Love and Marriage - Hope and Heartbreak

Writing about all the good guys my girlfriends have married has set my mind on a quest. Exactly how does one know when they’ve found a Cary Grant and are not instead being fooled by an Archibald Leach in costume? I’m also pondering how all these marriages last when we, as the human species, have our good qualities our not so good, rather ugly stuff that surfaces now and then.

I wrote my “good guy” post to offer hope to my girlfriend who has been struggling with defining the need for a man in her life. I wanted her to see all the good in the world and convince her she deserved the same. Instead, she read it and cried – and it wasn’t a good kind of cry, it was the other one. This is my second effort with a little more heartfelt honesty and a lot less spiritual, universal froo froo.

How do all of my happily married friends handle it when they have a bad fight or wake up each morning to the same guy with messy hair and bad breath? How does all this happily ever after fit into reality? In other words, how do they fucking do it?

I recently realized almost every couple I know who have been married for 25 plus years are of the Catholic faith. Is it religious belief that holds them together? I suppose fear of the Pope or burning in hell has saved quite a few marriages but I don’t think that’s the answer I’m seeking.

I was married to one of the good guys and I left him. I was bored out of my mind, dying on the vine and eager for more out of life. My good guy wasn’t good enough.

Before Seinfeld, we were all expected to stay with our partners for better or worse. Seinfeld spoofed the impetuous, relative ease with which we tend to hastily declare - NEXT. His character sacrificed a plethora of seemingly perfect love interests based upon trivial infractions such as not tasting his apple pie, being liked by his parents, laughing strangely, having man hands or the eternally classic, eating her peas one at a time.

I have to admit I turned down a second date with a guy once because I knew I could never live with that annoying laugh.

A little online research led me to find the following "official" list of reasons when it’s time to call it quits:

1. You can't be yourself with your partner.
2. You feel that the relationship is smothering you emotionally, socially, or spiritually.
3. You sense there are differences in values, beliefs, and life goals.
4. One of you is moving a distance away.
5. You find yourself outgrowing the person.
6. You're in an emotionally, physically, or sexually abusive relationship.

Thank heavens we have an official list but what happens when your boyfriend’s hot temper scares you but he’s not emotionally abusive or what do you do if your kids don’t get along? What if during a fight, one person is allowed to say enough is enough but when the other person doesn’t want to pick up the phone to talk, they are accused of immature behavior. Is this trivial, like eating your peas one at a time or is it more like peas and carrots, which contrary to Forest Gump, really don't belong together. In other words, is this enough to break-up?

Blended family issues are not discussed in the reasons to break up I found online. What happens when you’re asked to leave in the middle of a date because his daughter is having an issue; yet he refuses to sit in the back seat when she’s dealing with her emotionally distraught son. Or, he speaks up, telling her children what he thinks of their behavior while she has chosen to remain quiet and non confrontational about all the head games his kids are playing.

And what if we just don’t have enough patience to stay calm and work through contention, preferring instead to walk away from someone that may very well be one of the good ones? As for my girlfriend, I understand why she’s enduring such an arduous task, convincing herself of the need for a man in her life. When you live a life filled with work, kids and bouts of enormous stress, it is challenging to add someone to that. But it takes an effort of Herculean proportion to want them to stick around when their ugly stuff surfaces.

It begs the question, is it worth it? Does she want the better and the worse? What if the good guy she finds decides he doesn’t want the better if he has to deal with the worse? What if they are both too independent to really allow someone into their lives? And by “allow”, I mean willing to change behaviors that hurt them, drop the baggage being carried in from previous relationships and work together to achieve mutual goals.

That’s it. That’s what my successfully married friends have figured out.

It takes work.

And work takes desire.

Do those of us that are still single, dumping people in a Seinfeld-esque manner, want to remain carefree, fun-loving people who will never live the lives our parents lived?

Or do we desire a life-long relationship where work and a healthy dose of patience is required?

Well, my friend…do we?

Mr. Dependable (Part Five) - Out of the Ashes Comes New Life

This is the how the Alfred P. Murrah federal building looked on the morning of April 19, 1995, prior to 9:02am.

This photo could also easily represent my life at the time; neat and orderly, shiny and functional, everything happening according to plan.

But sometimes, the unexpected happens.


This is how the Alfred P. Murrah federal building looked after 9:02am of the same day. The unexpected had happened. The most unthinkable, unexpected happening anyone could have possibly imagined. After that day, nothing would be the same.

This is also what happened to my life. It blew up. I spent six months feeling as if I had been gutted. I encountered the unexpected and I faced the winds of change, taking me from the person I thought I was to the root of the person I am now and nothing would be the same.


