I thought closure would mean having an in-your-face, last word confrontation with my EX. I anticipated full-on drama with emphatic twisty-neck and pointy-finger-style; enumerating all the ways he screwed up and screwed me over. I planned to diminish his ego until he was nothing but a cowering piece of man.
You know what? I was a catch when I met my EX, damn it! I was full of energy, sense of purpose, self-love and a zest for life. I had dreams, goals, aspirations and was eager to share my life with him. I loved the idea of happiness and success becoming a joint project. And I couldn't wait to co-create a life together in which we both thrived personally and professionally while constantly evolving into better versions of ourselves.
And that's the dude I turned The Rock down for. But rather than wallowing in misery and regret, I became a slut. Not a slut in the numerical sense, though. Let's just say, I lost any sort of cautionary discretion when it came to sleeping with someone before really getting to know them. Yes, even less discretion than cohabiting with someone within weeks of meeting. Put it this way: if I knew your name and you made me "tingle"... I was down.
What a sobering thought to realize I might not have been the catch I thought I was. Especially since, by the time I met my husband, I was thirty years old and felt damn good about the person I had become. It was just seven years earlier I dared exercise my independence and free-will by mustering up the courage to move to NYC.
Social ineptitude resulted in lots of alone time where I sometimes nurtured my resentment, fears and love of red wine during severe bouts of single-itis. But there were also those absolutely IndieGirl-icious periods when I experienced many an "AHA!" moment and great epiphany. During both the bleak and bright times I definitely discovered patterns of behavior that I wanted to change, if only I knew how.
Fucking TRUST! You're lonely without it and utterly screwed if you dare invest it in others. At least that's been my experience. The risk involved in trusting someone (post-separation) is so absolutely unnerving to me, that I've been walking around with this uncontrollably latent paranoia that the world at large is out to get me.
"When you meet the right one, you just know." Yep, we gushed those same words with cherished pride just like any other couple in the lust phase on the verge of sealing the deal with a shiny rock. And look at us now.
Evidently, the number one cause for divorce is financial stress. Not infidelity. Go figure. And, yeah, I eventually found out that my EX had cheated on me; but I bet that never woud've happened had financial stress not already done a number on our relationship. Well, maybe. This is what I think really happened; my version.
It was during that ATTACHMENT PHASE that I came to realize just how little I had truly known my EX when we first got married. I know that sounds weird. It's just that, as years passed, the depth of our friendship plus my love and attraction to him expanded in ways I never thought imaginable. I felt as if I had grown to know his true character, his persona and his ego; having equal love and compassion for each. I remember staring at him, soaking him in and feeling so lucky. He made me feel loved, cherished, respected, admired, appreciated, and desirable. And I equally loved who he was as a man, husband and friend. We had created such a strong bond that, life without my EX, seemed inconceivable. He was my family, a part of me... we were attached at the hip.
My quest to "find myself" necessitated a period of sexual sobriety. Well, I wasn't necessarily sexless by conscious choice. It was more of a sub-conscious thing mixed with a little bit of the inevitable. I mean, let's face it: a chic presenting with symptoms of Post Marital Stress Disorder and trust issues is far from a man magnet. You could've dressed me up like a hooker, put me on a street corner and I still wouldn't have gotten laid!
