"We'd gotten to a point of no return by late summer of last year. He and I had grown apart and it was impossible to disguise the resentment that we each had for the other in a lot of ways. I still loved him and I knew that he loved me, but by the time it fell apart we just couldn't manage our life together anymore. There were just too many things that we each valued independently that were not valued in the same way by the other person and by August, the damage had become impossible to ignore or overcome.
So things were strained, to say the least, and I think we both wanted desperately to fix them but didn't know how. I quit my job in July and started working closer to home so I could cut down my commute and spend more time with him. One of his major beefs with me working 45 minutes away was that because my commute was so long, it decreased the amount of quality time he and I could spend at home together during the week. So when my boss took another job in Connecticut and a local opportunity presented itself, I took it.
But it didn't take long for me to realize that my commute hadn't really been the problem at all. The problem was, in my estimation, that no matter how much time we were together it was never truly "quality" time by the other person's definition. "Quality time" to him meant something totally different than "quality time" to me. I felt like I was spending way to much time helping him cope with job stress and giving him space to do the things that he liked to do - spending time at the gym, working from home, etc. and he felt like I wasn't interested in the same things that he liked to do and that those things were creating distance between us. In the end, I think we were both right and it really just was an issue of compatibility."
Some days, I can't remember whether or not he and I were always so different. I know that in the beginning, we laughed more. My memories of our 18 month engagement and the early days of our marriage are starkly bright & positive. We enjoyed our home and welcomed our friends in and made the most of the town we lived in. We went to church together on Sundays. We'd spend whole Saturdays walking into town, sampling the local flavor, running into friends and planning dinners at home. We'd listen to music with the windows open and fresh breezes blowing in. I'd sing and chop vegetables and pull him in close to me and inhale; and I felt peace. I thought I felt complete...
"What's incredibly sad to me still is the fact that I do attribute what happened to him professionally for a lot the pitfalls we had to endure as a married couple - I truly do not believe he would would have the stress that he has been battling ever since if that situation had been handled differently. It changed him in a lot of ways - and it changed me too. I went from being my husband's partner to his caretaker in a lot of ways and I think it doomed our marriage only shortly after it had begun - I really do. It was such a harsh blow to be dealt at the start of a life together; we were very strong for much of it but damage had been done and over time, it started to show more and more. We'd never truly had a chance to construct the kind of foundation you need to have in order to build a life together. So everything that we tried to put on top of that foundation ultimately collapsed. I didn't wait until age 33 to get married thinking that it wouldn't work out, and I'm certain he didn't get married for a second time thinking that it would fail either - it's just how it turned out I guess.
Having said that, there are certainly other things that contributed. I compromised to the point of not recognizing myself in the mirror anymore ad I let my anger build up; we waited too long to seek marriage counseling; and ultimately we both felt so isolated and lonely in our own lives that it wasn't something we could realistically salvage. We'd changed."