This is the site of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building today, fourteen years later. It is a peaceful place, as calm as the waters of the reflecting pond. It represents those we lost, those who survived and those who came to help, to rescue and to recover.

Hearts were broken, blood was shed, our home was invaded by terror, lives were forever changed. But out of the devastation came humanity, out of the destruction came strength, out of the chaos came charity and out of the ashes came a kindred fortitude to not let this insidious act prevent us from once again finding peace and new life within our hearts.

**********************************************************

Mr. Dependable was devastated when I left him nearly two years later. We had continued to work hard to put the pieces back in place but no matter how hard we tried, the pieces simply didn't fit together anymore. A few years later, he found the perfect woman for him, he found his Ms. Dependable.

#1 son visited them one summer when he was around 15. He returned home telling me how alike they were, two big recliners, a large screen TV and a massive movie collection was all they needed. Then #1 son asked me why/how I had married him. You are so different, he said - I can't imagine how that could have worked.

Mr. Plentiful's wife eventually found out about our affair. They went through a rough patch but managed to pull it out. His daughters, who were preschool age at the time are now both in college. Our paths occasionally cross. He seems to be doing well.

I had an opportunity a few years back to ask him what it all had meant. A part of me retrospectively viewed him as a predator. He seized an opportunity, noticing an impressionable, vulnerable, somewhat naive, easy target. He assured me that was not the case, promising his words and actions were from his heart. He confessed having loved me then and continuing to love me throughout the years. I share the same feelings for him and probably always will.


As for me, I am free and I am not afraid. My hair went from stick straight to curly, seemingly overnight, as if to usher in the person I would eventually become. I am unconventional yet traditional, wildly abandoned yet grounded, sexy in a natural way, self-supporting, self-loving and self-taught. I have risen to the top of my industry and now I am imagining and pursuing a life I have always known would be my destiny.

I am a writer.




(Just to keep you begging for more - up next: Strike Three - Meet Mr. Sunshine With a Chance of Pain (Part One)!

Mr. Dependable (Part Four) - We're not in Kansas Anymore

I flew to Houston, a married woman, to be with my impending lover, a married man, two months after meeting him in New York. His letters had continued to arrive, sweeping me out of my reality and into his world, a world awash in ethereal colors and sensual pleasures.

The letters were innocent at first but gradually increased in intention and intensity. When the wind blew across his face, he would imagine it had just arrived from Oklahoma where it had blown through my hair. He wrote about business and baseball games but ever so delicately, interspersed throughout, were the carefully planted seeds, waiting to take root in me.

A month earlier, I had given a detailed account of the entire experience to Mr. Dependable. I told him of feeling vulnerable and having this man with a strong shoulder and tender, compassionate heart reach out to me. I told him of all the savory new tastes that seemed to still linger on my palate. I spoke of being enraptured by the city, the people, the excitement but mostly by this man who was able to cry with me.

I felt I was withering away, twisted, calloused and dying like a knotted vine, never to be unraveled again. I had set my sexuality aside, trading it in for a stable life. And yet, after New York, after the bombing, I could imagine new life; efflorescence was possible.

I pleaded with him to understand how the experience had changed me. We desperately wanted our marriage to work and we both felt this was going to be the catalyst for our new life. We could start taking small trips together, figure out what's wrong with us - see a counselor, go out to dinner, read some books, show some emotion, drink wine, be angry, make a decision, do something spontaneous, have sex for more than five seconds.

While he had declined my previous attempts to get him away from the TV and out on the town or to visit the much needed limp-schnoodle doc, he now seemed to understand our marriage depended on it. Keep in mind this was before all the hubbub concerning E.D. There was no Viagra or Cialis. Bob Dole had not yet made commercials about it. It was on the down low. A man was on his own to figure such things out and a wife was expected to be supportive and understanding.

Suddenly wife was awakened and horny so off to the counselor and Urologist we went.

The results came in with nothing permanently broken, thank God. Mr. Dependable simply had a wee problem with P.E. (and I'm not talking about 8th grade gym class). Both head doc and penis doc recommended the same protocol. He needed to desensitize himself by buffing the bat, you know, chafing the carrot, often, at frequent intervals, repeatedly.

Oh, that's all. Piece of cake, right?

Wrong.

Apparently when you're raised in Topeka Kansas, you are taught not to do such things. In his defense, I suppose it must have been really hard (or lack thereof) for him. While he seemed to embrace the opportunity to take our marriage to the next level, he must have been feeling rather emasculated by it all. I mean what husband wants their wife to essentially say, I want you to be more like him. He tried, God love him, he tried - but it was not to be. The course had been set.

