a new chapter
I haven't posted in awhile.
my life sort of turned topsy turvy for awhile and then the most miraculous thing happened.
My life sorted itself out and I ended up here, with a happy life, a great partner and children.
I am not sure how that happened but it did and I have been sitting here contemplating my life and how I got here. There are certain things I feel like I need to say but haven't had the time.
The topic "what happened with my marriage" I avoided, the thing I didn't want to talk about because I didn't want to defame anyone or shed doubt on the person I was married to. Now let's be clear, that isn't what I am intending to do here. My hope is to explain myself to myself. I doubt anyone reads this any more but it is more of an exercise for me, so if there is still someone out there who reads this then this should be quite illuminating.
Alright here goes,
My marriage
It started out like everyone else's does. A boy thinks he loves a girl and asks her to be his... it's all so cliche as he asked me in a big arena which is really what he would do when you think about it. He is the type of person who likes to make a big show of his affections and there is nothing wrong with that, accept it wasn't right for me. I didn't know it at the time, but I am the type of person who prefers a small gesture over the grandiose big gesture. The boy loved me, or at least he thought he did, but what we had, changed and grew and morphed into something that neither of us knew anymore.
After the wedding we went on a glorious honeymoon. It was wonderful. Hell I still look at those pictures and smile over the love I felt, the excitement and the fun we had. We had a great time and I felt like we were a partnership, we had fun and we were learning about each other. It was exciting and fun to be with my new husband. It was when we got home that things changed. They were minor differences, little changes. It started with joking, saying things were "women's work" or a "pink job". It was little pieces that were stripped bare that made me wonder where these things were coming from, but then I just presumed he was joking or that he was working through some stuff. We went to a party, the first one since we had gotten married and that was were I noticed pivotal change. We showed up and immediately he drank, hell he drank to excess which wasn't unusual, we had done that before, but it was how he acted this time that had changed. He started to do things and say things that I felt were wrong, not like right or wrong, just off. He eventually passed out on the couch and the party kept going. Admittedly that was the night that a friend of mine told me that he really cared for me and missed me and also tried to kiss me, I told him that I was married and flashed the ring, told him it wasn't going to happen and then took steps to make sure I wasn't going to be alone with him. I mean I had just pledged my life and my love to my husband in a very large ceremony. I was going to be faithful to my husband because that is what I believe.
That weekend was the start of many other weekends where he said or did little things. See it wasn't just one single thing, it was a multitude of little things that did it.
I tried for months, meanwhile still in school, still working, still trying to take care of things and he had difficulty. He was going through stuff. I am not about to make that public on this forum but what I can say is that what happened to him was bad. It was hard and difficult to deal with and he was well within his right to be laid up about it. But the difficulty was he adopted this role and didn't want to try to better himself. I being the supportive spouse that I tried but ultimately failed to be was that I was trying to get him to talk to someone, anyone about what had gone on. I was pushy, I was "a fucking demon", I was nothing and I was doing all of this to him. I wasn't supportive I was arrogant of what was going on with him. The difficulty we were having is through all of this time, he wasn't working. His benefits had finished and he had decided not to go back to his place of employment. That made sense but not moving forward and not working meant that we had minimal money coming in. His family helped, god they helped so much. I will not discredit the help we received from his parents, they were there in our time of need, but I feel a lot of that was taken for granted. I remember a conversation that we had just 8 months after we were married where I had asked my loving husband to help me, we were having difficulty. I had budgeted as well as I could but our savings that our families and friends had generously given us as a wedding present was gone. I did the best I could to budget I really did and I got us that far but we were out of money and I was afraid of losing the roof over our heads or even paying for the books I needed for my education. I asked him to try to get a job, a job, any job like serving coffee at Tim Horton's, just anything. What he said to me was that getting a job outside of his field was beneath him. I was flabbergasted. I grew up with the idiom that there are no small parts, only small actors and I apply that to the work force. I have worked retail to make ends meet, hell I have slung coffee, worked in various fields to make money and I didn't understand that perspective. I had never met someone with that perspective before. Looking back I see that it isn't his fault. He has been very lucky with who he knows to line up the jobs that he has wanted. Moving out of an area he knew presented new challenges, but I had never heard that before.
