He Was Never My Husband

First, thank you all for enduring my tacky social media presence with this whole situation. I was gas-lighted (gas lit?) for so long I needed desperately to feel not alone. I also needed a way to permanently end my relationship with Josh. I had tried to end it before, but we always wound up back together and it went right back to the way it was. I needed to end it in such a permanent way that I wouldn’t go back. If I told everyone he was cheating, I knew my pride would get in the way of accepting him back. So I posted on Facebook about him cheating. He said he didn't want to be married to me anymore and he started driving that night for Utah. The last words he said to me in person were, “It’s not my fault.”

While you are reading this, you might feel anger for me, and I appreciate that. You might think it was unwise to marry a person with such obvious and deep problems and you are right. However, I am more whole than I have been in a very long time (including before my marriage) and I am understanding the reasons why I married someone like Josh. My therapist told me I am at the top of the roller coaster with my hands up high, ready to experience the ride. I honestly feel that way. I’m a little scared, often excited, and so ready to feel again. 

My marriage to Josh ended a long time before I even met him. It ended before I started dating anyone. It both started and ended when I internalized the belief that I was unlovable. I was a difficult child to raise. I asked questions; I didn’t take no for an answer; I was manipulative and demanding. I was intelligent. I was sweet in public and a tyrant at home. I was terrified. I could sense raising a child like me was out of my mom’s comfort zone. I have known for a very long time my mom and I are polar opposites. We are just now starting to respect each other. When I was young, I could sense my mom didn’t know how to love me and at that age, being loved meant survival. My dad, on the other hand, did know how to love me because we are so similar. However, my perception was he didn’t love my mom and she didn’t love him. My world felt very unstable. Add financial uncertainty on top of everything and as my therapist says, “no wonder you were anxious.” 

I do have gratitude for my parents. I’m grateful I had a physically safe home and food and values. When I look back on my childhood, I see a barefoot girl running around the neighborhood, sitting in trees, talking with adults from all over the world, reading on the grass, and loving her friends. I had a beautiful childhood. I know my parents were doing their best. It is also true that someone’s best can still be harmful. I felt a lot of fear during my childhood. It caused me to act out in ways that perplexed my parents. I remember one day, sitting on my sister’s bed (she had the bottom bunk) and being told by them, “If you keep acting this way, no one will want to marry you.” It was not said with malice. It was a desperate Hail Mary effort at parenting me. It was what my parents honestly believed. They hoped my behavior would change. I didn’t know how to change my behavior, so I accepted what I had felt for a long time: the anxiety I experience makes me fundamentally unlovable. 

The core belief I held, that I was fundamentally unlovable, is the reason I married Josh. 

I want to be very clear: I am not placing blame for what happened. I am not blaming my parents, myself, or even Josh. I am simply observing the influences that shaped the events of my life. 

I went on a few dates in high school, but growing up in an extremely conservative Mormon family meant my dating experiences were limited and tainted with shame. I had my first boyfriend during my sophomore year of college. Kyle Pratt. That relationship lasted about a month until I heard through the grapevine he thought he wanted to marry me and I freaked out. My dating life pretty much followed that pattern for the next 5 years. Someone would express interest, we’d go on a few dates or date and then I’d sense they liked me “too much” and I’d break it off. I was afraid someone would think too highly of me and also terrified someone would discover I was actually quite unlovable.  

When I found Josh, I sensed he liked me fine enough, but he didn't put me on a pedestal. We met on Tinder. We talked for a few days then he disappeared for two weeks and messaged me again saying, "Sorry I've been so out of touch." After that we talked consistently. He lived in Salt Lake; I lived in Provo. Neither of us had a car. We talked for about a month before even trying to meet in person. That was comforting to me. Our first date was Thanksgiving weekend 2016. He borrowed a car from his friend who owned a dealership and we went to see Dr. Strange. It was one of those movie theaters with reclining seats. In the middle of the movie, I wanted to recline my seat more so I started to move my hand toward the button, but then I got really nervous he would think I was trying to hold his hand. I dealt with a stiff neck for the rest of the movie. Josh told me on the drive home his favorite band was Backstreet Boys. I asked three times if he was serious and I think he got a little offended. While it definitely weirded me out, I was struck by his honesty and his disregard for how it would affect my opinion of him. Josh was also very honest about his depression. He let me know when he felt down and how it impacted his life. We started dating December 10th, 2016 and I left to go home for Christmas a few days later. In the future, we would both refer to those three weeks apart with gratitude because we spent a lot of time just talking and really getting to know each other.  