Please don't think I did what I'm about to tell you because Mr. Dependable couldn't satisfy me sexually. This is a blog, there is not enough space in all the blogosphere to adequately explain why it happened. Further, I am not going to go into all the flowery details of the encounters because I am choosing not to glorify them and because I don't want this blog to turn into some pseudo paperback light-porn romance fiction.

I questioned myself, my God, my best girlfriend and Mr. Plentiful extensively before deciding to meet him in Houston. His reply, "I love witnessing the emergence of the total woman inside you. It is a most exciting and beautiful thing, and just thinking of it makes me yearn to see you fulfilled. If we are careful and thoughtful, I see only good coming from our having met. If it is at times frustrating or even torturous, that is to be expected, is it not? Would we all be better off not having been born because we knew someday we would die? I would love to continue our relationship within the constraints of our current situations until one of us decides that the pain outweighs the joy, if ever that should occur. I doubt, and certainly hope, it never will."

So, the little Okie girl flew off to Houston and began a six month affair. Before it ended, I would travel to see him in New York, Dallas and finally, in Boston. All the while, I remained twisted up inside that volatile vortex, thrust violently about, hoping to be thrown but then getting sucked up again. Like some floating piece of matter, I was an inhabitant of two worlds, side by side, each breathing a life of its own, their boundaries blurring and overlapping occasionally. One inhaled, the other exhaled. My reality was defined as I zoomed into one of them, that world becoming paramount, then logic was turned upside down as the other world expanded and engulfed me, defining a new reality.

.......to be continued (for the last time, I promise).

Mr. Dependable (Part Three) - The Answer is Blowing in the Wind

On my first day back to work in Oklahoma City, I received a letter from him. Yes, it was an actual letter. He had an email account but as yet, I didn't. He recounted how emotional it was for him to meet me, saying he had a "wonderful memory, as fresh as spring, and as full of promise as the bud on his tulip plant, but the next thing he knew, the bud was gone". He went on to tell me how my "gorgeous smile was burning a hole in his mind" and how pleased he was if he was able to make my life just a little better, as I had done for him.

I had arrived home from New York feeling as if I had returned from a finishing school meant to usher me through adolescence into womanhood. I had tasted the best New York had to offer in food, wine and a remarkable man who seemed to know no emotional constraints when it came to me. After our night together, sleeping in his arms - I had awoke feeling awkward, confused and out of place. He sensed this and knew I needed him to go.

Class that day seemed to drag on beyond any reasonable tolerance of pain and all I could think of was what the hell I had just done. Mr. Plentiful insisted we have lunch, just the two of us, cutting LA Girl out of our plans. I can't resist the obvious connection to symbolism when I tell you we went to a deli and I ordered chicken noodle soup.

Oh great power of chicken noodle soup, please give me comfort as I attempt to sort this mess out.

This beautiful man then took my hand, began to cry and subsequently pour his heart out to me in a way that even chicken noodle soup couldn't protect me. It was all about how much he loved his wife life, but meeting me had shifted the ground beneath his feet. Sound familiar, yes?

The rest of our week was spent dutifully finishing our work, continuing our (my) education in culinary edification and enjoying his gentle nudges to bring me to his bed. My convictions were strong and in spite of the seemingly surreal urges to devour him, I stayed true to my beliefs by remembering my happy, simple, (yet becoming aware of) incredibly boring life back home. Truly, the only thing that saved me at the height of desperation was remembering, "I'm not that kind of girl".

His letter closed with these thoughts, "It hurt me to think about what you were going through those first few days. I hope that now you're back home you can carry on with renewed strength and perspective. I'll be thinking of you as the leaves unfold." I called him and left a message on his pager (sounds so funny to say that now), thanking him for the kind thoughts.

Over the next four weeks, I received many letters from him, sometimes one per day, sometimes two or three per week, sometimes less. Meanwhile, I was staring down the barrel of my marriage and questioning what was happening to me as the winds were beginning to blow.

Anyone who has ever lived or visited Oklahoma knows a little something about the winds. Rogers & Hammerstein had it right when they wrote, "the winds come sweeping down the plains". On a normal day, you can't wear a short, pleated skirt; unless of course you want to invite your neighbors to the promised land. On a windy day, you are unable to host a backyard fete without engineering a devise to fasten your guests plates to the table.

