Marriage is great, so I’m reliably informed by a number of my friends and I’m quite sure they firmly believe that.
I, however, have found it to be a less than ideal experience.
Betrayal, dishonesty, violence, bad faith, separation and divorce are the memories that stand out most clearly from my recent (and not so recent) past.
Of course I’ve been divorced (this time) for close to a couple of years and separated nearly three, so what’s bugging me now?
A few weeks ago my ex-wife was rushed into hospital, I couldn’t visit because she’d moved to America but she was in the best hospital in the state, so while I was concerned I was sure she’d be OK…
Wait a minute… I was concerned? This was the woman who’d slapped me around on numerous occasions. Beaten the crap out of me more than once. About whom I’d had calls from the police in the middle of the night. The reason I’d installed high security locks and CCTV. Where was the concern coming from? Beats the hell out of me (again!).
That bothered me.
Her daughter was dealing with everything and was getting run through the mill in the process but, through the miracle of the internet, I could be there to support her and that made me at least feel useful, like I could do something to help, not much perhaps, but something.
It didn’t go well and after two agonizing weeks, my ex-wife passed away, without regaining consciousness. For that I was at least grateful. Had she come round and realised what her illness had done to her brain, it would have been worse for her and most especially for her daughter.
I came to realise that part of what was bothering me was the knowledge that I would never find out why. What had I done that was so terrible that the only answer was to beat me up, to terrorise me physically and psychologically.
Is that really so important? Is that what this is about? Perhaps and perhaps not. Truth be told I’ll probably never work that one out.
What worried me more was the relief I felt, or rather, not the relief itself but the guilt about that relief. I was beating myself up for feeling good about the fact that someone was no longer in a position to do so herself.
In the end though I suppose it always comes to this: we don’t choose who touches our lives, why, or even how their absence or passing will affect us. We move through life, interacting with others, affecting them in ways neither we nor they can understand, or even realize.
I try to do good where I can, and where I can’t, at least to do no harm. I sometimes fail, we all do but I try. I’m proud of this (justifiably, I believe) but it also makes me sensitive to the feelings of others (or perhaps I have that backwards, I don’t know) and that makes me vulnerable.
Would I trade my nature for the security of not caring or feeling?
No, never. Of course not, though I often suspect it would make life easier…