Finally he got a job, something in his field. I was relieved but the tension or as my cousin kala likes to say, the "seeds of doubt had been sown". We were getting back on our feet when all of a sudden an opportunity presented itself. I had been accepted to a conference. As an undergraduate it was a huge achievement, hell it was monumental. It makes the top 5 of things I have accomplished but shortly after I received my acceptance I sat down with my husband and he told me that we just couldn't swing the 150$ for me to go. I was devastated and angry. I had spent so much time and energy working to keep us afloat that I was going to miss out on this experience because we weren't there yet. I was upset because this opportunity was a once in a lifetime thing and I was angry because it was not okay for me to go but it was okay for him to spend our money on frivolous expenditures. I know that was the wrong way to look at it but at the time that was how I felt. I didn't say anything, I bottled that up and that was also the wrong thing because all it did was add more seeds of doubt in the ground. I talked to a friend, one that I was close with and that friend gave me the money and told me I shouldn't miss out on this and that I had better message about all the amazing things I was going to see and do at the conference. I was elated... I could go and experience all the things!!! Here is where the guilt came in, I felt like I was doing it underhandedly. The person who gave me the money was the friend who had told me he cared and had feelings for me but told me flat out that this was a gesture for me and not because of the feelings he had. He said he didn't care if he saw the money come back to him because if he "needed the money back then clearly he shouldn't have leant it in the first place" or something like that. I rushed home to tell my husband and he was not elated for me but angry. How could I do this? How could I go behind his back like this? I should give the money back and not go to the conference and all the while I was thinking of how crushing all of this was. I was not intending to hurt my husband in this way. I thought he would be excited that I would get to go and get to have the experience of meeting all the people I had just spent 4 years studying but he was hurt too.
The conference came and went and I had an amazing time. All the while talking to my husband and posting to my friends (not just one in particular) about my amazing trip... I even did it cheaply and said with an old friend named Jon Degeer whom I still can't thank enough for the amazing visit. It was wonderful. I didn't have a whole lot of money at the time and it was amazing that he took me in for that. I loved being in Montreal and he really showed me the love for that city, but that is so far left field from where I am headed. More and more was being chipped away from my relationship with my husband. I was working a lot on my Thesis and trying to finish up and get things done and he was feeling like I was neglecting him. I was trying to get my work done and get it submitted and all the while meeting with my professor, writing 12-15 pages a night... talking to a few friends who were editing and transcribing for me because my husband had promised he would help me but he found it to be too much for him so I had to outsource. These people I am entirely indebted to and they know who they are... but talking to those people as much as I did, planted seeds of doubt for my husband. With all the planting we had done we may as well have gone into farming in retrospect. I felt attached to these people because they had done so much for me and I felt like I couldn't just drop them because he said he wanted me to, but more to the point that they were still helping me get through it and in all honesty I doubt I would have made it through the transcription without their help. I finished my paper and submitted but there was an ire I hadn't seen before. It was directed at me and no matter what I did to shake it or to spend time with my husband it was constant. He was angry with me.
We liked to visit and liked to party with our friends and always put on a brave face for them and acted like the well rounded couple, but when we got into closed quarters the interrogation would begin. Why did you say this? what did you mean about that? You know that was a really shitty thing to say don't you ? It wasn't just all him, I was just as guilty in some of these arguments but it's not about blame, it's about saying what happened. I remember a couple of moments where I just wanted to get away from him. My lovely husband because he was being so cruel. It was in these moments I wondered what the hell had happened to him and what the hell had happened to me. They were not pretty moments but just small moments to add to the camels back. We carried forward. I talked to some of my friends about these issues and I just told them that I was working on my marriage, I was working on it. But one friend asked me what he was doing to work on it... that got me thinking what was he doing to improve upon things?
