You are Napoleon Dynamite and a buttload of gangs
are trying to recruit you.
Which Napoleon Dynamite character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
6.30.2005
Yeah, chicks dig me...
wait, I am a chick!
You are Napoleon Dynamite and a buttload of gangs
are trying to recruit you.
Which Napoleon Dynamite character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
You are Napoleon Dynamite and a buttload of gangs
are trying to recruit you.
Which Napoleon Dynamite character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
6.28.2005
Anatomy of a Failed Marriage, Finale
The next four years were a huge struggle before I finally gave up. We still lived a semi-normal life on the outside. We both got out of the Air Force and found work in the IT industry. We bought a house and had another daughter, Ashlyn (I didn't want Lauren to grow up alone).
But things aren't always what they seem. C had completely withdrawn from me, his daughters, his family and his friends. He had panic attacks which resulted in huge fights when we made plans to leave the house - even simple ones to meet friends for dinner. He became completely obsessed with an online RPG and played it basically non-stop, except for work and a few months here and there, for 4 years. We ended up living together but not sleeping in the same bed for those same four years - at first because of his neck, then because I was pregnant, then because I was breast-feeding a newborn... but really it was because we had drifted so far apart, I didn't feel comfortable sleeping in the same bed with him anymore. We hardly talked at all. I shouldered all the responsibility for running the house, raising the girls, managing the finances, all while working full time with a long commute.
Every few months, I would give him an ultimatum - get help or I was leaving and taking the girls with me. He would break down and apologize and swear things would get better, and they would for a month... then things would go right back to where they were.
You see, C had completely lost his own sense of self because of three pivotal occurances: 1. The injury to his neck, 2. Separating from the Air Force, and 3. Losing his security clearance because he couldn't pass the polygraph. He had always thought of himself as a young, virile, athletic, career military guy. With the injury to his neck, he could barely swing his golf club without a lot of pain, much less play baseball or basketball. He separated from the Air Force at the end of his enlistment because he didn't want to go back to Korea, so he was lost in his career. And when he finally got settled in the IT field as a network engineer, his clearance got pulled because he felt guilty about smoking pot when he was 18 and had never told anyone the truth. He was drowning in feelings of shame and insecurity and couldn't see a way out, so he withdrew into a fantasy world where he was a hero and could conquer his demons with a sword instead facing his real-life demons. I knew this. I felt for him, I really did. But his problems were beyond my reach and he refused to get help for three years.
In the fourth year of his downward spiral, he finally agreed to see a therapist to help him work out his anxiety about the polygraph. In reality, his teenage pot-smoking was no big deal, even to the person administering the polygraph. The rule is that you can't have smoked pot in the last 5 years - he had smoked it over 12 years before. But his guilty feelings about lying had built up so much in his head, he was reacting to EVERY drug question as lying when he wasn't because he was so anxious and nervous. So he went to a therapist. They worked on his anxiety. They worked on anger management... I knew C was trying and I did see some small improvements, but then he stopped going. He was traveling alot for work and at first, he truly didn't have the time to go, but after a while, he just didn't want to go back.
It was now September of 2003. We had been married for almost 9 years. We had two beautiful daughters, good jobs, a nice house in a nice neighboorhood... and I was completely miserable. My husband was a stranger. My hopes for a fairytale romance with C had long since turned to dust.
C and I both always had the 'somewhere over the rainbow' disease - that if one specific goal was met, that things would be okay and we would be happy. These goals changed over the years... when we bought a house... when he got a new job... when I got a new job... when we made x amount of money... then we would be happy. We achieved all of these things, but none of it made any difference.
The weekend of my 31st birthday, a hurricane blew thru town. We were all home. I was very scared because I've been thru bad hurricanes before and was worried about winds and losing electricity. I turned to C for comfort. For a quick hug and an "It'll be okay." He looked at me with contempt and told me I was overreacting, yelled at the kids for being to noisy, and walked away. I knew then that he would never be there for me like I desperately wanted and needed. It was that very moment that all my tenuous, jumbled up feelings of loyalty and friendship and love for him withered and died. All my hope for the future together snapped off like a light switch. I knew I would leave him, for good. No empty threats this time. I was gone.
I planned my escape for 2 months before I finally worked up the nerve to tell him. When I walked into his study with a carefuly written letter, he looked at me and said "I don't want to separate" before I even said a word. I told him that I had lost all hope and I just couldn't stay anymore. We decided to wait until after the holidays to tell the kids. I was moving out, but we would have joint custody of the kids - I didn't want to deny them their father. He had already denied them for long enough - I refused to add to that damage. My move-out date was January 31st, 2004.
The time between when I told him that I was leaving in mid-November and when I actually left at the end of January was one of the most difficult periods of my life. I agreed to go to marriage counseling, because I would have felt like a hypocrit after begging him to go to therapy for years and then refusing to go myself. We went and rehashed alot of old hurts, but even the therapist said that there is only so much one person can take, and he could tell I had already 'checked out' of the marriage. Homelife was no different. We spent most evenings talking out what had gone wrong, while C still made last ditch efforts to woo me back by doing things I had always wanted to do, but he had refused. It was very sad and surreal.
I moved out on January 31st, as planned. I moved in with an old friend who was divorced and shares joint custody of her daughter with her ex-husband, too. We went to dinner and saw a live band play and got drunk.