While Josh's depression was severe and influenced my anxiety quite a bit, it was the reason I married him. My dad has depression and I am very familiar with how it impacted our family. I also have a master's in speech therapy and I know health is not guaranteed to everyone for long. I've seen young men who had strokes or traumatic brain injury. I've seen older men with neurodegenerative diseases. I also know many men lie and that someone who seemed "perfect" probably had deep dark secrets that would only come out after marriage. I told myself, "I'd rather dance with the devil I know than the devil I don't know." There's truth to all of this, but the real reason I married Josh is simply because he was so broken. I thought if I loved him enough perhaps he could love me too. I believed I could only be loved by someone who was massively broken and who could not find love anywhere else. 

Josh did love me at the beginning of dating. He loved me before his projection of who I was faded and reality settled in. He tried to break up with me but I reached out to him again and we kept dating. I think the last time he was in love with me was before he broke up with me. He cared about me, but he was never in love with me again. So why did he marry me? Josh is from England and was terrified of losing his student visa because of failing grades and being forced to go home again. He had already had that happen once. He basically only left his room at night to eat for two years while he was in England. He managed to save up enough money to come back and try again and that's when I met him. I was a nice enough girl who loved him and most importantly I was an American. I was a way to never have to worry about leaving the U.S. again. I was too trusting to believe he would actually marry someone he didn't love. I always excused his distance and lack of affection as a symptom of depression. I didn't see the truth until about a week after he left. He emotionally checked out from our marriage a long time ago. I first found him messaging girls on dating apps a year ago. He left a month and a half after he got his green card.  He refutes that he married me only for a green card, yet he has apologized for what he's put me through and told me he's going to pay me back for the cost of the green card. So you tell me.

He did care about me as a person. Which is possibly what makes this so hard to process. He was my best friend. I think I was his best friend. We laughed together. We spent a lot of time together. We worked through some fucking hard shit together. He often did kind things for me. For my birthday last year, he bought me an annual membership to the aquarium which was a perfect gift. He would get me soup from Panera when I didn't feel well. When I had to go to the ER he was attentive and concerned. However, most of the time he was distant and dishonest. In his mind he was protecting me by lying to me. When I'd say I didn't feel like he loved me, he would say, "It hurts me that you don't think I love you." When I left the Mormon church, I told him I would understand if he was not okay with being married to someone not of the same religion. He said he was fine. When I wanted to move to West Virginia from Utah, he went along with it.

The truth all came out the night he left. When he finally admitted that he was not in love with me, I asked why. His three reasons were because I had left the church, because I had made him move across the country which basically ruined his life, and because I had anxiety. I wish he had been honest with me a lot sooner.

Josh telling me he didn't love me because of my anxiety cut to the deepest wound I have. While I am working through it, I am definitely still hurting. Today I did yoga and started sobbing. At times I cry because I feel unlovable. Sometimes I cry because I loved him so much and I miss having someone to love unconditionally. I cry because I had to bury the future I imagined with him. I cry because I tried so hard to be good and was hurt anyway.

In all of this, I have yet to find peace. I have found emotion definitely. Highs and lows. Such intense hope, and liberation, incredible pain, and sadness. I was in an emotionally manipulative marriage and I am still coming to terms with how that has affected me. I feel like I've walked into the sunlight from a dark room and while I am so so glad for the light, I haven't adjusted to it yet.