Then there's the really impressive winds that occasionally whisk through. The 70 mile per hour, blow your windows out, winds. The winds that were gusting up inside of me, changing everything I knew to be true about myself, were more on the scale of those produced by an F5-Gary England-"Folks this is serious"-Tornado.

I was inside the vortex of that mother fucking tempest, swirling about tumultuously, trying to remain a good girl, a good wife. Hoping this was just a flirtation, a phase, an innocent, tender twister that would gently touch the earth, blow a few leaves around, then pick up again, leaving no damages or even a trace that it had been there at all.

I decided the only way to free myself was to tell my husband what was happening.

.......to be continued

Mr. Dependable (Part Two) - Okie in the City

By now, you must be wondering, how did we go from happy simple life to earth shattering loss of life in one post and we're still not done? These things take time to unfold Grasshopper.

Three days after the Murrah building disaster, I was on my way to the Will Rogers Airport in Oklahoma City. I had driven to the airport in and amongst the largest funeral procession I had ever seen. Everyone in the city was driving slowly, with their headlights on during the day. Arriving at the airport gate, I sat across from Charles Gibson and others who had been there for the national coverage. I wasn't excited to see them; in fact, I barely looked up but I could feel them staring at me. I had picked up a newspaper with the photo of the fireman holding the baby. It was the first time I had seen it and I was crying.

I was heading to New York City for a week-long class. The class had been scheduled months prior. It was the last class I needed to finish up an important credential in my field. I sat in my window seat, gripping the newspaper, unable to take my eyes off that photo and still hearing the cries of those anguished parents in my head.

New York City is my city. I have had a mad crush on it from the first moment I arrived at the age of 17. This extraordinary city has always loved me and taken care of me in a way that makes me certain it is or once was my home. How else could you explain a group of high school students roaming the streets all day and night, with no supervision, during a decade when the city was dirty, seedy, full of potential harm. Yet, there we were, innocent and naive, happily skipping our way through the city, left to our own devices by the young chaperon teacher who wanted to be rid of us. We drank, we danced, we saw our first porn movie (if you can call 'Deep Throat' porn) and we were safe.

During subsequent visits to the big apple, I noticed I had developed an uncanny ability to know exactly where I was within the city grid. I never needed a map, I knew the city intrinsically. This is the same girl who could get turned around inside an office building or lost in my own neighborhood. I could hoof myself uptown, downtown, midtown and back again. I mastered the subways and knew how to aggressively flag down a familiar yellow cab. The little Okie girl was no more.....

.......or so I thought.

Arriving there in April of 1995, I quickly realized I wasn't going to escape the devastation back home. New York was mourning with me. It was everywhere, the flags solemnly waiving from their half-poled postures, crowds gathered around TV's to see the latest developments and the people in my class, warmly embracing me, allowing me to labor through my tears. I worked in a case study group, consisting of six, mostly locals, one other girl from LA and me. From the moment our group took shape, I sensed him. On more than one occasion, I found him gazing sympathetically at me with small tears in the corners of his big, brown eyes.

Mr. Big has already been spoken for so I shall refer to my new friend as Mr. Plentiful. By day two, LA Girl, Mr. Plentiful and I had formed an alliance against the other three whine bag, idiots in our group. We spent every evening together exploring the culinary world through the most amazing restaurants. They introduced me to food and wine I had never experienced. Occasionally, I would transcend into the present moment with them and find myself smiling or even laughing. It delighted them to cheer me up. I felt they had devised a happy plan and I was their happy target.

By mid week, I realized I had been captivated by this devastatingly charming, successful man. He shared the details of his life with me, beautiful country home on top of a hill in South Salem, two young daughters, a wife of 15 years, a beach house in the Hamptons. He spoke of his garden with three kinds of swiss chard, eggplant, serrano peppers, arugula, beans and squash. Grass so lush and baby leaves on the trees so soft and tender they were edible. The forsythia was beginning to fade but the dogwoods were in full bloom and the raspberries and blueberries were popping out buds near the evergreens he had dug up in Vermont.

There were paths he had cleared for his girls to run through the woods, chasing butterflies while delightfully bumping into each other. He picked morel mushrooms along the wooded path, thought they were hard to see through the dappled sunlight. He had a watercress plant as large as a queen size bed. I wasn't sure what a watercress was. At the time we met, his tulip garden had just started to open, casting the first shades of spring throughout this idyllic country setting complete with goats, horses and sheep. I was mesmerized, imagining a life so unlike my own. He must be the happiest person I had ever met. He had it all.

But he wanted more.