The next day, I went and picked up my kids and brought them over to stay with me. I needed to prove to Lauren that I had just moved out, not away, and that she would see me all the time, just like before. Ashlyn was just 2 1/2 years old and not really aware of what was going on, but Lauren was almost 7 and in the middle of first grade and thought she was losing her mom, even tho we had explained what joint custody was and that she would still see both of us all the time. She didn't really grasp the concept until it was put into practice, and her relief at not losing her parents was palpable. I regret putting Lauren thru the divorce. Ashlyn won't even remember C and I as married, but Lauren will.
My other regrets? I regret that I never loved C the way I should have loved my husband. I was never madly, passionately in love with him. When we met, I found him attractive and smart and funny, but those qualities don't make a marriage. I didn't know him well enough to know about his temper and his competitiveness, or his insecurities. He didn't know me well enough, either. I went from infatuation to disallusionment pretty quickly. I loved him in my own way after a fashion, but it was kindof a known-you-for-a-long-time, friendship kind of love... not romantic.
The next regret is that I stayed in the marriage alot longer than I should have. This may sound stupid and looking back, I think it was fear more than anything, but I didn't leave him earlier because I couldn't leave the area anyway because he and I were stationed in the same place in the same job. I thought it was pointless to leave him and not really be able to leave. So I stayed and stayed and stayed.
I regret having an affair while I was married. I never flaunted it in front of anybody - none of our friends knew - but I still should have had the guts to leave C BEFORE I started a long-distance relationship with recycled boyfriend for love and support.
I regret that I got just as mean in saying nasty things as C did during our fights after a few months.
I regret that, after a while, I shut him out just as much as he shut me out.
C started taking Zoloft to help manage his moods and reactions shortly before I left him. He is a much happier person now and a great father.
So even tho I have painted him as the villian in these long long posts, I was far from perfect.
I still am.
But things aren't always what they seem. C had completely withdrawn from me, his daughters, his family and his friends. He had panic attacks which resulted in huge fights when we made plans to leave the house - even simple ones to meet friends for dinner. He became completely obsessed with an online RPG and played it basically non-stop, except for work and a few months here and there, for 4 years. We ended up living together but not sleeping in the same bed for those same four years - at first because of his neck, then because I was pregnant, then because I was breast-feeding a newborn... but really it was because we had drifted so far apart, I didn't feel comfortable sleeping in the same bed with him anymore. We hardly talked at all. I shouldered all the responsibility for running the house, raising the girls, managing the finances, all while working full time with a long commute.
Every few months, I would give him an ultimatum - get help or I was leaving and taking the girls with me. He would break down and apologize and swear things would get better, and they would for a month... then things would go right back to where they were.
You see, C had completely lost his own sense of self because of three pivotal occurances: 1. The injury to his neck, 2. Separating from the Air Force, and 3. Losing his security clearance because he couldn't pass the polygraph. He had always thought of himself as a young, virile, athletic, career military guy. With the injury to his neck, he could barely swing his golf club without a lot of pain, much less play baseball or basketball. He separated from the Air Force at the end of his enlistment because he didn't want to go back to Korea, so he was lost in his career. And when he finally got settled in the IT field as a network engineer, his clearance got pulled because he felt guilty about smoking pot when he was 18 and had never told anyone the truth. He was drowning in feelings of shame and insecurity and couldn't see a way out, so he withdrew into a fantasy world where he was a hero and could conquer his demons with a sword instead facing his real-life demons. I knew this. I felt for him, I really did. But his problems were beyond my reach and he refused to get help for three years.
In the fourth year of his downward spiral, he finally agreed to see a therapist to help him work out his anxiety about the polygraph. In reality, his teenage pot-smoking was no big deal, even to the person administering the polygraph. The rule is that you can't have smoked pot in the last 5 years - he had smoked it over 12 years before. But his guilty feelings about lying had built up so much in his head, he was reacting to EVERY drug question as lying when he wasn't because he was so anxious and nervous. So he went to a therapist. They worked on his anxiety. They worked on anger management... I knew C was trying and I did see some small improvements, but then he stopped going. He was traveling alot for work and at first, he truly didn't have the time to go, but after a while, he just didn't want to go back.
It was now September of 2003. We had been married for almost 9 years. We had two beautiful daughters, good jobs, a nice house in a nice neighboorhood... and I was completely miserable. My husband was a stranger. My hopes for a fairytale romance with C had long since turned to dust.
C and I both always had the 'somewhere over the rainbow' disease - that if one specific goal was met, that things would be okay and we would be happy. These goals changed over the years... when we bought a house... when he got a new job... when I got a new job... when we made x amount of money... then we would be happy. We achieved all of these things, but none of it made any difference.
The weekend of my 31st birthday, a hurricane blew thru town. We were all home. I was very scared because I've been thru bad hurricanes before and was worried about winds and losing electricity. I turned to C for comfort. For a quick hug and an "It'll be okay." He looked at me with contempt and told me I was overreacting, yelled at the kids for being to noisy, and walked away. I knew then that he would never be there for me like I desperately wanted and needed. It was that very moment that all my tenuous, jumbled up feelings of loyalty and friendship and love for him withered and died. All my hope for the future together snapped off like a light switch. I knew I would leave him, for good. No empty threats this time. I was gone.
I planned my escape for 2 months before I finally worked up the nerve to tell him. When I walked into his study with a carefuly written letter, he looked at me and said "I don't want to separate" before I even said a word. I told him that I had lost all hope and I just couldn't stay anymore. We decided to wait until after the holidays to tell the kids. I was moving out, but we would have joint custody of the kids - I didn't want to deny them their father. He had already denied them for long enough - I refused to add to that damage. My move-out date was January 31st, 2004.
