"How We Knew"
Well, this one is easy, because I DIDN'T!! I will admit that we had gotten to that point where everything, I mean everything, was a fight. Even a discussion as simple as dinner plans could explode into a blowout fight, where the kids were standing there crying asking why we are always fighting; and that's exactly how it happened.
One Saturday afternoon, we were having our usual venom spitting contest with each other, and it escalated into an argument and (according to my ex) I apparently went too far. Nothing physical, just a lot of horrible things said to each other. Within 15 minutes I was officially thrown out of the house, with some basic supplies in my car to last me the night. Well, one night turned into living in my car for almost a month and I wasn't easy to maintain my daily compusure with work and friends, but I am not the type to let many people into my personal life, so I kept it all a secret.
I generally parked at my office, or in front of the house late at night after everyone had gone to sleep, and I even tried to get inside a friend of mine's boat he kept docked not far from my house. It was locked and I was too embarrassed to tell him what was going, so I just slept in the marina parking lot. Anything to avoid admitting this might be permanent.
She says it was no surprise and had building to this point for a long time. Maybe not for her, BUT I WAS SURPRISED... shocked, confused, hurt, devastated and whatever other adjectives one wishes to include in there; I was feeling them all. Mostly shock and surprise though. I just couldn't believe this was really happening.
Within the next few hours (or maybe days, I don't know, it all seemed to just meld together for about a month), it became pretty clear that she had this all planned for a long time and apparently had been just waiting for the right moment to drop the hammer. "I don't want to be married to you any more," she said. "Surely this will blow over, like it had in the past; right?" was my hope. Nope, not this time buddy.
Now, I am not placing blame; obviously I had equal fault in the failure of our marriage, but I had never seriously considered divorce. I just figured it was one of those low points in a marriage, but we would move into better time, eventually. We have two young kids, a house, careers, and all the stress that goes along with the American Dream! So, I just figured we would eventually swing back into love with each other. In fact, I am the type of person that would have probably stayed in the marriage, just because I thought divorce was admitting failure. But, boy am I glad that didn't happen!!! Now that the divorce if final, what a difference of perspective and clarity, but I will save that for another time.
In summary, I would say that, just like any other important decision, making the decision is the hardest part. For us, I think it took about 3 years of continuous decline before she (I mean we) knew it was over. I'm sure there are an infinite number of reasons why people justify getting married and divorced. Now that I have done both, my advice is simply: Make sure you've thought it all the way through, because once you've done it, there's no going back. The silver lining is that divorce in not necessarily a failure (even though that's how it feels during the initial separation), but often a solution for two people living incompatible lives to break free of the oppression and try to find your own true self again.