Walking me back to my room after one of our evenings out with LA Girl, he asked if he could come in and hold me, telling me he had been yearning to scoop me up in his arms all week. He promised me there would be nothing else. He sensed my need to have someone wrap themselves around me and let me grieve. I opened my door for him. He took my hand, led me to a comfy chair in the corner, pulled me into his lap and held me, gently rocking me and stroking my hair until I fell asleep.

The little Okie girl was still very much present, ripe for the pickin' and in way over her head.

To be continued......

Strike Two - Meet Mr. Dependable (Part One)

It had been six years since I last stood at this plate, aka altar. I am nervous but confident, feeling lucky. The pitch is a fastball, straight as an arrow. I swing and connect, right in the sweet spot. That ball is going, going, going.....holy shit, the winds have suddenly and without warning, shifted direction, carrying my sure fire home run hit into foul territory. I am devastated. This time I was certain I had it right.

I had gravitated to the soft place I found in this man with a pure and true heart after my experience with Mr. Personality. Like an overzealous pendulum, swinging wildly from one extreme to the other, there seemed to be no stopping in the middle for me. The hard lesson learned as I walked away nearly ten years later is there ain't a damn thing you can do to control the wind.

This is the story of Mr. Dependable.

Who can explain why we are attracted to people at different times in our lives? Anyone? Bueller?

Even now, this one is troublesome for me to process. It's no sweat to explain why you left a sociopathic deviant. But how does one explain leaving a man who is, by all quantifiable measurements, the salt of the earth?

He looked exactly like this. Well, maybe not exactly like this but he was adorable in a fun, green, true to his colors kinda way.

Mr. Dependable grew up in Kansas. I'm fairly certain Kermit was from Kansas as well. I'm talking white picket fence, sports playing, church goin', drug free, hard working, simple life, Kansas. Yes, when I met him I questioned how I could possibly fit into this Norman Rockwell painting and yes, I painted myself into it anyway; as usual, with vivid detail and very large brush strokes. After all, I now had a son to think of.

*********Side Note**************

This is my first mention of #1 Son. I realize you're wondering where he came from. Rest easy, he is not the devil spawn of Mr. Personality. More to follow on the origin of #1 Son in later posts.

**********End Side Note*********

The first five years of our marriage was replete with building a house, buying a dog and spending most of our weekends covered in the red dirt of Oklahoma while working in the yard or watching #1 Son play baseball. Mr. Dependable, staying true to his steadfast moniker, even coached the team. He was a baseball player in college, a darn good one. He loved the game and he passed that love on to me. My life was wholesome, sweet and simple, much like me. (don't laugh - I really was back then.)

We went to church every time the church doors opened, we taught Sunday school, served on committees and volunteered for vacation bible school. I sang in the choir. Eventually, I became the Director of Sunday School, as a do-gooder, not as a paid-staffer. Each and every Sunday after church, we would head straight to his parents house for a lovingly prepared meal with homemade rolls and chocolate cake for dessert. This was followed by a ritualistic nap (me) while grandma entertained #1 son, grandpa read the paper and Mr. Dependable disappeared into the telly, as only he could.

We rarely deviated from this schedule, there were no vacations or nights on the town and I didn't care. I had everything I desired; until that is, the winds shifted.

On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh blew up the Alfred P. Murrah federal office building in the heart of downtown Oklahoma City. On that day I was eight miles away on the 10th floor of an office building, I stood helplessly watching from my window as the cloud of dirty, black smoke billowed like a dark angel, engulfing the city. I knew the surface between my feet had shifted. I had no idea my life and everything I knew to be true about myself, the very essence of me, was about to shift as well.

It seemed as if the news choppers were there within minutes. Gathered around the conference table, in deaf-like silence, we watched with trepidation as the camera swung around to the front of the building. It was gone, the entire front of that building was gone. The steel frame was exposed and shredded, suspended in air where the pancaked rubble of the other half of the building now lay in front of it. Paperwork that had just been sitting on a desk, waiting for someone to file, was now swirling in and around fragments of office chairs, cubicles, concrete and the bodies that once held the life, dreams and hope of 168 men, women and children.

It was the children we couldn't bare. We knew there was a daycare in that building. When a child dies, you mourn for the child but you agonize for the people left behind. They were there - these people - pleading and praying, begging and bartering, shoving themselves into the police who stood firm to protect them, screaming for the babies they had dropped off only moments before. I will never forget the sound of those guttural, dissonant wails. By this time I was there, within a few blocks of the building and I heard it. The disharmony assaulted me. Unrelenting, deep and inarticulate; yet, you instinctively knew what the sound meant. My heart, the heart of a mother, wanted to implode at the sound of those screams. All I could think of was #1 Son.