The time between when I told him that I was leaving in mid-November and when I actually left at the end of January was one of the most difficult periods of my life. I agreed to go to marriage counseling, because I would have felt like a hypocrit after begging him to go to therapy for years and then refusing to go myself. We went and rehashed alot of old hurts, but even the therapist said that there is only so much one person can take, and he could tell I had already 'checked out' of the marriage. Homelife was no different. We spent most evenings talking out what had gone wrong, while C still made last ditch efforts to woo me back by doing things I had always wanted to do, but he had refused. It was very sad and surreal.
I moved out on January 31st, as planned. I moved in with an old friend who was divorced and shares joint custody of her daughter with her ex-husband, too. We went to dinner and saw a live band play and got drunk.
The next day, I went and picked up my kids and brought them over to stay with me. I needed to prove to Lauren that I had just moved out, not away, and that she would see me all the time, just like before. Ashlyn was just 2 1/2 years old and not really aware of what was going on, but Lauren was almost 7 and in the middle of first grade and thought she was losing her mom, even tho we had explained what joint custody was and that she would still see both of us all the time. She didn't really grasp the concept until it was put into practice, and her relief at not losing her parents was palpable. I regret putting Lauren thru the divorce. Ashlyn won't even remember C and I as married, but Lauren will.
My other regrets? I regret that I never loved C the way I should have loved my husband. I was never madly, passionately in love with him. When we met, I found him attractive and smart and funny, but those qualities don't make a marriage. I didn't know him well enough to know about his temper and his competitiveness, or his insecurities. He didn't know me well enough, either. I went from infatuation to disallusionment pretty quickly. I loved him in my own way after a fashion, but it was kindof a known-you-for-a-long-time, friendship kind of love... not romantic.
The next regret is that I stayed in the marriage alot longer than I should have. This may sound stupid and looking back, I think it was fear more than anything, but I didn't leave him earlier because I couldn't leave the area anyway because he and I were stationed in the same place in the same job. I thought it was pointless to leave him and not really be able to leave. So I stayed and stayed and stayed.
I regret having an affair while I was married. I never flaunted it in front of anybody - none of our friends knew - but I still should have had the guts to leave C BEFORE I started a long-distance relationship with recycled boyfriend for love and support.
I regret that I got just as mean in saying nasty things as C did during our fights after a few months.
I regret that, after a while, I shut him out just as much as he shut me out.
C started taking Zoloft to help manage his moods and reactions shortly before I left him. He is a much happier person now and a great father.
So even tho I have painted him as the villian in these long long posts, I was far from perfect.
I still am.
Anatomy of a Failed Marriage, Part Deux
At this point I feel I need to give some background information on C. C was the third child but first born son in his family. His mother worshipped the ground he walked on. He got away with everything thru charm or anger up to this point in his life. He was very selfish and self centered and very competitive. Competition in sports, which he played alot of, is understandable, but he was cometitive over weird things. For example, when he and I were in the same Chinese class, he would gloat if he got better grades or get angry if I got better grades.
I, on the other hand, am non-competitive to a fault. I avoid confrontation and I am extremely uncomfortable about confrontations that occur in front of me that don't even involve me. I have always played the peacemaker role, or capitulated to make people happy. Fret not, tho because in the last 10 years, I have learned to have something of backbone, especially when it comes to men. On with the story...
Lauren was born in March of 1997. Fortunately, she was the apple of C's eye despite his misgivings. He was very involved with her care, BUT... he was competitive with me! When she woke up, he wanted to pick her up first. If we were picking her up from daycare, he wanted to be the first parent she saw. If she fell and hurt herself, he wanted to be the first one to offer her comfort. He was constantly trying to one up me with our own INFANT daughter. To this day, I have no idea why. Parenthood is not a competition, it's a team effort. In his point of view, it seemed like he and I were always on opposite teams.
In the mean time, he and I were still arguing constantly. He had a very bad temper and I felt like I had to walk on eggshells around him all the time. If he was happy, he was really happy and everything was rainbows and sunshine. If one thing that was important to him was 'off,' you couldn't talk to him wthout him screaming at you. At the time, I also couldn't understand why the things that were important to him were so important, mainly video games and golf. If he couldn't figure out a portion of the game, he was frustrated and felt stupid, so he would scream. If his golf swing was off, he would practice and play for hours and hours every day. If his golf swing was good, he was still practicing and playing for hours and hours every day to improve himself. Because of his various interests -which were very close to obsessions- C was gone alot. I was home alone with our daughter while he was gone with our only car, most of the time.
(I do have to give him his props at this point, tho. For only having played golf for a couple of years, he was almost a scratch golfer, with his scores averaging in the mid to high seventies. C is a natural athlete and is good at any sport he plays, anywhere from baseball (was scouted for the Dodgers until he blew out his knee) from golf (see above) to bowling (bowled a 298 last year).
Looking back, I now see the signs of manic depression in him then. They came into full view a few years later. I'll get to that in a bit.
In March of 1998, C got orders for a one year remote tour in Korea. (I orginally had the orders, but that is a forthcoming post.) He left in April for a one year tour. Things were extremely tense between us when he left, but I was loving and supportive when he had to go to Korea. Facing a one year tour away from your family is not fun, even if you are a self-absorbed jerk. During that year, we drifted even further apart. We both had affairs (him with a fellow AF girl stationed in Korea, me with recycled boyfriend -my fallback guy- who still lives in Fla). I became more determined to get out of the marriage upon C's return to the States in May of 1999. C still wanted to work things out, even tho neither one of us was happy. Once again, I agreed to a three-month trial reconcilliaton.