Things really came to a head the weekend of my big swim. See throughout all of this I was training to do a charity swim in memory of my grandparents. They had both passed (my grandmother that year on my husband's birthday no less) and I wanted to honour them but swimming to raise money for the alzheimer's society. I had done publicity and I had gone out and raised money, nearly $1700. I had trained and trained and trained all year for it and when it had come to the time we were heading north to do it I was pumped. We were going to stay at the island (my favourite childhood place) for the weekend and we were looking forward to the quiet. Well when we were on our way I found out that my uncle randy and my cousin Caitlyn had gone up to the island... no big deal. Not the end of the world... we show up and my husband is pissed. He is mad because it was our time up there and that they shouldn't have gone up. What he doesn't realize was that us staying up there was a gift from my family, as I am not a brown and am not entitled to weekend, every weekend I get up there is because my family is generous and I am fortunate... I am not entitled to a weekend up there and when I pointed that out, that only made him madder. Uncle randy came down and was prepared to take Caitlyn with him but I was okay with having family up there and said that we would keep her so she could still enjoy the island. Uncle Randy's ankle was starting to swell so he headed home. We woke up early the next morning and set out for the swim. I had told my husband that night that I didn't want him to swim because I wasn't sure why he was doing it, he hadn't trained for it and really had no interest up until that point. I asked him why do you want to do it? he said to see if he could. I told him that my reason was in memory of my grand parents and that they were my reason and anything else was prideful. He just shrugged me off and said he was doing it. I didn't want to be mean or anything untoward, it had already been a rough car ride and now a rough evening so I just left it. So we get down to do the swim and we are in the thick of it and I have already figured out I have set a faster pace than he can keep up with. I trained for months to be able to complete the swim in around the 2 1/2 hour mark. I was told I had to stop to wait for him to catch up which meant treading water for 15-20 minutes. I wasn't mad at him, I was mad that we didn't have another boat at the time. I waited until I was told it was safe and I carried on. I completed the swim in 3 hours and felt so proud of myself. I did it, 7kms in 3 hours. Not bad! We got back to the island and he was irritable. We were hungry so we got food going but he just continued to be irritable and hide in the cottage. I stayed out to entertain our guests and family but he was angry that I wasn't just hanging out with him in the cottage. I came to check on him and he decided to sleep. but before he went to sleep he showed me an injury he had sustained. it was a small little chaffing mark and so he slept and I hung out with the crowd. They made fun of me for my awful sunburn but all in all it was a pretty amazing day. The day rolled into the night and then morning came. We woke up and I started to make breakfast. I had asked kolby to get plates and all the things for us to have breakfast and he begrudgingly went to get them. He came out with 2 plates and no cutlery, I asked him to get more plates for the rest of our guests and I felt like I was once again forcing him to do something he didn't want to do because he made it quite apparent to everyone else it was a huge issue. I didn't say anything, we cleaned up the island, packed the boat and brought everything down. To this day my sister says this was the day that tipped her off to things not being right with us as he left me to unload the boat and pack the car to get everything ready to head back to Peterborough. I didn't say a word and hugged and kissed my parents and left.
There were more little incidents between the swim and of course the next one being the accident but they seem to pale in comparison. We continued to work on things but I was feeling my energy drain and felt even more distant from friends and family. This somehow felt familiar and yet foreign. That Christmas wasn't too bad... Christmas seemed to be difficult for us in that his family felt issue with the fact that we were always with my family Christmas Eve. But over all it was a nice Christmas with his family. I had to work boxing day and then we went up for the boos family Christmas. The intent was to leave him there to spend time with family while I went back to work. I didn't mind it and was taking the alone time to work on me. I headed home and the accident happened. I called his parents place and got his dad. Thank god I got his dad. He was always a calming influence on me. I told him what happened and told him to come get me through sobs. They were on their way. I called my parents and told them what had happened.. They were worried but glad I was okay. Kolby, his dad and sister showed up and were there to help me. The care I received after that accident was amazing. I felt the love from that family in which I had always felt like I had encroached upon private space, I felt like I belonged. I was in bad shape, my back and neck and shoulder were a mess. I had a hard time moving. Things were very difficult but as Nancy had said, I was lucky to be alive. I felt that, I truly did. I felt like I had been given a second chance at things. I went home to Peterborough after a little while. I was a nervous wreck but we took our time getting there, Kolby's dad drove the big truck and I felt much more safe and at ease. I got set up in the living room with food and all the amenities and Kolby seemed like he was the man I had married again, not the man who was angry with me, or the man who looked down on me. The man I loved. He went to work and I was left alone for 12 hours. admittedly I slept a lot of that but the difficult times were the times I had to get out of bed or the times I needed to get to the washroom. When Kolby came home that day I was happy to see him but he just seemed tired and almost looked at me with tired eyes like I was another thing to take care of. I didn't want that, I wanted him to just be there to snuggle me... but I knew then that it wasn't going to work like that. I had to go home to see my doctor and he made the decision to refer me to treatment centres in Bancroft to oversee my care. This is where the divide widened. My husband couldn't understand why I would agree with the doctors. He wanted me to have my treatment in Peterborough. I explained to him that it would be difficult with the frequency of appointments I needed to get me there all the time with his work schedule. He told me I could just take the bus and that would be fine, but it wasn't I was exhausted from walking down the hall, I hurt trying to get out of bed, much less walking the distance to the bus stop and riding the bus to wherever they were going to send me. So I was in Bancroft for weeks at a time. My father took me to the majority of my appointments and I got the help I needed. It was hard and that was where Kolby and I stopped talking as much. He didn't have anything to say to me anymore. He ran out of things to talk about or the notion of caring or something and I didn't know what to do any more. I wanted to make it work I didn't want my marriage to end, I had committed to him, to a life together.
