Happy Anniversary to Me

I don't know what I thought my first wedding anniversary would be like, but I definitely never expected it to be like this.

Isn't the first anniversary the 'paper' anniversary? Mine is a divorce paper anniversary. I'm married to a stranger. A year after our wedding, I'm divorcing someone I no longer know, and in many ways never knew at all.

Interestingly, Dear Husband chose today to break his silence about the strange thought processes that crowd his head. He didn't do it without prompting though. This morning, during an email exchange about some outstanding financial matters, I violated my promise to myself to stop asking him questions.

To my surprise, he answered my question. He replied that he had been crushed by something I said to him about two weeks before we separated. It was news to me. DH's uniformly sunny exterior and inability to talk about his feelings precluded me from knowing that he was even capable of that kind of emotion.

He also said he was sorry for the first time since we separated, but his apology was less than forthcoming. He said he was sorry for 'looking at that shit.' The limited culpability he's willing to admit makes him seem more like a passive observer of the demise of our marriage, rather than an active instigator. I guess if that's what he needs to do to get through the night, that's his choice.

But it's not going to serve him well when he embarks on another relationship. And he will. DH has always needed someone to take care of him - first it was his parents, then the Navy, then First Wife, then Interim Girlfriend, then the parents again, and finally me. Except for IG, he was separated from these caregivers only by duress.

But I have to stop worrying about how DH thinks, feels, and manages to look at himself in the mirror. I attended a lovely autumn equinox ritual last night that got me thinking about decline and renewal. I've been mourning my crop failures, but I see now that I need to look at things in another way. By harvesting the sorrow that the past summer has brought, I might be preparing my soil for a fresh crop of hope in the spring. At least I hope so.