THEN... C got hurt. He had excruciating pain in his neck and shoulders, muscle atrophy and nerve damage in his left arm and fingers (this was doubly bad because he is left-handed) . He went from doctor to doctor and after being misdiagnosed and going thru a few excruciating tests, the doctors finally figured out that he had 2 herniated discs in his neck that were pressing on the main nerve on his left side, which was causing all the other symptoms. He had surgery in January of 2000 to relieve the pressure, but they couldn't complete the whole procedure because his spinal cord was in jeopardy. The surgery did relieve SOME of the pressure and he regained the full use of his left arm, but he still had a lot of pain in his neck and shoulders.
It was at this point that his manic depression lost all the mania and just went into deep clinical depression.
I, on the other hand, am non-competitive to a fault. I avoid confrontation and I am extremely uncomfortable about confrontations that occur in front of me that don't even involve me. I have always played the peacemaker role, or capitulated to make people happy. Fret not, tho because in the last 10 years, I have learned to have something of backbone, especially when it comes to men. On with the story...
Lauren was born in March of 1997. Fortunately, she was the apple of C's eye despite his misgivings. He was very involved with her care, BUT... he was competitive with me! When she woke up, he wanted to pick her up first. If we were picking her up from daycare, he wanted to be the first parent she saw. If she fell and hurt herself, he wanted to be the first one to offer her comfort. He was constantly trying to one up me with our own INFANT daughter. To this day, I have no idea why. Parenthood is not a competition, it's a team effort. In his point of view, it seemed like he and I were always on opposite teams.
In the mean time, he and I were still arguing constantly. He had a very bad temper and I felt like I had to walk on eggshells around him all the time. If he was happy, he was really happy and everything was rainbows and sunshine. If one thing that was important to him was 'off,' you couldn't talk to him wthout him screaming at you. At the time, I also couldn't understand why the things that were important to him were so important, mainly video games and golf. If he couldn't figure out a portion of the game, he was frustrated and felt stupid, so he would scream. If his golf swing was off, he would practice and play for hours and hours every day. If his golf swing was good, he was still practicing and playing for hours and hours every day to improve himself. Because of his various interests -which were very close to obsessions- C was gone alot. I was home alone with our daughter while he was gone with our only car, most of the time.
(I do have to give him his props at this point, tho. For only having played golf for a couple of years, he was almost a scratch golfer, with his scores averaging in the mid to high seventies. C is a natural athlete and is good at any sport he plays, anywhere from baseball (was scouted for the Dodgers until he blew out his knee) from golf (see above) to bowling (bowled a 298 last year).
Looking back, I now see the signs of manic depression in him then. They came into full view a few years later. I'll get to that in a bit.
In March of 1998, C got orders for a one year remote tour in Korea. (I orginally had the orders, but that is a forthcoming post.) He left in April for a one year tour. Things were extremely tense between us when he left, but I was loving and supportive when he had to go to Korea. Facing a one year tour away from your family is not fun, even if you are a self-absorbed jerk. During that year, we drifted even further apart. We both had affairs (him with a fellow AF girl stationed in Korea, me with recycled boyfriend -my fallback guy- who still lives in Fla). I became more determined to get out of the marriage upon C's return to the States in May of 1999. C still wanted to work things out, even tho neither one of us was happy. Once again, I agreed to a three-month trial reconcilliaton.
THEN... C got hurt. He had excruciating pain in his neck and shoulders, muscle atrophy and nerve damage in his left arm and fingers (this was doubly bad because he is left-handed) . He went from doctor to doctor and after being misdiagnosed and going thru a few excruciating tests, the doctors finally figured out that he had 2 herniated discs in his neck that were pressing on the main nerve on his left side, which was causing all the other symptoms. He had surgery in January of 2000 to relieve the pressure, but they couldn't complete the whole procedure because his spinal cord was in jeopardy. The surgery did relieve SOME of the pressure and he regained the full use of his left arm, but he still had a lot of pain in his neck and shoulders.
It was at this point that his manic depression lost all the mania and just went into deep clinical depression.
6.24.2005
Anatomy of a Failed Marriage
I finally was able to file for divorce last week, after having been separated for 16 months. The ball is offically rolling. I can honestly say that I am happy to be getting divorced and that period of my life will be legally over. But I can't help but look back and wonder... what if?
It's hard to explain to people why you're getting divorced after having been married for 10 years and having 2 kids together. I can't look back and pinpoint what exact things caused me to lose all hope and decide to leave, for real this time. I can pinpoint when it happened, but the reasons why are so numerous and jumbled together with disallusionment, hurt feelings, and disappointments that it's hard to sum it all up in one or two sentences. I usually end up saying that we were just different people and we didn't know each other well enough to have gotten married in the first place. Both of which are certainly true, but those are really just minor details.
I guess I'll start at the beginning. My soon-to-be-ex-huband, C., and I met in Tech School (Insert collective groan from everyone familiar with this phenomenon here) , which for all you non-military folks is the school you go to after you complete Basic Training. Each branch of service calls it something different, but the Air Force calls it Tech School. You learn your career skills for the Air Force there.