Things came to their ultimate conclusion after my birthday. Kolby planned an amazing birthday for me, he did. But I was starting to spend more time with friends because he wasn't talking to me as much anymore and I wanted to talk, I wanted to share what I was thinking. I didn't want to be isolated like I was in my past relationship, I wanted to keep the me mojo going. We went away, we had a good time and we had planned it so much actual birthday would be just him and I relaxing and doing whatever we wanted. I asked him to go out with me to get running shoes and to head to chapters. He snapped at me and told me to pick a fucking day for my birthday as I had just had a weekend of celebrations. I was extremely hurt and that day I remember vividly because that was the day that he flipped the switch. I don't know how it happened I just know that after that point I knew that we couldn't fix things. We were broken and I knew it. I also knew that with that one phrase, there were a multitude of people I wanted to spend time with more than him.
through this he started to call all my friends stalkers. It got so bad that I admit to lying to him about who I was talking to a few times. He would get nasty about any conversation I had with friends, he even went through my computer. There was nothing to find because there was nothing to be concerned about and yet, he did it anyway. I knew the trust was gone then. He didn't trust me around anyone and got to the point where he didn't like it when I went home to visit with family.
There was one time I can't blame him for... the letter. I found it outside of the apartment and it was signed doug... later found out it wasn't Doug Morey but some other guy looking for the child abuser next door to our apartment. Doug Morey's hand writing is much more eloquent and precise for that letter to belong to him. That one was unfortunately on me.
moving further down the road by a month or so we were back in a routine of the grind, get up and go to work... I wasn't exactly happy but I wasn't upset either. I was complacent. I lost my job and that was the catalyst for many things. I came down to Kingston that night and my friends surrounded me with love and booze. I felt loved and cared for. It was an amazing feeling and I realized that I had missed it because that level of interaction had gone out of my relationship. I didn't realize it had gone until it was. I spent the next few days at Andy's sorting myself out. figuring out what to do... and that was when Andy told me about a job. I started to apply everywhere but he told me to send my resume. I talked to Kolby and all the while he told me that moving somewhere else would and could solve all of our problems that we had, the lack of communication, the lack of feeling and empathy but all I felt was that it would just move them to a new location. I wasn't sure what or how I was going to figure this all out but I knew that I wanted to. Andy called me to come down and interview and I got the job. I knew then how I was going to do everything and I knew that this was the end for Kolby and I. I couldn't do it anymore and I told him as such . I told him I couldn't keep this up and that we either needed to go to counselling or be done. He didn't want to go to counselling but wanted to sort things out "his way" I talked to our friends but they didn't understand. They wanted me to stick it out and to try, not knowing that I had been trying all along. I packed, and left him the separation agreement on his desk. He was mad and then upset... he didn't want this to be it, he wanted me to try... and all I could do was cry. I sobbed on the phone to my friends and to some family members but I couldn't do it. I felt like I was starting to lose parts of myself again, parts that were vital. I had given them up before so willingly but this time I refused. This was what I hung onto when I left him, I hung onto me.
I moved and lived with Andy and things changed... Doug became more than a friend, more than that guy who professed how he felt at a party, he became a best friend and partner.
Now, the TLDR version of this is that I don't regret my marriage, I regret what happened to us as people. We got married, it didn't work but I needed to be this person and I think he needed to be the person he has become. We grew in different directions. Not a day goes by that I don't think of the luge season or our silly road trips and laugh, but that is all it is.
I am ready for this new life, for the new marriage and for the lifetime I have with doug (if I am so lucky) but I felt this was stuck in my chest. It's out now world...