In a way, I am grateful for what has happened in my life because  I married Josh. I don't believe God planned for this to happen all along so I could become stronger or so I could help other people or any of that shit. However, I can see there that good can come out of crappy situations. I could have married someone who wasn’t deceptive and I would have possibly spent my whole life basing my worth on someone else’s opinion of me. Marrying and divorcing Josh has forced me to cultivate the belief that I have worth on my own.

I'll still cry. I'll still be attracted to broken people. I am learning that I am strong and I am choosing to hold on to that. 

Jonathan Miller

My aunt ran into a former boyfriend of mine at Classic Skating. He told her he still thinks about me and he asked if I'm still married. Jonathan and I dated for a very short time, but I have strong memories of my time with him.

A few housekeeping items about this post:
1. His name is not Jonathan Miller. I’m not that brazen.
2. I started this post a VERY long time ago and finished it while Josh and I were having problems. Take that as you may.
3. He’s happily dating someone now and I am super happy for him.

He started working as a maintenance guy at the Wilkinson student center where I was a building coordinator. We shared an office along with the other BC's and maintenance people. I automatically assume anyone I meet has higher self-esteem than I do. My assumption of Jonathan was no different. Jonathan appeared confident, but he wasn't obnoxious. He was friendly. I was shy and cautious. Weeks went by, maybe months, I'm not sure. The only thing I remember about the interim is he wore a black short sleeve button up with very large white polka dots and I thought it didn't match his height. It was the sort of shirt you would see a hipster wearing, but Jonathan didn’t look like a hipster. He looked like a puppy/rugby player. Large and very muscly, but not necessarily athletic. After a while, I noticed Jonathan would make excuses to talk to me. He would bring me into the conversation a lot or roll his chair over to my desk to ask me a question. It wasn’t ever a work question. He usually asked what I thought about some current event or pop culture thing. I started to smell the sickly sweet wafts of a crush coming from him, but I tried to ignore it hoping it would go away. Not because Jonathan wasn't a nice guy, but because we worked in an office with lots of other people around and I despise feeling conspicuous.

At a work party, I started talking about Hamilton with a few coworkers. Jonathan joined in on the conversation. Eventually, it was just Jonathan and me talking. I enjoyed our conversation quite a bit. I started to think, “Maybe if he likes Hamilton, I should give him a shot” (wink, wink). At this point, I knew Jonathan liked me. I also had a feeling he was too nervous to ask me out. I hadn't exactly been giving him positive feedback over the past weeks.

While helping my friend one evening in her elementary school classroom, I decided to message him and see if he wanted to mini-golf with me. He was taking a golf class that semester. It felt like he took a long time to respond because I was VERY nervous for the rest of the evening. I had a vulnerability hangover. He did eventually message back that he would like to go. He gave me his phone number. Pretty soon after, we started dating.

One evening while we were driving he asked me why I was dating him. I think he wanted some assurance. I could only answer with honesty that I wasn’t sure. My friend later told me she thought that was a rude answer, but I had no other answer to give at that time. Now with the benefit of hindsight and introspection, I think I was dating him because he liked me so much. It’s hard to resist a genuinely good person who thinks you are awesome. I enjoyed my time with him very much for the most part. Sometimes my social anxiety would flare up while in public with him, which is maybe why I was cautious about dating. He did a few things that felt like a social faux pas to me. In any event, he didn’t seem offended by my honest answer and we moved on to other things.

He would allude to wanting to marry me, but always in a joking way. I never took it too seriously, because why would someone want to marry me? Also, we had only been going on dates for like two weeks. He did things like take a picture of a jewelry shop and text, "need anything while I'm out?" He always wanted to go to Panda Express or take me out to eat. That must have been his way of showing care. I didn't want him to take me out to eat because I felt guilty having him pay if I wasn't very sure of how I felt. We'd take walks around Provo in the evenings to look at houses. He didn't understand why I liked walking so much, but he went with me. We had comfortable car conversations in his grandma's Buick. He was a good driver and being in the car felt calm.

