I've always considered 8 to be my lucky number. My Mum and Dad were engaged on the 8th, married on the 8th, I was born on the 8th and I started University on the 8th (not the same 8th, though). So why have I just been in tears about the 8th? Especially when today is the 19th? Because tomorrow is the 20th October 2008, and I would have been married 8 years tomorrow. In fact, I have been married 8 years tomorrow, it's just I'm not with my husband any more.
So, why - when the entire point of this blog is 'getting dumped and then getting a life' - would I be in tears at lunchtime? I'm relieved I'm not with my ex any more, our life together was really unpleasant and destructive for everyone around us, particularly our son. I am much happier than I've been for years. But, I can't help thinking back to my wedding day and thinking about how happy we were and the potential our marriage had that day. He admits that it was pretty much him who ruined it and that we could be celebrating our wedding anniversary together if he'd been able to control his demons. I was at fault, but as the hugely annoying Angel Clare once said, I was 'more sinned against than sinning'.
He's just collected our son to take him out for the afternoon and it gives me time to use the ever-cathartic power of blogging to apply some perspective to the situation. I think back to our last wedding anniversary and how dreadful that was. We went to Venice and he made the entirety of the first day phenomenally unpleasant until I was so desperate that I tried to book a flight home to get away from him. The idea of me leaving him was enough to make him behave and for the rest of the time there was peace with an underlying feeling of uneasy truce about it all. Shortly afterwards he met his new girlfriend and started making plans to leave me permanently. It wasn't a good way to be. And so, when mourning our wedding day I need to look full-square at our final anniversary together and see that being apart is for the best.
These anniversaries will fade with time and I'll cope better each year - but - and this is a big but - I realise that I need to put something fantabulous in place for New Year's Eve as that was the night he dumped me, and I'm not 'celebrating' that one with tears before bedtime.
Quick update!
7 years ago
3 comments:
Splendid - what would you like to do?
I was in tears in the office in the days leading up to 23rd July, which would have been my 15th anniversary. Though it was my choice to become the ex-Mrs rather than the Mrs, no choice comes without price, and the anniversary serves as a stark reminder that once upon a time I stood beside someone and promised never to leave him - and then did. No-one (except, it seems, Peaches Geldof) gets married expecting a term-limited contract, but maybe she is right and no-one should be allowed "to make promises
living will not let them keep."
Hwl, thanks for that poem - I read it loads of times and sums up exactly how I feel xxx
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