I have graduated with honors with a P.H.D. (Past Having Doubts) in Marital Relationships. I have survived two marriages and I am still alive and kicking, but just barely. I honestly do not believe if I will ever marry again due to the "Three Ring Principal": The Engagement Ring, The Wedding Ring, and The Suffer-Ring.
While my first marriage ended after eighteen long years, it is my second marriage that is scarring my heart after only three years. While dating my future ex-wife, I was swept up in a sea of an emotion with physical attraction overshadowing any hint of negative personality disorders that would have been discovered if I had paced myself slower.
Granted, I am shouldering most of the blame due to my rash decisions and not wanting to be alone and sleeping in a bed by myself. Once I met my future Ex, I had to marry her quick because I did not want anyone else to steal her away from me and my lonely heart. Little did I know...if only I would have put more effort into my studies of relationships, I would have slowed way down.
I felt like a Freshman in my collegiate study of relationships when I believed my ex (the second one that is) when she continued to quote to me, " I will never marry another person since I have you and we will grow old together and die together." She continued by telling me, " I love you and always will and if you were to die before me, I would never date another person." My problem is that I believed all of this "hoopla" and I had experienced it years before. I was a slow learner.
I would like to interject at this point and state that I still love my second wife. In fact, I did not suffer the emotional torment or pain from my first divorce that I am still experiencing from my second divorce. My belief is that I truly love my second wife even though I know we cannot live together anymore. My second wife loved me to the best of her ability. She was burdened by excess baggage that she was carrying from previous (doomed) relationships and emotional scarring that was brought into our marriage. Though, I am not assigning total blame to her for our pending divorce, like I stated earlier, I am shouldering the majority of the blame (and grief).
The title of this article refers to death and dying. My second divorce is a blessing and a curse: The divorce is exactly like half of my body (and soul) dying. I have felt it daily. It is the worst feeling I have ever dealt with and is worse than experiencing my own father's death as I did April 13th of 2007. There is a physical feeling deep within my heart and stomach that shifts with pain each time I dwell on the separation I made from my second wife. I think this is due to believing my wife's testimony of "love" and really believing that she would never let me leave.
My second wife actually died to me by hiding behind her relatives and their persuasive arguments against our marriage. What was hard for me to comprehend is that I was just as close to her parents as I was my own. I was never contacted by any of my second's relatives in order to clear the air and see what really occurred. All I received from all of my second wife and her family was silence. In my book, "silence equals guilty." This can be compared to the (guilty) defendant in the courtroom pleading The Fifth Ammendment so as not to self-incriminate himself (or herself) with his/her crimes. So, technically I am experiencing a multitude of deaths: My second wife, my father-in-law, my mother-in-law, and brothers and sisters-in-law, and my niece and nephews-in-law.
My Masters Thesis was based on this statement: "Adultery is having sexual intercourse with someone who is not your spouse. If you have lived apart for five years and you are living with a new partner, you will be committing adultery with that new partner."
I have graduated with my degree in hand, but with an empty heart. Though I am full of drive and determination not to add to the cliche, "Three times is a charm."
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