39 weeks ago I had woken up to go to work like any other day… Christopher and I had had a terrible week, lots of name-calling, tears and scowls had been shared over the days prior to that Friday.
We had been unhappy for a while. The moments of bliss that we shared grew fewer and further in-between as the months went by.
I had begun spending a lot of time with people that were not Christopher’s biggest fans. I guess mentally I had already begun a phase of de-nesting… building up a support network that did not involve him or the people we shared as friends. I had been developing friendships for the months prior to our split with people that he did not know and, unfortunately, were quite volatile when the subject of ‘husband’ came up.
They had seen me for several months… seen my happiness and mental health unfold into almost a complete state of disrepair. I had begun having regular sleepovers at Hannah’s just to get away from the house. I had begun spending more time at work because it was easier to focus on casenotes and databases than my marriage.
39 weeks ago I had a regular day at work. My boss was off on annual leave and I had a training session on E-Procurement., a new system we were having set into place within the Trust to allow for an easier and more centralized means of ordering necessities.
I consumed the information at work with great excitement, as I have a constant and disgusting need to learn as many things as possible.
I rode the bus home at half past four, just like any other day. Got off at the fourth stop and walked the rest of the way to the home I shared with my then-husband. I always dreaded the last three minutes of my walk home… just as I turned right, past the apartment buildings, lavender bushes and invasive trees. I hated that bit because it was always the time when I would reflect on my day, wonder what kind of a mood he would be in and what reason he would have to nag me and make me feel awful THAT day. No matter what kind of day I might have had, it was always, ALWAYS completely deflated by the time I arrived at my gate, for all the stress I had allowed to consume me for those 180 seconds.
39 weeks ago I had decided to split from the forever I had spent the previous five years creating.
I can’t actually believe it’s been that long since that night. I look back now and see how far things have come along in my life and am amazed.
Nearly ten months have gone and in that time I have become British, moved house, bought a ticket to America, lost a shit-ton of weight and just generally been well. I feel like I am living the life I actually came to England to live and unfortunately, it took me leaving Chris to allow for that to happen.
A small part of me (VERY small) feels for him when I get the slightly emo array of texts from him talking about how hard it is… but then that bit tends to get overruled when I get a sassy or weird text… like, a couple of weekends ago I got a random text from him saying, “Oh cool for you that your next encounter with a wedding will be a laugh out loud joke fest compared to my soul crushing white church wedding.” This came as I was sat on the bus with janey on the way to her parent’s house. The sun was lighting the left side of my face far too much for my liking and I showed the text to janey before responding and asking what he meant…
As it turns out, ANNA’S mum was getting married last weekend and Chris had attended the wedding. As per the text, you will see that the wedding was a proper “white wedding” (although, I am FAIRLY certain that the entire basis of a “white wedding” is purity and blah, blah, blah. So how one could possibly wear white as a sign of purity with their three daughters stood next to them and think that the whiteness was expressing anything other than a big, stinking lie is beyond me.). His text came after I had sent him one asking him, yet again, to do the one last piece of paperwork for our divorce (the Decree Absolute).
He responded saying that he was sat at the head table and it was all a very serious affair and generally giving off the vibe that my next wedding was going to be a joke and that I was lazy and I should have done the paperwork myself and a whole truckload of other crap I’m not even interested in trying to remember right now.
Every negative encounter we have had recently has been as a result of my enquiries into the progress of the Decree Absolute. By the time I had received the above-mentioned text thirteen weeks had passed since we were given the go-ahead to submit it. Thirteen weeks is ample time to get some paperwork together in my mind, but not in Chris’s, apparently, as he just fought it and participated in emotional thrashing-around at any mention of the paperwork being done. At the end of it all, last week, he called me names, asked for my address and then sent me a text. The text contained the picture you can now see to your right and said “Look! Soon to be divorcee! I was avoiding it because it makes my stomach hurt.” I replied, just confirming that what I was looking at was indeed the final bit of paperwork being submitted and received this, “Yeah. Just think of me when you are busy remarrying in a few months. Sanctity Schmankity.” It digressed from there to something about him being emo and whatever… I don’t know. It’s all a bit depressing and I don’t like to dwell on it any more than I need to. But GOD did I dwell the other night. I found myself caught VERY short of emotion… I was sat in my usual spot in the beer garden at Bar One with Pow and Amy, prepared to cheer a sufficient amount for the comedic stylings of Nick and (other) Amy when, during the break to the interval, I hit the emotional brick wall. I had kinda bumped in to that brick wall a little earlier in the day when I was looking at a photo that John Goncalves was tagged in on Facebook. I clicked it mindlessly as it looked interesting, not even looking to see who had tagged him or who’s profile it came from. I looked at the photo of some etchings someone had done into some wood… I clicked the photo to see the next one and lost my breath. It was a photo of Chris and ANNA. It was a photo of them being a couple. It was a photo not unlike ones that he and I used to take. It was a photo that, for some very peculiar reason, made my eyeballs misty.
So, that evening when Chris walked off the stage after doing a set my eyeballs decided to become misty again. I imagine it was the combination of me being drunk with the fact that I was in a pub that I frequented with Chris quite a lot that made me feel particularly bad… it genuinely made my tiny heart strain with pain as he passed-by me. Not in a longing sort of way, but because I’ve lost something. I was married to him and he used to be a part of my everyday life and now I’m not and he’s not. I’m not made of stone, things do hurt sometimes and that night, I fell over all morose and Pow kept trying to cheer me up… singing and dancing for me. it didn’t work. The veil of sad had been tossed on my face and I was stuck with it all night. I was fine by morning, but it didn’t half hurt to come to that kind of a realization whilst I was out trying to have a good time.
Today though, I am happy with the semblance of a relationship I have with Chris, even despite the divorce. we get on well enough to be able to talk amicably most of the time, which is all I could really ask for…
I don’t regret it and I absolutely stand firm in my belief that us splitting up was one of the best things to happen to the both of us.