Tech School is notorious for failed marriages. My theory on it is this: Basic Training is a very intense experience for most people and there is a huge sigh of relief when you reach Tech School. Most of these airmen are 18-19 year old kids, fresh out of high school, and this is their first time to be permanently away from home. In my opinion, these kids mature faster because they aren't spending 4 years in college screwing around and deciding what to do with their lives. The military has decided that for them and for most career fields, it's only a few months between Basic and your first duty station, where you begin your career. BUT (you knew that was coming) even tho the matters of a career and responsibility and discipline are taken care of, these kids are still emotionally 18-19 years old and still going thru teenage angst where everthing is a big deal. So they meet someone they really like (often classmates) and start dating. Then they figure out that they REALLY like each other because they have SOOO much in common - since they all had identical experiences in Basic and Tech School, they think 'hey, we're adults now - old enough to fight and die for our country... why don't we get married?!' Anyone see what's wrong with this picture? The main thing is: they don't know each other! And the other thing is: they don't know themselves! And one more thing: they don't know each other! Did I mention that they don't know each other?!
So anyway... C and I met in just this way. In our case, the above stereotype didn't fit quite so neatly because he and I were older than most newbies - 22 and 21, respectively, and we, well, at least I, had seen a bit of the world. We were in the same year and half long language course (did I mention that I am full of impulsive and very bad ideas? Well, I certainly was then. I still am, but not so much) so we were around each other 24 hours a day. We dated for a few months and then things got kinda tense between us and we were on the verge of breaking up. I went to a going away party that night and came back to the barracks drunk. I went to see him and... we kindof made up and he proposed. I actually thought he was joking. But I accepted, nonetheless. Then we called our families. I went down to L.A. to meet his family, then we flew to Fla so he could meet mine. We got married at the courthouse in Fla a month after we got engaged. It was December 1994. We had known each other for 6 months.
Here is our first mistake: we moved out of the barracks and into base housing several miles away from post. We had no money and no friends and no furniture. We started fighting then. And boy, did we fight. The fighting really hurt my feelings - I had never argued with a boyfriend like that, and no one had ever taught him to fight fair. When he got mad, no matter what it was over, it was no holds barred and he called me every name in the book. He also said he regretted getting married and thought being married would hold him back from his goals. (Of course, in my mind, this begs the question 'if he felt that way, then why the hell did he propose in the first place?')
This was the start of my disallusionment. When we got married, I had the Disney, happily-ever-after scenario in my head. I had never lived with a guy before, never dealt with day to day things like money and schedules and stress. I had never even lived on my own before. I had either lived with my parents or my sister. C had been more independent, but he hadn't been in a super serious relationship before. He had never lived with anyone either. At the beginning, we were basically two naive kids full of unmet expectations (me) and resentment (him). I did everything I thought a good little wife was supposed to do, but I never stood up for myself. The first 15 months of our marriage was spent this way. Fighting, hurt feelings, and resentment. I was fighting for our marriage, he was fighting against it.
It got to the point where we decided to take separate vacations - 3 weeks - to re-evaluate what we were doing and where we were going as a married couple. I went to Fla and he went to L.A. While I was in Fla, I told my parents what was going on, and I came to the conclusion that I was making myself miserable and decided to get out while the getting was good, since it was what C wanted, too. Ironically, while C was in L.A., he had a chat with a close friend who changed his perspective on marriage. So C and I returned from our vacations with me ready to separate and him ready to reconcile. We went to marriage counseling and discovered that we were fighting over control issues and not really getting to the root of what was bothering us. We decided to give it another 3 months on a trial basis. Things were a little better, but still pretty rocky between us. I still wanted to leave.
Halfway thru this trial period, I found out I was pregnant. When the doctor told me, I started crying uncontrollably. I felt so confused. I wanted the baby, but my marriage had been so bad, I didn't want to bring a child into it. It was several hours before I could tell C because he was out of town for the day. During that time, I decided that no matter what happened between C and I, I was going to have the baby. I was emotionally mature enough, financially stable with job security and I could handle raising a child on my own if it came to that. When he got home, I sat him down and told him. I tried not to ambush him, but I'm sure that's what it felt like to him. He freaked out, and not in a good way. He didn't feel like he was ready to have a child, and having a child made him feel even more trapped. So he took off for a few hours and returned with a dozen roses, tho I suspect they were more because he had just bought an expensive pair of speakers off the BACK OF A VAN, instead him freaking out on me when I was freaked out, too.
The marriage during my pregnancy went surprisingly well. We stopped fighting over trivial stuff because we realized that it just didn't matter. The little bad things that happened really hurt my feelings tho - one being that he never went to any doctor's appointments with me except the sonogram at 15 weeks. This one sounds silly, but he had a cologne that made me nauseous. And he would spray it in our bedroom while I was still in bed, which would promptly make me throw up. I asked him not to wear it, or at least not spray it on our room, but he thought I was being stupid and overreacting - even while I was throwing up. And when we found out the baby was a girl instead of a boy, his disappointment took the form of anger towards me and he blamed me for the pregnancy and regretted it all over again. Not very nice memories to have.
It's hard to explain to people why you're getting divorced after having been married for 10 years and having 2 kids together. I can't look back and pinpoint what exact things caused me to lose all hope and decide to leave, for real this time. I can pinpoint when it happened, but the reasons why are so numerous and jumbled together with disallusionment, hurt feelings, and disappointments that it's hard to sum it all up in one or two sentences. I usually end up saying that we were just different people and we didn't know each other well enough to have gotten married in the first place. Both of which are certainly true, but those are really just minor details.
