All I heard was that he'd rather be doing something else, but was choosing me to get me to stop complaining. The anniversary... I couldn't get past the fact that we were broke. I wish with all my heart I'd have just shut up and gone with him...
I cherished my role as a wife. I loved having someone to come home to. Someone to talk with and laugh with and cuddle up with at night. I loved being part of a team... being a partner in life. I loved that if I had to run to the store, I could ask him to go with me. I loved that if I wanted to see a movie, he'd take me. I loved having someone to be accountable to. Yes, I made a lot of mistakes along the way. I was passive aggressive. I was demanding. But I was faithful and I loved him enough to try to work on my own issues.
Marriage is not something I take lightly. I believe that once you're married, you do everything in your power to stay married if at all possible. Sadly, there is nothing Paul has done that cannot be fixed. If he were willing to be honest and to give up lying, gambling and the deceptive nature, we might have a fighting chance. If he would step away from the things that have caused us problems... including the woman at the gas station, I would be willing to work hard to trust him again and to let go of the things he'd done that has hurt me. He'd have to give up gambling... put his priorities in the right order and have an open mind to counseling...
However, that is not something he wants. He doesn't want to try. He doesn't want to put forth any effort whatsoever. For him, it's easier to give up... to cut his losses and move on. It's easier for him to walk away and hold on to all the things that give him grief... even though it means giving up the one person in the world who loved him in spite of himself.
I have reconciled myself to the fact that it's over. No amount of praying, hoping, begging or trying will change his mind. I did everything that I could and now all that's left for me to do is pick up the pieces and move on. I believe that someday he'll look back and he'll realize what he threw away. God could change him... God could move in his life in a powerful way... but Paul would first have to make that step and he tells me that he's not ready. He's not ready to let it go. The grief and pain he's caused me doesn't seem to register to him... he says that I'll be happier without him and he means it.
I will never be happy with the fact that my husband chose all of these poisonous things in his life over me. I will never be happy that he couldn't put forth the last ditch effort of counseling. I will never be happy that he chose selfishness over love. He has to tell himself whatever he needs to so that he doesn't have to think about what the truth actually is: that he's walking away because he's scared of changing the things about himself that he knows are destroying his life.
As for me... it's a day at a time and one, terrifying step after another.
Part seven to be continued.
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