Marriage

One of the things I have "come to realize" is that marriage is something at which I do not excel.

Growing up in the 1960s, I naturally assumed that I would get married. All my friends did. In fact, most of my friends had already selected life mates by the time they graduated from high school. A few of them are actually still married to those people. Amazing (ding)!

I had the usual crushes in school, usually on boys that were so far out of my league that it would have been laughable (and probably was, to them).

I was 17 when I graduated, and, by the time I was 18, I decided that True Love had passed me by, so I married the first frog who asked me. No, he wasn't French, he was just a frog who stubbornly refused to turn into a prince. He was over an hour late for the wedding, causing the minister to pace and frown, because he wanted to go home and watch a hockey game. Turned out that Brian was late because he was riding around on a bus, wondering if he should show up or not. The wedding was the result of my having out-stubborned my mother, who wanted me to go home. A girl can be very stupid at 18. We spent the next four years playing house, and pretending we were just living together.

Four years later, we were on the rocks, and SSS came to the rescue. I made a commitment to him right away. He convinced me that an "open marriage" was the way to go. He had a lot of affairs while we were married, and I was no angel, either. Still, we stayed together for 14 years, until the last affair decided to keep him. They are married now, and I can't help but wonder if he still maintains the right to screw around. Maybe he finally grew up.

Brendan's dad wanted to get married, but, while he is one of the good guys, we were at different stages of life, and I knew better, by then. I was 37 and he was 21 when we started our affair, and it seemed to me that we did better as friends than we would as a married couple.

The girls were more-or-less grown and Brendan was ten when I married Jim. I had known Jim for years, and knew he was not a prince. However, he was a good man. Big, strong, protective, loving, with a wonderful sense of humour and rapier wit. I had loved him for years before we ever started "dating." I really thought that my dream had come true. We planned our own wedding, and, if I do say so myself, it rocked.

Still, a rocking wedding wasn't enough. Sharing core values wasn't enough. Even love wasn't enough. We had some setbacks, both emotional and financial, and his health started to deteriorate. Life became too much for Jim. When his mother died, something of him died with her. He went into a dark place where I couldn't reach him. I was waiting for him to come back.

He never did.

Now I am alone, where I will be for the rest of my life.

I am looking forward to recovering to some extent from the anger, guilt and sorrow, and to living the life I should probably have lived all along.

I don't have a talent for marriage. Having divorced two husbands, and survived the suicide of the third, I am forced to realize this. And accept it.