I guess I'll start at the beginning. My soon-to-be-ex-huband, C., and I met in Tech School (Insert collective groan from everyone familiar with this phenomenon here) , which for all you non-military folks is the school you go to after you complete Basic Training. Each branch of service calls it something different, but the Air Force calls it Tech School. You learn your career skills for the Air Force there.
Tech School is notorious for failed marriages. My theory on it is this: Basic Training is a very intense experience for most people and there is a huge sigh of relief when you reach Tech School. Most of these airmen are 18-19 year old kids, fresh out of high school, and this is their first time to be permanently away from home. In my opinion, these kids mature faster because they aren't spending 4 years in college screwing around and deciding what to do with their lives. The military has decided that for them and for most career fields, it's only a few months between Basic and your first duty station, where you begin your career. BUT (you knew that was coming) even tho the matters of a career and responsibility and discipline are taken care of, these kids are still emotionally 18-19 years old and still going thru teenage angst where everthing is a big deal. So they meet someone they really like (often classmates) and start dating. Then they figure out that they REALLY like each other because they have SOOO much in common - since they all had identical experiences in Basic and Tech School, they think 'hey, we're adults now - old enough to fight and die for our country... why don't we get married?!' Anyone see what's wrong with this picture? The main thing is: they don't know each other! And the other thing is: they don't know themselves! And one more thing: they don't know each other! Did I mention that they don't know each other?!
So anyway... C and I met in just this way. In our case, the above stereotype didn't fit quite so neatly because he and I were older than most newbies - 22 and 21, respectively, and we, well, at least I, had seen a bit of the world. We were in the same year and half long language course (did I mention that I am full of impulsive and very bad ideas? Well, I certainly was then. I still am, but not so much) so we were around each other 24 hours a day. We dated for a few months and then things got kinda tense between us and we were on the verge of breaking up. I went to a going away party that night and came back to the barracks drunk. I went to see him and... we kindof made up and he proposed. I actually thought he was joking. But I accepted, nonetheless. Then we called our families. I went down to L.A. to meet his family, then we flew to Fla so he could meet mine. We got married at the courthouse in Fla a month after we got engaged. It was December 1994. We had known each other for 6 months.
Here is our first mistake: we moved out of the barracks and into base housing several miles away from post. We had no money and no friends and no furniture. We started fighting then. And boy, did we fight. The fighting really hurt my feelings - I had never argued with a boyfriend like that, and no one had ever taught him to fight fair. When he got mad, no matter what it was over, it was no holds barred and he called me every name in the book. He also said he regretted getting married and thought being married would hold him back from his goals. (Of course, in my mind, this begs the question 'if he felt that way, then why the hell did he propose in the first place?')
This was the start of my disallusionment. When we got married, I had the Disney, happily-ever-after scenario in my head. I had never lived with a guy before, never dealt with day to day things like money and schedules and stress. I had never even lived on my own before. I had either lived with my parents or my sister. C had been more independent, but he hadn't been in a super serious relationship before. He had never lived with anyone either. At the beginning, we were basically two naive kids full of unmet expectations (me) and resentment (him). I did everything I thought a good little wife was supposed to do, but I never stood up for myself. The first 15 months of our marriage was spent this way. Fighting, hurt feelings, and resentment. I was fighting for our marriage, he was fighting against it.
It got to the point where we decided to take separate vacations - 3 weeks - to re-evaluate what we were doing and where we were going as a married couple. I went to Fla and he went to L.A. While I was in Fla, I told my parents what was going on, and I came to the conclusion that I was making myself miserable and decided to get out while the getting was good, since it was what C wanted, too. Ironically, while C was in L.A., he had a chat with a close friend who changed his perspective on marriage. So C and I returned from our vacations with me ready to separate and him ready to reconcile. We went to marriage counseling and discovered that we were fighting over control issues and not really getting to the root of what was bothering us. We decided to give it another 3 months on a trial basis. Things were a little better, but still pretty rocky between us. I still wanted to leave.
Halfway thru this trial period, I found out I was pregnant. When the doctor told me, I started crying uncontrollably. I felt so confused. I wanted the baby, but my marriage had been so bad, I didn't want to bring a child into it. It was several hours before I could tell C because he was out of town for the day. During that time, I decided that no matter what happened between C and I, I was going to have the baby. I was emotionally mature enough, financially stable with job security and I could handle raising a child on my own if it came to that. When he got home, I sat him down and told him. I tried not to ambush him, but I'm sure that's what it felt like to him. He freaked out, and not in a good way. He didn't feel like he was ready to have a child, and having a child made him feel even more trapped. So he took off for a few hours and returned with a dozen roses, tho I suspect they were more because he had just bought an expensive pair of speakers off the BACK OF A VAN, instead him freaking out on me when I was freaked out, too.
The marriage during my pregnancy went surprisingly well. We stopped fighting over trivial stuff because we realized that it just didn't matter. The little bad things that happened really hurt my feelings tho - one being that he never went to any doctor's appointments with me except the sonogram at 15 weeks. This one sounds silly, but he had a cologne that made me nauseous. And he would spray it in our bedroom while I was still in bed, which would promptly make me throw up. I asked him not to wear it, or at least not spray it on our room, but he thought I was being stupid and overreacting - even while I was throwing up. And when we found out the baby was a girl instead of a boy, his disappointment took the form of anger towards me and he blamed me for the pregnancy and regretted it all over again. Not very nice memories to have.