My young cousins thought he was so cute. Especially the 9-year-old. He played Mario Cart with them and genuinely enjoyed it. He had a childlike playfulness they loved and I found endearing. The 9-year-old was so mad when I broke up with him. The five-year-old wasn’t mad, but she did ask me why I did it.

I loved his extended family. His grandparents and a ton of their kids and grandkids lived in the area. They were talkative and welcoming and inclusive. It was the type of environment where I didn't have to talk much to feel included. They liked me too. He had a brother in law named Jody that had a lot of confidence for a man with hair like Dagwood and a woman's name. I was slightly intimidated by his confidence, but he made me laugh. His aunt loved that I was a speech therapist grad student because her son has autism. His cousins played card games with us. His grandparents had a house that looked like an apartment building from the '60s. It was a split level house on steroids. I liked that about it.

We started dating around September which is when the Timpanogos Story Telling Festival happens. Jonathan's family has a tradition of going to this thing like millennials go to Coachella. It's a three-day event and his family attends in droves. Adults, kids, everybody. They wear fancy plastic wristbands and get excited about storytellers with names like Donald, Dovie, and Sheila. It's a whole thing. I love storytelling. When you grow up with a Cajun dad, storytelling is part of your DNA. So when Jonathan asked if I would like to go with his family, I was quite excited. It was one of the most magical weekends I've experienced.

We had to park in a church parking lot and then get shuttled up the canyon to the outdoor park where the white storytelling tents were set up. That was when reality started to become suspended for me in a good way. Jonathan gave me my pink little wristband and we went to find his family. Jonathan  didn't seem nervous about whether or not I would think the festival was cool. I appreciated that. I'm not a touchy-feely person, but seeing him in that environment made me want to be close to him. I relaxed around him while we listened in the warmth of early fall weather. I felt peaceful and whole. We were getting to know each other without asking the clunky questions that accompany early dating. It was a shared experience that didn't need words.

The last event on the last day of the festival happened in the evening. The outdoor amphitheater sat at the bottom of a grassy hill. His family and I lined up outside the gate so we could get a good spot. When the gate opened, they had five giant quilts down before I even got over to the spot. We listened to a live swing band and all talked while the light slowly started to become more golden. His little cousin Emmett liked me and kept sidling up next to me. I thought he was adorable and liked that it made Jonathan jealous for my attention. Jonathan finally told him to leave me alone and scoot back to his mom. Emmett got mad and cried for a little while. At some point, before the storytelling began, he came back and asked if I was going to marry Jonathan. I gave some answer like, "it's possible," which was honest, but I probably should have been vaguer. I like taking children seriously, but I did not know how to answer that question. I never found out how Jonathan felt about my answer.

When the sky became dark, the storytelling began. We heard from a Welsh man, a grandmother, his family's favorite performer Donald Davis, and others. Then for the finale Bil Lepp: a West Virginian who told the most perfectly clever and hilarious story that totally enraptured me. I felt so proud and connected; it was the perfect end to the weekend.

I went home feeling really good about life and my relationship with Jonathan. We kept spending time together watching movies (at his apartment, my apartment, and his grandma's house), biking, and grocery shopping. There were a few times I think he wanted me to be more affectionate with him, but I was still partially guarded. We had not been dating long.

