Life is not a Straight Line

Even when you want it to be...

If there is one quality I’d argue I’m known for among my friends aside from being a frequently (and often unnecessarily) blunt asshole it’s my almost ludicrous optimism.

That optimism is substantially diminished just lately and I’m struggling to get it back.

Some quick background—I married my first wife out of college. We divorced in 1998 for all the reasons couples tend to dissolve the bond but more specifically because she hated Chicago, we had grown apart, I had jumped from public school teaching to start a theater company, and the very things she wanted in life like a house and a yard were not really in the cards with me.

It was amicable and agreeable until she began attending a divorced women's circle jerk and I somehow became an enemy rather than an ex.

I married my second wife after working with her in the theater, she the Artistic Director, I the Executive. It was more a marriage of that theatrical work and when I decided to jump ship from the theater and begin a new job as a public radio events guy, she likewise jumped into the bed of a mutual friend. A year later, the writing so clearly on the wall, a sad and bitter divorce.

The story of my third wife has become somewhat of a fun, loving fairy tale. Like jumping out of a plane for the third time having the chutes not open twice before.

We met at a storytelling night. She was backstage, managing things. I was backstage doing what I do best - talking nonstop. It turned out that we had been in the same room half a dozen times in the last few years and never met. “Will you shut the fuck up?” she said and I looked at her for the first time and was completely smitten.

Our first date was lunch at the Haymarket. We ate, drank and talked and then, as she was leaving, we kissed.

A week passed. Texts. Emails. Poetry. The second date, we casually admit in the middle of an art gallery that we love each other.

Our third date, in a conversation about family, and life, marriage, and engagement in general, this happened:

"I've been thinking about what it would be like to be married."

"Yeah...even though I swore I'd never do it again, I have too. You think you'd want to be married to someone like me?"

"You'd have to ask me."

"Will you marry me?"

"Yes."

I felt the jumpsuit go on over my clothes and I zipped up the front. I stared at the parachute harness in disbelief. What is this again?

A week later, in spite of a twelve-hour trip to Kansas in my Prius as I tried to talk myself out of this improbable THING, my mother gave me an antique sapphire ring—a one of a kind family heirloom—without even meeting her. “I don’t know how I know but this is her ring,” she said.

Four months later, after she had met my family and I had met hers, we walked from the taxi through the TSA check-in and toward the gate. Seeing the plane was real but the idea of what was to come was abstract. I felt that spit drying in my mouth and I knew that soon I would be squatting in front of that open door. One. Two. Three. JUMP.

We flew to Vegas in September with two of our best friends and got hitched at the Chapel of the Bells which was flanked by an all night liquor store and a gun shop. It was perfect. "We’re both pretty good at bad relationships,” I told her. “Why not try a good relationship for a change.”

She was the manic pixie dream girl. Beautiful, a poet, a rock drummer. She worked as a model, had done some pornographic stills in her past, was smart as a laser. She was funny and energetic, always up for something wild and unusual. I was, well, me. Filled to the brim with the arrogance of a semi-successful white guy in his late forties. Fourteen years older. I never understood why she choose me for her first husband but I offered little resistance and jumped like a man without a care in the world.

For five years we were that couple. The one you hope your marriage lives up to. It was a healthy marriage. We celebrated our wedding anniversary every month. We called it "Month-a-versary" and it included a date night and the time to answer the question "How's Married Life?" Every month we did a marriage diagnostic to see where the other saw flaws or issues in need of addressing.

I loved everything about this woman. It was as if my failures in previous relationships had been answered by that third time charm. My family loved her. Her family loved me. My friends loved her. It was a brightly colored, glittery freaking lovefest.

Ah. Finally. A true death do us part scenario.

When things go sour, we apes who can read feel a desperate need for it all to make sense. We look through the rubble of things said and done and try to piece together the inevitability of the demise.

That time when we had a fight about her going out at all hours and hanging out with random guys she met in a bar. She felt I was being controlling like her ex. I explained that all I needed was to know her location so if she was hurt or abducted I knew where to start looking.

When she took a job for $500.00 to have her head shaved while showering nude with another woman. I found out after the fact. Apparently, there's a video.

At the housewarming party when my assistant from NPR came out of the bathroom pale as a heet. "Is that a picture of your wife having anal sex?" "No, she's the one pissing in the martini glass." And I laughed.

A few months after we were married she told me that she hadn't really broken up with her abusive ex and had been with less than three weeks before meeting me. The first time he heard that she was no longer hooking up with him was when he heard she was married.

The night in Vegas when I came home from work and found her in a hot pink mini-dress entertaining two strange men on the back porch. I introduced myself and looks on these guy's faces said this was not the threesome they were anticipating. When I asked her how she met them, she told me they tried to sell her cocaine in a gas station parking lot. She didn't want the coke but invited them over for drinks.

The request that she be able to use our apartment to get paid to tie up a naked man and leave him in the room for a few hours. I said no chance.

The modeling gig were she was paid to be tied up for a series of fetish videos. She had a fake name and online fans. I thought they were hysterical.

I hold no judgment for her doing these things. She never hid them or lied about them. This was the woman I married after proposing three dates in. "We're married now," I said. "Now we can get to know each other."

I don't find fault in her choices. She was a free spirit with a fascination with kinky sex and was always honest about it. I do however blame the dumbest motherfucker on Planet Dipshit for not seeing any of these slices of marital harmony as red flags in terms of sustainably staying in an agreed upon monogamous marriage.

For five years, things seemed solid. Sure, the occasional what the fuck are you thinking? moment but the bliss was wedded.

With a series of simple choices the fairy tale became a tragedy that could only happen in Las Vegas.

If you’ve read this far looking for salacious details, I’m sorry to disappoint. I’m still trying to process the entire experience. We are officially divorced in the span of time it would take to visit Lake Tahoe for an overnight trip. The reality of my past seven and a half years is twisted into a fundamental question about my own delusions and apparently abysmal powers of observation.

According to her, she was never really “in love” with me and knew there was no spark for her even on the second date. She decided to marry me because she needed out of a pattern of relationships with broken men who were emotionally and physically abusive. I had a job, took daily showers, and wasn’t an alcoholic or junkie—such was the high bar for her back in 2014. I adored her from the moment I laid eyes and what could be more seductive in her state than a grown man head over heels for her?

She tried but that level of deception is hard for anyone. By the time the siren song of Las Vegas hit her, the subterfuge of pretending to be the wife she thought I deserved and the life she felt called to pursue collided. So choices were made. Actions were taken. Lies were sustained and infidelities multiplied.

“Doesn’t it feel good to no longer be hiding?” she glibly asked.

“How the fuck would I know?” I answered.

Her relief is so obvious that, combined with the fact that she checked out almost two and half years ago, she seems downright thrilled to be set free. Me? It’s been about a month since my world was set on fire, so maybe I’ll need a bit more time.

She hasn’t asked for forgiveness but I’m trying it anyway. Forgiveness isn’t for her, it’s for me. I can’t succumb to the easy bitterness of a scorned husband. I have to hold on to that optimism or I’m just a frequently (and often unnecessarily) blunt asshole.