Flashback time
Ya know how most people cut the apron strings and get buck wild when they go off to college? Well, I never went off to college. I still lived with my parents and had a serious boyfriend when I went to college in Florida, so no buck wildness for me.
My sister, on the other hand, went away to college and got buck wild and would regale me with her tales of drunken debauchery and dating misadventures and I felt like I was missing out.
Soooo... she wound up going straight from undergrad to graduate work for her Masters in International Business and therefore was part of a 1 1/2 year student exchange program in Tokyo, Japan. The first year she attended university, then she interned with a company for the last 6 months. It was at this point that I graduated from college and broke up with the serious boyfriend and decided to pay my sister a visit in Tokyo for a couple of weeks.
I called her and talked to her about it and she said, "Hey why don't you just stay for the remainder of my internship! We can live together and hang out. I can get you a job where I work and it will be great fun!" (or something along those lines... all I really heard was ESCAPE FROM PARENTS, SMALL TOWN, and SMALL MINDED BOYFRIEND WHILE YOU STILL CAN!!) So I enthusiastically agreed and bought a ticket in July that returned in December of 1993. I quit my job, dumped recycled boyfriend (one of those on again, off again things) and hopped a plane to seek my fame and fortune in a new and exotic place.
Whoooo let me tell you... that flight was soooo long. I went from Orlando to Chicago to Alaska to Seoul to Tokyo. It was the cheapest ticket I could get. Don't ask. I took off on a Thursday and landed on Saturday - I kid you not, thanks to crossing the international date line. Talk about jetlag! I felt like I was on drugs by the time I landed!
((Funny side note about the plane trip over: I took a brown suede bomber jacket with me -hey, it was 1993- and fell asleep and drooled all over it. When I woke up and wiped the drool off my chin, I had left 2 perfect lip prints and a dark space in between where all the spit accumulated - and the lip prints are still there to this day! Not that I still wear that jacket - it's at my mother's house in Fla.
Also, when I landed in Chicago, I changed airlines and got on a Korean Airlines flight. At the time, I knew smatterings of different European languages since I grew up there, but I didn't know squat about Asian languages - how ironic when I look back on that now. The announcements on the plane were made in English, Japanese and Korean. But dumb little South Florida Beach Girl (me) couldn't tell the difference between Japanese and Korean and thought THEIR announcements were twice as long, so I got all paranoid about what kind of information they were getting that I wasn't because I only knew English. Uhh...
BTW, have I ever mentioned that I can be quite the ditz, despite my intellectual prowess? That despite having a pretty high IQ and having been in Gifted and Talented classes and AP courses all thru-out school that, most of the time, I have the common sense of a retarded puppy? All enthusiasm and no fore-thought? Well, now you know.))
Anyway, back to my illustrious tale.
Let me tell you what my expectations of Japan were BEFORE I went:
-Quality time with my sister
-Learning a new culture and a new language
-Making pretty good money and saving it for my return to Fla.
What actually happened:
-Worked illegally in a casino under the Japanese mob
-Got drunk almost every day
-Smoked alot of cigarettes
-Smoked alot of hash
-Dated a few cute American military boys
-Punched drunk Japanese business man
-Got felt up by many drunk middle-aged Japanese men
-Made alot of friends, many of which were drug dealers who would slip drugs in my pocket for free, which I would promptly give away, unless it was hash.
-Hid friend from Japanese mob so they wouldn't kill her - she owed them money
-Went to Korea to illegally renew my tourist visa.
-Got drunk in Seoul with a bunch of Marines. Drank them under the table.
-Got in trouble with Military Police in Seoul for taking off my shirt. I was wearing a bustier.
-Made Military Police look like assholes in front of Korean police by putting shirt back on when they requested it. Sorry guys.
-Got interrogated by immigration upon my return to Japan. That was funny, cuz I was taller than the guy trying to interrogate/intimidate me. It didn't work.
-Was propositioned by Patrick Ewing. Said no. He was perfectly nice after that.
-Was propositioned by Terrance Trent D'Arby. For $4000! Said no.
-Met U2. Burned Bono with my cigarette. Good thing he was really drunk.
-Hardly learned any Japanese at all
-Only did one cultural thing the whole time I was there, which was pretty cool.
-Blew all money but $1000.
So it turned out that my time in Japan was my time of buck wildness. Do I regret it? No. Would I repeat it? No. My ignorance of Asian cultures is long gone, much of it with first hand knowledge. Some of which I really wish I didn't know - for example: child porn is legal in Japan. Know why? Because it is illegal to show pubic hair in public, and since children don't have pubic hair, they must be legal. Turns your stomach, doesn't it?
For more hilarity see: http://www.quirkyjapan.or.tv/
My sister, on the other hand, went away to college and got buck wild and would regale me with her tales of drunken debauchery and dating misadventures and I felt like I was missing out.
Soooo... she wound up going straight from undergrad to graduate work for her Masters in International Business and therefore was part of a 1 1/2 year student exchange program in Tokyo, Japan. The first year she attended university, then she interned with a company for the last 6 months. It was at this point that I graduated from college and broke up with the serious boyfriend and decided to pay my sister a visit in Tokyo for a couple of weeks.
