17.
“We were high school sweethearts who married in our 20s after graduating college. I supported us during grad school, and I worked for 10 years up until the day we had our first child. After having our second, I was able to financially stay home with them, and this enabled my husband to develop a very successful business, rarely having to be responsible for keeping a nice home, cooking dinner nightly, or dealing with the education, care, and feeding of the children. He loved the kids, but was somewhat of a workaholic who was only home on the weekends, often fishing for hours on end to ‘de-stress’ himself. Toward the end of the marriage, this also included too much alcohol.”
“During the last three years of our 40-year marriage, I developed a moderate hearing loss and an anxiety disorder. I went to therapy, questioning my feelings of emotional neglect, trying to decide if I should stay in the marriage any longer. I was paralyzed by the fear of living alone, as I had never lived by myself before (childhood home, college roommates, then marriage). I had contemplated divorce, but our long history together, my anxiety, and the fact that I truly loved him made it too difficult for me to take any action.
The last straw came when I was preparing a family dinner, getting out the pots and pans and apparently making too much noise in the kitchen. My ex said, ‘Are you deaf?’ Yes, partially. And, ‘You are so lazy about taking a pan from the middle of the stack!’ in a very contemptuous tone. That was when I realized that I could never grow old with this critical man, and couldn’t trust him to be there for me emotionally, or ‘in sickness or in health.’ I divorced him, got a settlement and alimony that recognized all that I had contributed to the long marriage, and have lived successfully on my own. I met a man who loves me, honors me, and thinks I am wonderful; however, I am happy being single, and have vowed to never get married again.”
—Anonymous
