It Just Happens…..

So, it’s been a little over a year since my marriage ended. To this day I have been at a total loss of why it did. I have had all the conversations that say, ” it doesn’t matter why, it just happened.” Yes, it just happens, but why to me? I have been a it just happens person from the time I was a teenager. I am tired of it just happens. It just happens has made me bald, alone, sad, and almost suicidal.

Maybe I am being somewhat narcissistic, but I just don’t see it just happens to my friends or others all the time. In fact, I have one friend who it seems, shits out lucky breaks more than actual shit. Am I bitter? Yes!!

I grew up in church, the youngest of my family. I had the advantage of my parents being middle class and comfortable after 10 years of struggles put behind them whereas the siblings had made the tough journey with them. I never wanted for stuff, but I never begged for it either. I helped them both around the house and also the neighbors and relatives. I made moral choices, where other kids didn’t. I didn’t throw caution to the wind. This eventually led to my 1st “failed” marriage. I got her pregnant and I did the right thing by marrying her. I was actually happy. I loved her and my daughter. I did all I could for them. I left friends and family behind. I gave up habits and hobbies she hated. I lived with the berating insults and quietly accepted the demands. I excused the infidelities and gracefully walked away when she asked…. It didn’t matter why, it just happened..

I went on to other life gutting relationships allowing more destruction of the person I thought I was.. It didn’t matter why, it just happened. Then I met her. She came with no strings, wanting to live life and apparently with me. We never had harsh words or even dreaded each other’s company. We took the insults and comments people threw at us with stride, nothing would keep us apart. We moved on and away, bought a home, made a family, all the while never allowing strife in. Together we moved in with my mother, who was losing her mind to dementia and cared for her through the battle, never fighting each other. I always show her my appreciation for being there, although I had siblings that should have. My wife was there when I lost my daughter from my first marriage, lost my Father, and lost my Mother.

Then…. In the matter of hours last January, she went from loving wife to stranger. I left for work hugging and kissing a woman I knew for 20 years, my support, my rock and came home 8 hours later to a stranger. For a week I cried, begged, and pleaded to save us without ever being told what went wrong. I left to giver her the “space” she needed and she immediately move a man in and proceeded to erase me from her life. My (our) pictures together, memories of my childhood my Mother gave her, and any reference of me in the home. I was literally replaced like Darrens on Bewitched and no one seemed to care. Not friends. Not family. No one.  IT DIDN’T MATTER WHY, IT JUST HAPPENED.