F*ck Marriage(37)
“What the fuck, Billie?” He closes the door behind him and I steel myself for a fight.
I knew Woods wouldn’t like what I had to say, but the truth is the truth, after all. If he didn’t want me to write about it, he shouldn’t have done it. Simple as that.
I sigh. “What the fuck indeed.”
“That’s our personal story. How could you air our dirty laundry like that?” He jabs a finger at the computer and then levels a particularly nasty look at me.
I can see the vein popping out on the side of his forehead. I am familiar with that vein. It used to show up when we had a bad fight.
“No, Woods, our personal story ceased to exist after you walked out of our marriage. Then it became my story. My post-divorce story. And it’s mine to tell.” I sit as still as I can, hands propped on the armrests of my chair. I don’t want to give him any tells that he’s frazzling me. Like his vein.
“Holy shit, Billie…”
“If you don’t want your dirty laundry aired, live a life you’re not embarrassed of,” I say, standing up. I walk over to the door and hold it open for him. “Now, if you please. I have a lot of work to do.”
He looks furious as he heads for the door, his eyes drilling into me like he has much more to say.
“Woods…” I call after him and he stops but doesn’t turn around. “Read it again. And read it like Pearl isn’t pissed and breathing down your neck.” I shut the door before he can respond.
The post goes viral on Facebook, and Rhubarb’s following doubles overnight. Pearl takes a sick day, and Satcher gives me a raise. Every time I leave my office, Team Pearl glares at me and Team Billie gives me high fives. Life is weird.
F*ck Marriage
I have to tell you something real. I’ve told you things that aren’t real; in fact, I’ve told you blatant lies: that a certain brand of yoga pants can change your life, that the perfect recipe can make your man happy, that if you use the right moisturizer (at $94 a bottle) you’ll always feel beautiful and young. I’ve written blogs about the necessity of Kegels (you’ll be a sexual goddess if you follow these five rules!), and I’ve told you in no uncertain terms about the power of positive thinking (if you want to be successful, already believe you are!).
You counted on me, and I delivered snake oil; a topical salve for a deep wound. Forgive me.
My husband left me for another woman. Here’s the thing: I thought it could never happen. I thought that we had a bond and our commitment was impenetrable. That somehow the vows we took were a magic spell that would ward off reality. Imagine my surprise when I realized that the yoga pants failed me, and the perfect beef tenderloin with the red wine glaze couldn’t save my marriage. Even my dewy, youthful skin (at $94 dollars a bottle) couldn’t keep his eyes glued to only my face.
The distance between us took a while, and it would be unfair to rest the burden of our failure solely on him. I was too busy to notice the things I was stacking between us: my success, my business, my exhaustion, my excuses. Every once in a while I’d notice it, that the little things weren’t making me smile. Or that his presence made me feel guilty and annoyed rather than blissful. I used my new feelings about him and myself as a wall; it was a wall of subconscious guilt. He’d walk into a room and I’d think: What do you want from me now? Why can’t you just figure this out on your own? Why do you keep giving me wounded looks?
He’s a piece of shit for doing what he did. I’m not making excuses for him. But I refuse to see the downfall of my marriage through a lens of narcissism. They say that love is a battlefield, but I wasn’t a warrior. I was a soft romantic; my armor was a firm ass and a full face of makeup. Silly armor for a silly girl. The war for love is fought by saying: You’re the one I want, you’re the one I need, you’re the one I’ll fight to keep.
Neither of us fought.
When you’re cheated on, you build a house around yourself. You build it strong. The walls are made of Never Again. The bricks—all the things you did right, the mortar—your anger. Divorce makes you live in a tall house because you put more effort into your grieving than you ever put into your marriage. That’s what we do as humans, we grieve harder than we ever tried and we build a magnificent fortress of hurt and self-righteous indignation. In front of this fortress is a garden where you grow your shortcomings. It’s a magnificent garden because that’s where you put all of your effort now. A garden of well-tended self-abuse. You water the shit out of your garden and it grows and grows. I grew a variety of things in my garden: bitterness, self-hate, numbness, self-pity, resentment, and defeat. I tended that garden with such detail, trimming and nurturing my personal hell until I couldn’t find my way out. And let me tell you, it’s a full-time job to hate yourself that much. Because once you start growing the vine of bitterness, it chokes anything healthy that begins to sprout.
I lost two years of my life in that garden. I grew it to a jungle. And somewhere in the middle of my personal jungle, I grew dehydrated. I was watering the wrong things, dying slowly. No one was coming to save me, no one knew how. And that’s when I realized that if I didn’t save myself, I’d not just waste two years of my life, but the whole thing. I burned it down: the house, the garden, the walls—and I came back to New York. I came back to my old job, I came back to face what made me run. I’m here; I’m different, but I’m here. And I’m here to tell you what I learned: fuck love, fuck marriage, fuck divorce, fuck walls, fuck anything that takes our ability to survive and to survive well. We will rise, and we will build a new house, not a fortress, but a house full of natural light, surrounded by a garden of forgiveness and self-love.