The Story of My Marriage

well, my ex and i met and dated for 2 weeks, then he proposed and we were married 2 months later. we were in love. as in love as 2 people could be. our wedding was spectacular. he was the one.

after a year and a half, something happened. i started to not trust him. i don't recall what it was. then i looked through his email and found letters he had sent to an ex girlfriend just 3 months after we were married. the letters spoke of feeling lonely, of longing.... and her reply, respectfully was reminding him he was a married man.

i went ballistic.

we had it out and he wanted to separate. i fell to the ground like a child and clung to his leg begging him not to leave me. i promised myself i would never do that again. we separated for 5 months. in that time, i went to europe and fucked two guys (something i just recently got over. there has been a world of guilt on my shoulders regarding those actions). i also had a threesome with a female friend and some guy we dragged home from a bar. but i couldn't bring myself to have sex with him or go down on him.

so patrick emails me while i'm in europe and tells me he wants to be together again. i come home and live with him. a week later, he tells me he can't do it and wants a divorce. the song "these days" by nico will forever mark that week in my life.

the night he told me that he wanted a divorce, i broke. i called my best guy friend in SF and he told me to come live with he and his girlfriend, without even asking her. he just said come. the next day, i went. i lived with them for a month and managed to split them up. (i'm sure they had bigger problems than me living there). patrick and i were in no contact during that month, and then one day, i get an email. he can't live without me and wants to get back together. he moves up to san francisco.

we get back together and everything is beautiful again. we build a life. he works at the east bay express and i'm doing hair at one of the best salons in the city. he is in a cigar phase. i am making art. we are happy.
then, we get bored again. we decide we want a house. we miss our subaru station wagon and our two german shepherds. we decide the only way to get that back is to move to st. louis to be near his family, to start a family. mind you, we had unprotected sex for the entire 4 years of our marriage and i never got pregnant.

so we move. i become incredibly close to his entire family, his 3 brothers, mom, dad, cousins, aunt and uncle. we are a family. then something happened. i don't know what. i think he began to feel agitated that i couldn't find a job i liked. no salons were good enough for me. i couldn't build a clientele. he felt pressured to make all the money. with that resentment, he started spending more time away from home. i would cook dinner and he would come home and eat a bag of chips on his chest in a recliner in front of the tv. i would go buy a bottle of cheap chardonnay and drink it. so we grew apart. as i was going through art school, i rode my bike in the snow for 30 minutes each way. i worked part time at a hair salon then eventually worked at a gift shop wrapping gifts. i was so unhappy. my soul was sinking and i needed a way out. i was unhappy because i knew i couldn't stay in st. louis. i wasn't making friends, i didn't like the place, it was so out of touch with what i was used to. i needed progressive-minded people. i needed sushi, mexican food, an art community, the ocean, healthy people who understood me, who were moving forward, not just sitting at home getting fat with their fox tv and racism.

we ended up separating again. but i promised myself the first time, if we separate again, i don't think i can handle it. i don't want to have to convince my husband that he loves me or wants to be with me, which is what i felt i was doing. those two months were the unhappiest months of my life. i was alone. completely deflated, doubting the meaning of love let alone whether it existed. i drew the best drawing of my life. it was a 12 foot drawing of tiny lines, probably a millimeter long, each. there were waves, colors. it flowed. then i took a slide projector and some old slides and projected it onto this massive work. i traced flappers dancing, tourists walking around europe. it was gorgeous. i included it as a main piece in my final art show at the university. but all the while, i would call my close friends and talk to them about what i was going through. then one of my friends woke me up.

she said "REGINA, you are like a dog on a leash in the backyard. your owner has gone away and you are just waiting for him to come back. but he's never coming back. so just chew that fucking leash and get out of there". to this day, i am grateful for her. for waking me the fuck up and getting me out of that marriage. patrick is amazing. i have never met anyone as bright, intelligent, complex, funny, complicated, phony, gorgeous and impulsive as him. that's what i loved about him. but i had to leave. he wasn't working on "us" so i told him i wanted a divorce.

well, soon after our divorce was final, i saw him with a girl. i was with my roommate and we were walking across a crosswalk and some asshole was going through it. i looked up and it was patrick in OUR car with his new chick. i fucking lost it. it had only been 2 weeks! my friend told me it's not worth it. he's not worth my tears. i quickly sucked it up then of course thought all night about it, silently.

i was at work when he told me over the phone that our divorce was final. i took my russian friend and went outside to break down. she comforts me then says "you have 15 minutes. no more. no more tears after that". as if she were some sort of authority, i listened. i let myself go for 15 minutes then i stopped. she was right. at some point, i had to accept that my marriage was over.

i graduated from school and i didn't even walk. i didn't even do a final senior show like i was supposed to. i just submitted a video this art professor friend of mine made and pretended it was mine. i packed everything i owned into a car and drove back to san francisco.

patrick and i kept in contact for a while. he would call to see how i was doing. we would talk. but eventually i tired of the conversation. he used to take a shit while i was in the shower and now we're reduced to talking about the weather and how the family is doing? no. that's not enough. it's not real. but eventually he went his own way. he eventually asked me to stop contacting him. he got married to the emaciated, black-haired girl i had seen in the car with him. i haven't talked to him in probably over two years.

and that's the story of my marriage.