I wanted someone who would last. Then, of course, I found myself wishing he wouldn’t.  When you find yourself thankful your spouse’s father died young because maybe it was hereditary, you’re in the wrong marriage.  Worse, I knew that before I said, “I do.”  But a promise is a promise.  Or so I believed at the time.  Some would make the argument that is always true.  I don’t suppose they’d be wrong. I still believe God forgives people who make a promise based on lies, and Man’s law allows people to correct mistakes.

What do you think?  There’s the man who promises the moon, and then there’s the man who believes his own lies — whichever ones he happens to be telling that day.  I guess after enough of them, you don’t even worry about keeping track.  I really don’t know.  Even when I was caught up in living a life of lies, I didn’t really grasp it.  I mean, I lived my life truthfully, but what do you say or do when your spouse has told his employer you’re dying so you have to move near a larger medical facility?  I guess that’s what he told his boss when my job transferred me to a new location.  I wasn’t quite sure what to say or do when I stopped in at my husband’s place of employment and his boss expressed sympathy for my plight.  Should I have called my husband a liar right there?  Probably.

Honestly, I knew I’d gotten myself into a bad situation before the wedding, but I didn’t know how to extricate myself from it.  I thought I’d only have to deal with it for twenty years, and then, maybe, my husband would have the good sense to die like his father had done before him.  Pretty dumb, huh?
Then there was the head injury.  Did the head injury happen?  Probably.  It signaled the beginning of the end, although I didn’t know it at the time.  But that ending really was a beginning.  My life really began when I rid myself of that bad news man.

It took a long time, but I paid off my debts, incurred by listening to that foolish being.  But the debts that were mine came with me in the divorce decree.  The ones that were not, did not. I accepted responsibility and moved on.  What more can one do?

Durable turned out to be something I wanted in myself.  I wanted to be capable of doing all things that needed to be done for me. It’s nice to have someone else around some of the time, but, eventually, you just want your own space.  You begin to wonder if you really need that other person.  Unfortunately, people can’t be like a favorite shirt you take out of the closet only when you want to wear it and forget it the rest of the time.  No, people have expectations.  They want companionship.  They want you to be there for them when they need someone.  Not just when you need them.  Two way street, I think they call it.

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