I've heard so many times that having a baby can bring you together. In the beginning that is very true. Maria and I both dug in deep. A bond was formed through lack of sleep, the smell of desitin, and constant worry. That bond couldn't hide some of our underlying issues.
We were from different backgrounds. Different trains of thought. And while we both loved eachother very much we never healed our own personal wounds prior to Tommy comming along. Maria and I never lived together prior to getting married, and when we did move in together I was never around much due to millitary life. I spent every third night away from home and was deployed for 6 month stretches. To this day I don't know how she did it. I still have so much guilt in my heart about her dropping everything to follow me hundreds of miles away from her family. While I was miserable when I left to go on deployment, I still had this motley crew of sailors around me. Maria was in a new state with no family around on her own. Alone. I know many people would and have said "It's a choice to follow your spouse, don't feel guilty." Maybe guilt isn't the correct word. I acknowledge the sacrifice Maria made to put her dreams on hold to follow me. I acknowledge the sense of lonliness she must have felt as I left. And I admire and respect the courage it must have taken to endure that.
Our move back home to Texas should have meant we now had a chance to rediscover our love for eachother. For me, I was a changed man. I now had a sense of purpose and drive. I looked to Maria to be that motivated rock upon which I leaned and pushed off of. Maria however wanted to start a family. SHe became closer to her mother and wanted to start her own large family. I was consumed with sucess. I found that our goals for our immediate future didn't quite line up. The distance grew.
I've heard the term"fighting fair." in the past, but never realy knew what that meant until later. Neither Maria nor I fought very fair. We went for the jugular. The soft spot. We knew how to hurt eachother. When we fought we sometimes didn't talk for days. It was unhealthy. I started avoiding home. I took Tommy to work with me during the day, Got off around 2pm and then waited for Maria to be home by 5:30. I handed Tommy off and went back to work. I finally walked in around 9:30. I ate and went directly into "dad mode." We never talked In hindsight I was becoming a better father everyday while I was failing as a husband. As the months pressed on I realized all we were doing was fighting. I think on many levels we avoided eachother. One week after a 3 day stint of not talking, I sent her an email. "We need to talk."
That talk led us down a very dark path. I didn't want to do this anymore. Maria wasn't in love with me anymore. We both felt short changed in the relationship. I didn't follow through on my promises to her. I didn't live up to my end of the bargain. Maria just simply wasn't at my level anymore. Or so I thought. I had become very competitive in my job and somehow I felt I wanted someone as driven as I was. Sadly, we both used Tommy as a bargaining chip as well as an instrument with which to hurt the other.
It was at this point where I wish someone would have stopped me. Told me to go home. Told me once you set this ball in motion there is no turning back. I'm not saying that we would be together right now, but I bet we could have sidestepped the storm we were both heading into.
People get divorced for a million different reasons these days. Most never should have gotten married in the first place. We base our attraction on the physical never on the mental. She's beautiful. He's hot. She can cook. He's rich. But as time passes you realize that looks fade,recipes change, and you can always make more money. So what are you left with? Eachother. Can you.....or should I say ,do you want to sit on a couch next to this person for the rest of your life? If you do, you better realize that means enduring life, and all it's changes together. Making a commitment to having eachothers back from this day forward. It means that if I lose my hair and you never lose your pregancy weight our hearts won't stray. It means if I can't afford to buy a new car and you never learn how to not burn toast , we don't look to see if the grass is greener. It means building eachother up.
I failed miserably at this. Back to that whole"I want" thing. When we separated I realized what I wanted most was what I had already gotten. I had married my best friend. We had a beautiful baby. I didn't need anything else. But I continued to want.
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