We were set to go to my extended family's Sunday dinner up Hobble Creek Canyon one weekend. He'd already met my extended family in Utah and my friend who was going with us. My grandparents were in town from California, but I wasn't nervous about them meeting him. He was a Georgia boy with good manners. I woke up that Sunday to see Jonathan had put on Facebook that we were in a relationship. I thought I needed to give consent for that to appear publicly so I was confused and flooded with messages from people. I was overwhelmed and I felt exposed without any forewarning. We went to dinner up the canyon still, but I didn't really talk much to Jonathan. He tried putting his hand on my back during the car ride, but I felt uncomfortable. He could tell I felt off so I let him know his announcement of our relationship had made me feel very vulnerable. He tried to explain he did it because "a lot of people were on his back about being in a relationship." I retorted, "You getting people off your back has put a lot of people on mine." And that was pretty much it. We didn't spend time together at dinner and my ability to feel open and comfortable in our relationship was gone. Over a few days, we talked about it; we tried to see how I could feel open again. I never really felt like those talks got us anywhere. I went on a run and accepted fully that I didn't want to be dating anymore. I texted him and asked if I could come over to talk to him. He said, "uh oh, that doesn't sound good..." I can't remember if or what I texted back. I jogged to his apartment and told him I didn't want to date anymore. He reacted very calmly. I think I said something stupid about genuinely wanting to still be friends. I meant it, but that's never a good thing to say when you're breaking up with someone. As I jogged away after he went inside, I felt a sense of relief, but also a sense that I maybe had made a mistake. The air was warm and the light was purple. I remember that. It was getting dark and I wanted to get home. I was sad when I thought about not spending time around his family anymore. I had really enjoyed their company and I think they enjoyed mine. I also knew that wasn't a reason to get back with Jonathan. I don't remember much about my thoughts after that.

I've had about four years since then to think about why I reacted strongly to such a minor thing: a Facebook post. I perceived his post was more about his own self-esteem than it was about feelings he had for me. I felt used and I got scared of what that might mean. I did my best to talk about my fear-based reaction with him. I did my best in general. I don’t regret what happened.
Sometimes I think about alternative realities. Mostly, I'm grateful for those happy times we had when I felt genuinely seen and loved. I'm grateful I tried even when I wasn't sure.

Unresolved

Written in August 2018 - 

I had a mental breakdown this week. Well, two mental breakdowns about two separate things.

One was about a broken mirror and mother/daughter dynamics. The other breakdown was about a lack of control and the fear that uncertainty brings into my life.

The theoretical idea of accepting uncertainty fascinates me. The movies Manchester by the Sea, La La Land, and 500 Days of Summer explore uncertainty and I love them. I love talking about them, analyzing, and deconstructing them. So why do I hate uncertainty in my life so much?

While some people complained about how Summer and Tom didn't end up together, I celebrated it. It's the reason the movie is so great. It would have been a mediocre movie if they did end up together. Tom wants Summer to be predictable and constant. He wants her to promise that she will never change her mind. Summer honestly replies, "I can't give you that. Nobody can." I love that line so much. I hate that it's true.

I absolutely love that Manchester by the Sea doesn't end with some redeeming cheesy success. Lee Chandler doesn't overcome his past; his life is still hard. Nothing incredible happens, it just keeps going. The movie doesn't feed us the lie that everything has a happy ending. I resonate with this because it's a reality. I wish it wasn't.

I have pretty severe anxiety, my husband has clinical depression. You might be able to imagine the fun we have if we are both experiencing an "episode."

Josh's depression sometimes manifests as physical symptoms. These symptoms are painful and real and they sometimes make it difficult for him to attend work. I have a severe fear of destitution and financial insecurity. So, when Josh doesn't attend work, I get panicky. My second mental breakdown was preceded by Josh not being able to attend his shift. I had a full-on panic attack. I lost my mind. I was crying, self-harming, and totally hopeless. Josh was patient, kind, and present, which I am grateful for. I still wonder, however: why can't I lean into the uncertainty? I'm not sure. I guess I'm putting this out into the universe and hoping it gifts me an answer.

I held on to an illusion of certainty for a long time. It was my mirage. "Someday things will be certain and predictable." I believed that I experienced anxiety because of my circumstances. Once I got out of the uncertain circumstances, my anxiety would be gone. I had illusions like, "I'm so stressed because I'm in a grad program." "I'll be less stressed once I'm not so busy." "Once I'm near my family, I'll feel peaceful." "Once I'm not near my family, I won't hate my life." Projecting peace into the future gave me hope and made the present more bearable. Well, I arrived at my mirage on or about May 3rd, 2018. I had graduated from grad school. I was welcomed into my parents' house with my dogs and my husband after traveling across the country. I had a part-time job working from home about 5 hours a week. We didn't have to pay rent. We had a fenced in backyard for the dogs. I had no school and basically no responsibilities. Yet I was miserable, more so than when I had lots of responsibilities and stress.  My mirage was butt ugly. I was chasing a specter. Life without anxiety doesn't exist for me and that was a difficult realization.