Thank you for reading if you made it this far. :D
my life sort of turned topsy turvy for awhile and then the most miraculous thing happened.
My life sorted itself out and I ended up here, with a happy life, a great partner and children.
I am not sure how that happened but it did and I have been sitting here contemplating my life and how I got here. There are certain things I feel like I need to say but haven't had the time.
The topic "what happened with my marriage" I avoided, the thing I didn't want to talk about because I didn't want to defame anyone or shed doubt on the person I was married to. Now let's be clear, that isn't what I am intending to do here. My hope is to explain myself to myself. I doubt anyone reads this any more but it is more of an exercise for me, so if there is still someone out there who reads this then this should be quite illuminating.
Alright here goes,
My marriage
It started out like everyone else's does. A boy thinks he loves a girl and asks her to be his... it's all so cliche as he asked me in a big arena which is really what he would do when you think about it. He is the type of person who likes to make a big show of his affections and there is nothing wrong with that, accept it wasn't right for me. I didn't know it at the time, but I am the type of person who prefers a small gesture over the grandiose big gesture. The boy loved me, or at least he thought he did, but what we had, changed and grew and morphed into something that neither of us knew anymore.
After the wedding we went on a glorious honeymoon. It was wonderful. Hell I still look at those pictures and smile over the love I felt, the excitement and the fun we had. We had a great time and I felt like we were a partnership, we had fun and we were learning about each other. It was exciting and fun to be with my new husband. It was when we got home that things changed. They were minor differences, little changes. It started with joking, saying things were "women's work" or a "pink job". It was little pieces that were stripped bare that made me wonder where these things were coming from, but then I just presumed he was joking or that he was working through some stuff. We went to a party, the first one since we had gotten married and that was were I noticed pivotal change. We showed up and immediately he drank, hell he drank to excess which wasn't unusual, we had done that before, but it was how he acted this time that had changed. He started to do things and say things that I felt were wrong, not like right or wrong, just off. He eventually passed out on the couch and the party kept going. Admittedly that was the night that a friend of mine told me that he really cared for me and missed me and also tried to kiss me, I told him that I was married and flashed the ring, told him it wasn't going to happen and then took steps to make sure I wasn't going to be alone with him. I mean I had just pledged my life and my love to my husband in a very large ceremony. I was going to be faithful to my husband because that is what I believe.
That weekend was the start of many other weekends where he said or did little things. See it wasn't just one single thing, it was a multitude of little things that did it.
I tried for months, meanwhile still in school, still working, still trying to take care of things and he had difficulty. He was going through stuff. I am not about to make that public on this forum but what I can say is that what happened to him was bad. It was hard and difficult to deal with and he was well within his right to be laid up about it. But the difficulty was he adopted this role and didn't want to try to better himself. I being the supportive spouse that I tried but ultimately failed to be was that I was trying to get him to talk to someone, anyone about what had gone on. I was pushy, I was "a fucking demon", I was nothing and I was doing all of this to him. I wasn't supportive I was arrogant of what was going on with him. The difficulty we were having is through all of this time, he wasn't working. His benefits had finished and he had decided not to go back to his place of employment. That made sense but not moving forward and not working meant that we had minimal money coming in. His family helped, god they helped so much. I will not discredit the help we received from his parents, they were there in our time of need, but I feel a lot of that was taken for granted. I remember a conversation that we had just 8 months after we were married where I had asked my loving husband to help me, we were having difficulty. I had budgeted as well as I could but our savings that our families and friends had generously given us as a wedding present was gone. I did the best I could to budget I really did and I got us that far but we were out of money and I was afraid of losing the roof over our heads or even paying for the books I needed for my education. I asked him to try to get a job, a job, any job like serving coffee at Tim Horton's, just anything. What he said to me was that getting a job outside of his field was beneath him. I was flabbergasted. I grew up with the idiom that there are no small parts, only small actors and I apply that to the work force. I have worked retail to make ends meet, hell I have slung coffee, worked in various fields to make money and I didn't understand that perspective. I had never met someone with that perspective before. Looking back I see that it isn't his fault. He has been very lucky with who he knows to line up the jobs that he has wanted. Moving out of an area he knew presented new challenges, but I had never heard that before.
