There are things that I would love to talk about, but talking about stuff is what got my marriage in trouble in the first place. I'm TW, and I've just reconciled a marriage.
Its weird being on the cliff, as all the people watched me, and then deciding to turn around do something else. It seems heroic, or motivational at the time, but no one tells you about all the stares you are going to get from it. That's my story.
I had been in the Navy for a couple of years when I met my fiance LL. We were like any couple, we hit things off, we went well together, and our pregnancy only brought us closer. The thing about the situation is, that when the Navy tells you that you are part of the Navy Family, they really think that you are a family. However, the Navy had been running with the idea for years that they would be more a of business. Big Navy is what they would call themselves. If we've learned anything over the last the last few years, Cooperations aren't really people.
My wife is Russian, and as you can guess, it made heads turn a bit. I was told constantly that she was only looking for a green card, that she was a mail order bride, and other things. I took everything as a joke, as being in the service, I am use to my friends making jokes. Though over time, I started to sense that they really meant the things that they were joking about.
LL wasn't having much of a better time herself. With many of her friends moving around the country and having a new baby, she started to feel the pressure of being isolated. No fault of her own, or mine for that matter. I was in the military, so I was gone often. However, LL began to find friends of her own, and she too learned the hard way, "Watch out who you let in your marriage." The more friends she made, the more they began to tell her that her life was like an indentured servant, whose only purpose to raise our one child who was dealing with medical complication. None of her friends had kids, so they didn't understand the needs that came from both parents. The friends who were married, were very judgmental, as they were dual-income families, and we only brought home one check.
We weren't poor, but anyone could tell that the pregnancy took us by surprise, and we were building a life at step one.
The Navy was on the look out for complications. The story of young Sailors and bad "Trial Marriages" as they called it called it, were common place. So not knowing much better, when my supervisors asked about it, I told them about my concerns.
I really thought, these people are older and wiser, they would know how to help me save my marriage. That wasn't the case at all. Most instances, the people were quick to tell me to pitch and run. It was never anything that I was considering to do, as I had a son, and I knew what it was like to be raised in a single-parent environment.
LL had found friends that were a little less judgmental, but that sacrifice came with its own problems. They would constantly ask her to come out and party. Of course I didn't mind staying at home with our child after work, because I felt bad about my wife being cramped in the house all day. Though this slowly became a routine. We had too very separate lives. I hated her friends, and she hated mine. We both knew that our friends weren't happy about marriage, despite how happy we were. For some reason we let them stay around, because over the years, they were the only friends we knew.
In the end, it blew up in a chain reaction. First her friends insulted our brand new townhouse we had bought. Many of these friends with little places to stay of their own. LL started to get mad that our lives weren't better, and moving into the suburbs seemed cramp her friends ability to take her out for parties all night. My friends who had concluded that I was married to a party girl as well just told me that I should ditch her and come out to find a better suited wife on my own.
In the end, we went our separate ways. Took a lose on our house, thus started our terrible divorce. There really wasn't much to say about me, but in California the court favors the mother, and with a husband in the military, its nearly impossible to win custody. To trump up the case, LL's friends told her things she should say about me, which always put me on the defense in the court room. It was a terrible situation, but in my moves, I met a new friend named Zen.
Zen was Chinese, and raised very traditional. Of all the people that I worked with, he didn't say much when hearing of my problems, he just told me, as an accountant, you need to get rid of that house and move in with me to get your life back together. Over the year, that I lived with Zen, he helped me raise my kid, and helped me think about marriage a new way. Basically he told me, "You're married in America, and people don't understand what marriage is. They are wrapped up in what television tells them what a marriage is supposed to be. You just got to tell yourself, that it's just the two of you and you'll be fine."
LL was having an experience of her own. All her friends who told her that she was in a bad relationship welcomed her with open arms. Then they realized how much I had actually taken care of. How the power of two, was much more useful then it looked. LL's welcome was warn out and she found herself having to find a women's shelter, where she realized that the court appointed alimony which would be only for a year, and child support wouldn't be enough to have a life on her own. While in the program, LL went to different counseling groups where she met women with real issues. Women who had been in abusive relationships, and families that had been legitimately abandoned. It started to strike a nerve with her.
In my office, the new living situation was putting on drain on my career. I had to run out at weird hours to pick up our son. The divorce had called upon accusations that restricted some of my duties in the Navy until my Lawyer was able to prove them false. Finally, in an unrelated incident with the Navy, I stood in front of a discipline board who threatened to demote me. When they asked why I having such a hard time, I told them that i was going through a rough divorce, in which they responded, "Its not our fault that you married a crazy *****." The statement caught our legalman by surprise, the board was ended.
The stress of the military did however, push me to my personal career in photography. I was selected as one of four of the Navy's top photographers and I was to be sent to Syracuse University for more education. I decided that it was time to see a parenting councilor to cope with the new transition. At this point, my wife and I weren't divorced, as it California takes so long to process a divorce.
So as LL and I went into counseling, our therapist noticed that we had problems, but the problem was more that we live as parallel units and not as one. She said the thing that I said from the start, "Be careful who you let into you marriage." LL confessed that she realized the things that she had been doing, and I of course apologized for my actions as well.
Though at the time, LL couldn't leave CA, and I was under military orders. So I left for master's program as LL remained in CA.
Life was rough on both our parts, but the needing to talk to my soon, grew us both, as we were forced into conversations about our feelings and our new found isolations. I told her that I hated CA because of the people, and she agreed. I had told her years ago that I thought we should take orders somewhere far so that it would just be me and her. She was hesitant, but at this point she agreed, because she realized those friends were not all that great either.
We were all ready to move to Japan on orders, when our son's former complications flagged my orders. We couldn't go to Japan. However, I could be assigned to San Diego again. LL knew that it disappointed me, but promised that we would make it work.
Every since the Navy's response to my divorce, I had never mentioned anything about my personal life ever again. To most, they had no idea that I was still married and had reconciled.
In time, I knew that it would have to be a moment, where LL and I talked about the thing that had broken us up. On my end, I had distanced myself from those who spoke ill of my wife, she said that would make the adjustments as well. I guess what I am trying to say is, be careful who you let in your marriage.
Put the internet to work for you.