I called her and talked to her about it and she said, "Hey why don't you just stay for the remainder of my internship! We can live together and hang out. I can get you a job where I work and it will be great fun!" (or something along those lines... all I really heard was ESCAPE FROM PARENTS, SMALL TOWN, and SMALL MINDED BOYFRIEND WHILE YOU STILL CAN!!) So I enthusiastically agreed and bought a ticket in July that returned in December of 1993. I quit my job, dumped recycled boyfriend (one of those on again, off again things) and hopped a plane to seek my fame and fortune in a new and exotic place.
Whoooo let me tell you... that flight was soooo long. I went from Orlando to Chicago to Alaska to Seoul to Tokyo. It was the cheapest ticket I could get. Don't ask. I took off on a Thursday and landed on Saturday - I kid you not, thanks to crossing the international date line. Talk about jetlag! I felt like I was on drugs by the time I landed!
((Funny side note about the plane trip over: I took a brown suede bomber jacket with me -hey, it was 1993- and fell asleep and drooled all over it. When I woke up and wiped the drool off my chin, I had left 2 perfect lip prints and a dark space in between where all the spit accumulated - and the lip prints are still there to this day! Not that I still wear that jacket - it's at my mother's house in Fla.
Also, when I landed in Chicago, I changed airlines and got on a Korean Airlines flight. At the time, I knew smatterings of different European languages since I grew up there, but I didn't know squat about Asian languages - how ironic when I look back on that now. The announcements on the plane were made in English, Japanese and Korean. But dumb little South Florida Beach Girl (me) couldn't tell the difference between Japanese and Korean and thought THEIR announcements were twice as long, so I got all paranoid about what kind of information they were getting that I wasn't because I only knew English. Uhh...
BTW, have I ever mentioned that I can be quite the ditz, despite my intellectual prowess? That despite having a pretty high IQ and having been in Gifted and Talented classes and AP courses all thru-out school that, most of the time, I have the common sense of a retarded puppy? All enthusiasm and no fore-thought? Well, now you know.))
Anyway, back to my illustrious tale.
Let me tell you what my expectations of Japan were BEFORE I went:
-Quality time with my sister
-Learning a new culture and a new language
-Making pretty good money and saving it for my return to Fla.
What actually happened:
-Worked illegally in a casino under the Japanese mob
-Got drunk almost every day
-Smoked alot of cigarettes
-Smoked alot of hash
-Dated a few cute American military boys
-Punched drunk Japanese business man
-Got felt up by many drunk middle-aged Japanese men
-Made alot of friends, many of which were drug dealers who would slip drugs in my pocket for free, which I would promptly give away, unless it was hash.
-Hid friend from Japanese mob so they wouldn't kill her - she owed them money
-Went to Korea to illegally renew my tourist visa.
-Got drunk in Seoul with a bunch of Marines. Drank them under the table.
-Got in trouble with Military Police in Seoul for taking off my shirt. I was wearing a bustier.
-Made Military Police look like assholes in front of Korean police by putting shirt back on when they requested it. Sorry guys.
-Got interrogated by immigration upon my return to Japan. That was funny, cuz I was taller than the guy trying to interrogate/intimidate me. It didn't work.
-Was propositioned by Patrick Ewing. Said no. He was perfectly nice after that.
-Was propositioned by Terrance Trent D'Arby. For $4000! Said no.
-Met U2. Burned Bono with my cigarette. Good thing he was really drunk.
-Hardly learned any Japanese at all
-Only did one cultural thing the whole time I was there, which was pretty cool.
-Blew all money but $1000.
So it turned out that my time in Japan was my time of buck wildness. Do I regret it? No. Would I repeat it? No. My ignorance of Asian cultures is long gone, much of it with first hand knowledge. Some of which I really wish I didn't know - for example: child porn is legal in Japan. Know why? Because it is illegal to show pubic hair in public, and since children don't have pubic hair, they must be legal. Turns your stomach, doesn't it?
For more hilarity see: http://www.quirkyjapan.or.tv/
6.17.2005
I feel like Pigpen...
Well, I haven't posted in a while, out of sheer laziness. So what is new with me? Not much except that it's summer and I WRECKED MY CAR!!! Grrr. Flipped it on I-95 during rush hour traffic, to be exact. Yay me. All I have to say about that is WEAR YOUR SEATBELTS, people! Mine saved my life. Really, it did!The guys flipping my car back over WITH ME STILL INSIDE IT didn't help, even tho they were trying to. So now I am driving the boyfriend's truck to work and daycare while me, the towing lot, insurance companies and Chrysler Financial all figure out what the hell is going on. How I am going to pay off a totalled car and buy another one to replace it all at the same time is a little intimidating right now. So I'm sore, carless, and very worried about moolah right now.
To add to the moolah problems, my company just won the proposal to renew our contract, so we all still have our jobs, BUT the next day, we got a big fat salary CUT because they had to underbid the contract to win it. SO now everybody here is good and pissed off and looking for a new job, including me.
And to top it all off, I had food poisoning a couple of days ago. Nothing like barfing at work because hey, you were just in a major car accident and used up all your sick time!
I'm gonna go stew under my dark cloud now. Leave me alone.
To add to the moolah problems, my company just won the proposal to renew our contract, so we all still have our jobs, BUT the next day, we got a big fat salary CUT because they had to underbid the contract to win it. SO now everybody here is good and pissed off and looking for a new job, including me.
And to top it all off, I had food poisoning a couple of days ago. Nothing like barfing at work because hey, you were just in a major car accident and used up all your sick time!
I'm gonna go stew under my dark cloud now. Leave me alone.
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