Finally he got a job, something in his field. I was relieved but the tension or as my cousin kala likes to say, the "seeds of doubt had been sown". We were getting back on our feet when all of a sudden an opportunity presented itself. I had been accepted to a conference. As an undergraduate it was a huge achievement, hell it was monumental. It makes the top 5 of things I have accomplished but shortly after I received my acceptance I sat down with my husband and he told me that we just couldn't swing the 150$ for me to go. I was devastated and angry. I had spent so much time and energy working to keep us afloat that I was going to miss out on this experience because we weren't there yet. I was upset because this opportunity was a once in a lifetime thing and I was angry because it was not okay for me to go but it was okay for him to spend our money on frivolous expenditures. I know that was the wrong way to look at it but at the time that was how I felt. I didn't say anything, I bottled that up and that was also the wrong thing because all it did was add more seeds of doubt in the ground. I talked to a friend, one that I was close with and that friend gave me the money and told me I shouldn't miss out on this and that I had better message about all the amazing things I was going to see and do at the conference. I was elated... I could go and experience all the things!!! Here is where the guilt came in, I felt like I was doing it underhandedly. The person who gave me the money was the friend who had told me he cared and had feelings for me but told me flat out that this was a gesture for me and not because of the feelings he had. He said he didn't care if he saw the money come back to him because if he "needed the money back then clearly he shouldn't have leant it in the first place" or something like that. I rushed home to tell my husband and he was not elated for me but angry. How could I do this? How could I go behind his back like this? I should give the money back and not go to the conference and all the while I was thinking of how crushing all of this was. I was not intending to hurt my husband in this way. I thought he would be excited that I would get to go and get to have the experience of meeting all the people I had just spent 4 years studying but he was hurt too.
The conference came and went and I had an amazing time. All the while talking to my husband and posting to my friends (not just one in particular) about my amazing trip... I even did it cheaply and said with an old friend named Jon Degeer whom I still can't thank enough for the amazing visit. It was wonderful. I didn't have a whole lot of money at the time and it was amazing that he took me in for that. I loved being in Montreal and he really showed me the love for that city, but that is so far left field from where I am headed. More and more was being chipped away from my relationship with my husband. I was working a lot on my Thesis and trying to finish up and get things done and he was feeling like I was neglecting him. I was trying to get my work done and get it submitted and all the while meeting with my professor, writing 12-15 pages a night... talking to a few friends who were editing and transcribing for me because my husband had promised he would help me but he found it to be too much for him so I had to outsource. These people I am entirely indebted to and they know who they are... but talking to those people as much as I did, planted seeds of doubt for my husband. With all the planting we had done we may as well have gone into farming in retrospect. I felt attached to these people because they had done so much for me and I felt like I couldn't just drop them because he said he wanted me to, but more to the point that they were still helping me get through it and in all honesty I doubt I would have made it through the transcription without their help. I finished my paper and submitted but there was an ire I hadn't seen before. It was directed at me and no matter what I did to shake it or to spend time with my husband it was constant. He was angry with me.
We liked to visit and liked to party with our friends and always put on a brave face for them and acted like the well rounded couple, but when we got into closed quarters the interrogation would begin. Why did you say this? what did you mean about that? You know that was a really shitty thing to say don't you ? It wasn't just all him, I was just as guilty in some of these arguments but it's not about blame, it's about saying what happened. I remember a couple of moments where I just wanted to get away from him. My lovely husband because he was being so cruel. It was in these moments I wondered what the hell had happened to him and what the hell had happened to me. They were not pretty moments but just small moments to add to the camels back. We carried forward. I talked to some of my friends about these issues and I just told them that I was working on my marriage, I was working on it. But one friend asked me what he was doing to work on it... that got me thinking what was he doing to improve upon things?