I had been able to forge on when there was at least some hope that peace was possible. Once my hovering possibility of peace was gone, I have to admit, I struggled to breathe. I struggled to function. I wanted to stop living.

All this feels shameful because I have nothing really to complain about. My life is not bad. I have no right to describe my life as "this hell I'm living." I'm not living in hell. So why does it feel like I am?

I found a Facebook group for people with anxiety. I was accepted and soon annoyed by all the complaining. Being around people with mental illnesses is exhausting. I know that. I was hoping to share the experience I had and get some feedback, advice, and camaraderie. I couldn't bring myself to add to the constant stream of woe. People post on that page every 3 minutes. There are so many posts. It didn't feel like a community. It felt selfish. I understand people have valid, real fears, but I couldn't handle reading them. Later, I learned that someone who also has clinical depression didn't understand the way Josh experiences depression. This hurt pretty badly. Where is our ally? Who can understand and not judge? Josh gives the benefit of the doubt in a more comprehensive and sincere way than anyone I've interacted with. He deserves the same. I don't always understand Josh's depression either. I don't understand my own mind a good portion of the time. I try to understand. Sometimes I succeed.

A lot of my posts have a definitive end. I've been trying to wrap this one up nicely, but I should have realized that a post about uncertainty couldn't be wrapped up. As it is, we keep moving and trying. New realities form and we adjust, and I find comfort in artistic uncertainty until I can find acceptance in actual uncertainty.

How Hard Did Aging Hit You? Thoughts

People have been posting pictures on Facebook of their first profile picture next to their most recent profile picture. I found a picture of myself from 2008 and I definitely looked younger, more wide-eyed and innocent. I was a skinny mini. I straightened my hair.  However, comparing the two pictures of myself didn’t show my immaterial change. I’m also interested in how I have changed as a person.

In 2008 I was 15.

I believed that my introversion was a flaw.

I was able to read with more pure joy and for longer periods of time. Now I fall asleep.

I didn’t know that I had OCD or even anxiety really.

I believed that friendships should always last forever.

I tried to craft or wait for “perfect” situations. I was forever waiting to live my life instead of living it imperfectly.

I wanted to own a Cajun restaurant. I also hadn't worked in a restaurant yet. Guess what made me change my mind about owning a restaurant.

I hadn’t watched The Office.

I spent most of my money at Michael’s craft store. (Josh laughed out loud when I read him this one. He thinks I still do. Wrong. I definitely spend most of my money on KFC 5 Dollar Fill-ups.)

I sang in the shower a lot. Mainly "I Won't Say I'm in Love" from Disney's Hercules and "In the Ghetto" by Elvis.

I was embarrassed that my favorite musician was Elton John.

I was 1000% sure that I wanted kids. No that's not a typo, I was over 100% sure that I wanted to have children. I used to stuff my nightgown under my shirt and imagine what I would look like pregnant. Super embarrassing.

I worked as an "auto insurance specialist" (telemarketer) for State Farm and dreaded every night I worked.

Podcasts scared me. I'm honestly not sure why.

I liked boys with long skater hair. *Looking at you, Patrick Callahan.

For the most part, I like how I have changed over the last 10 years. I’m definitely glad I’m not in high school anymore and that I have a full-time job. I like having my two pups and my own space. I’m grateful for the friendships that have and have not lasted. I’m learning that setting boundaries and being kind are not mutually exclusive. I’m more willing to spend money and make mistakes. I've learned I don't have to smile to be beautiful.