Things really came to a head the weekend of my big swim. See throughout all of this I was training to do a charity swim in memory of my grandparents. They had both passed (my grandmother that year on my husband's birthday no less) and I wanted to honour them but swimming to raise money for the alzheimer's society. I had done publicity and I had gone out and raised money, nearly $1700. I had trained and trained and trained all year for it and when it had come to the time we were heading north to do it I was pumped. We were going to stay at the island (my favourite childhood place) for the weekend and we were looking forward to the quiet. Well when we were on our way I found out that my uncle randy and my cousin Caitlyn had gone up to the island... no big deal. Not the end of the world... we show up and my husband is pissed. He is mad because it was our time up there and that they shouldn't have gone up. What he doesn't realize was that us staying up there was a gift from my family, as I am not a brown and am not entitled to weekend, every weekend I get up there is because my family is generous and I am fortunate... I am not entitled to a weekend up there and when I pointed that out, that only made him madder. Uncle randy came down and was prepared to take Caitlyn with him but I was okay with having family up there and said that we would keep her so she could still enjoy the island. Uncle Randy's ankle was starting to swell so he headed home. We woke up early the next morning and set out for the swim. I had told my husband that night that I didn't want him to swim because I wasn't sure why he was doing it, he hadn't trained for it and really had no interest up until that point. I asked him why do you want to do it? he said to see if he could. I told him that my reason was in memory of my grand parents and that they were my reason and anything else was prideful. He just shrugged me off and said he was doing it. I didn't want to be mean or anything untoward, it had already been a rough car ride and now a rough evening so I just left it. So we get down to do the swim and we are in the thick of it and I have already figured out I have set a faster pace than he can keep up with. I trained for months to be able to complete the swim in around the 2 1/2 hour mark. I was told I had to stop to wait for him to catch up which meant treading water for 15-20 minutes. I wasn't mad at him, I was mad that we didn't have another boat at the time. I waited until I was told it was safe and I carried on. I completed the swim in 3 hours and felt so proud of myself. I did it, 7kms in 3 hours. Not bad! We got back to the island and he was irritable. We were hungry so we got food going but he just continued to be irritable and hide in the cottage. I stayed out to entertain our guests and family but he was angry that I wasn't just hanging out with him in the cottage. I came to check on him and he decided to sleep. but before he went to sleep he showed me an injury he had sustained. it was a small little chaffing mark and so he slept and I hung out with the crowd. They made fun of me for my awful sunburn but all in all it was a pretty amazing day. The day rolled into the night and then morning came. We woke up and I started to make breakfast. I had asked kolby to get plates and all the things for us to have breakfast and he begrudgingly went to get them. He came out with 2 plates and no cutlery, I asked him to get more plates for the rest of our guests and I felt like I was once again forcing him to do something he didn't want to do because he made it quite apparent to everyone else it was a huge issue. I didn't say anything, we cleaned up the island, packed the boat and brought everything down. To this day my sister says this was the day that tipped her off to things not being right with us as he left me to unload the boat and pack the car to get everything ready to head back to Peterborough. I didn't say a word and hugged and kissed my parents and left.
There were more little incidents between the swim and of course the next one being the accident but they seem to pale in comparison. We continued to work on things but I was feeling my energy drain and felt even more distant from friends and family. This somehow felt familiar and yet foreign. That Christmas wasn't too bad... Christmas seemed to be difficult for us in that his family felt issue with the fact that we were always with my family Christmas Eve. But over all it was a nice Christmas with his family. I had to work boxing day and then we went up for the boos family Christmas. The intent was to leave him there to spend time with family while I went back to work. I didn't mind it and was taking the alone time to work on me. I headed home and the accident happened. I called his parents place and got his dad. Thank god I got his dad. He was always a calming influence on me. I told him what happened and told him to come get me through sobs. They were on their way. I called my parents and told them what had happened.. They were worried but glad I was okay. Kolby, his dad and sister showed up and were there to help me. The care I received after that accident was amazing. I felt the love from that family in which I had always felt like I had encroached upon private space, I felt like I belonged. I was in bad shape, my back and neck and shoulder were a mess. I had a hard time moving. Things were very difficult but as Nancy had said, I was lucky to be alive. I felt that, I truly did. I felt like I had been given a second chance at things. I went home to Peterborough after a little while. I was a nervous wreck but we took our time getting there, Kolby's dad drove the big truck and I felt much more safe and at ease. I got set up in the living room with food and all the amenities and Kolby seemed like he was the man I had married again, not the man who was angry with me, or the man who looked down on me. The man I loved. He went to work and I was left alone for 12 hours. admittedly I slept a lot of that but the difficult times were the times I had to get out of bed or the times I needed to get to the washroom. When Kolby came home that day I was happy to see him but he just seemed tired and almost looked at me with tired eyes like I was another thing to take care of. I didn't want that, I wanted him to just be there to snuggle me... but I knew then that it wasn't going to work like that. I had to go home to see my doctor and he made the decision to refer me to treatment centres in Bancroft to oversee my care. This is where the divide widened. My husband couldn't understand why I would agree with the doctors. He wanted me to have my treatment in Peterborough. I explained to him that it would be difficult with the frequency of appointments I needed to get me there all the time with his work schedule. He told me I could just take the bus and that would be fine, but it wasn't I was exhausted from walking down the hall, I hurt trying to get out of bed, much less walking the distance to the bus stop and riding the bus to wherever they were going to send me. So I was in Bancroft for weeks at a time. My father took me to the majority of my appointments and I got the help I needed. It was hard and that was where Kolby and I stopped talking as much. He didn't have anything to say to me anymore. He ran out of things to talk about or the notion of caring or something and I didn't know what to do any more. I wanted to make it work I didn't want my marriage to end, I had committed to him, to a life together.
Things came to their ultimate conclusion after my birthday. Kolby planned an amazing birthday for me, he did. But I was starting to spend more time with friends because he wasn't talking to me as much anymore and I wanted to talk, I wanted to share what I was thinking. I didn't want to be isolated like I was in my past relationship, I wanted to keep the me mojo going. We went away, we had a good time and we had planned it so much actual birthday would be just him and I relaxing and doing whatever we wanted. I asked him to go out with me to get running shoes and to head to chapters. He snapped at me and told me to pick a fucking day for my birthday as I had just had a weekend of celebrations. I was extremely hurt and that day I remember vividly because that was the day that he flipped the switch. I don't know how it happened I just know that after that point I knew that we couldn't fix things. We were broken and I knew it. I also knew that with that one phrase, there were a multitude of people I wanted to spend time with more than him.
through this he started to call all my friends stalkers. It got so bad that I admit to lying to him about who I was talking to a few times. He would get nasty about any conversation I had with friends, he even went through my computer. There was nothing to find because there was nothing to be concerned about and yet, he did it anyway. I knew the trust was gone then. He didn't trust me around anyone and got to the point where he didn't like it when I went home to visit with family.
There was one time I can't blame him for... the letter. I found it outside of the apartment and it was signed doug... later found out it wasn't Doug Morey but some other guy looking for the child abuser next door to our apartment. Doug Morey's hand writing is much more eloquent and precise for that letter to belong to him. That one was unfortunately on me.
moving further down the road by a month or so we were back in a routine of the grind, get up and go to work... I wasn't exactly happy but I wasn't upset either. I was complacent. I lost my job and that was the catalyst for many things. I came down to Kingston that night and my friends surrounded me with love and booze. I felt loved and cared for. It was an amazing feeling and I realized that I had missed it because that level of interaction had gone out of my relationship. I didn't realize it had gone until it was. I spent the next few days at Andy's sorting myself out. figuring out what to do... and that was when Andy told me about a job. I started to apply everywhere but he told me to send my resume. I talked to Kolby and all the while he told me that moving somewhere else would and could solve all of our problems that we had, the lack of communication, the lack of feeling and empathy but all I felt was that it would just move them to a new location. I wasn't sure what or how I was going to figure this all out but I knew that I wanted to. Andy called me to come down and interview and I got the job. I knew then how I was going to do everything and I knew that this was the end for Kolby and I. I couldn't do it anymore and I told him as such . I told him I couldn't keep this up and that we either needed to go to counselling or be done. He didn't want to go to counselling but wanted to sort things out "his way" I talked to our friends but they didn't understand. They wanted me to stick it out and to try, not knowing that I had been trying all along. I packed, and left him the separation agreement on his desk. He was mad and then upset... he didn't want this to be it, he wanted me to try... and all I could do was cry. I sobbed on the phone to my friends and to some family members but I couldn't do it. I felt like I was starting to lose parts of myself again, parts that were vital. I had given them up before so willingly but this time I refused. This was what I hung onto when I left him, I hung onto me.
I moved and lived with Andy and things changed... Doug became more than a friend, more than that guy who professed how he felt at a party, he became a best friend and partner.
Now, the TLDR version of this is that I don't regret my marriage, I regret what happened to us as people. We got married, it didn't work but I needed to be this person and I think he needed to be the person he has become. We grew in different directions. Not a day goes by that I don't think of the luge season or our silly road trips and laugh, but that is all it is.
I am ready for this new life, for the new marriage and for the lifetime I have with doug (if I am so lucky) but I felt this was stuck in my chest. It's out now world...
Thank you for reading if you made it this far. :D
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