I don't write much about my ex-husband.
Not my children's-father-ex-husband. I write about him. A lot. I am talking about my first ex-husband. The one I married completely for love.
I know that sounds like a bit of a contradiction, to say you marry for love. Of course you do, marry for love that is. I did, but I did the first time without having any other requirement list to accompany the love. Most of us don't. A requirement list? How much more unromantic could that be? So I didn't have one. Yes, he had to be single and heterosexual, breathing, born male, willing to live in my time zone if not in my zip code, and not have been convicted of any felonies that involved things we all would rather pretend did not exist in the world.
That said, he met 99% of my basic unwritten list. He missed-by-this-much the being single part, since technically he was still married to his first ex wife at the time he popped the question to me, but that worked itself out within several weeks, and, since I said before, I was in love and had already said yes, this wait was just a footnote in what was planned as forever.
This was seriously before I saw the movie "Perks of Being a Wallflower". I know, what can you learn from watching another person relive their high school trauma? Just this: You accept the love you think you deserve.
My ex was a great guy when I met him. Funny. Cute. Into me. He could cook, he liked the same music, he was willing to learn to dance. I can remember our first kiss. I can remember the day he gave me my engagement ring. I can remember the last time we made love.
I can also remember that he gave me pots and pans as a gift on our first Christmas. He said it was so he could cook for me at my house. He worked most evenings as a chef for a restaurant, so I cooked for myself a lot. I used my old pans. I eventually bought for him a set of professional cookware that I still have hanging from a pot rack in my kitchen. I love them. That other set that he purchased me? He took what was left of them when we split up.
I can remember that at first we went out dancing at the club we met in. I loved to dance, and prior to meeting him was out in the clubs 3-4 days a week. Turns out he hated dancing. He never really learned the steps. He didn't really want me dancing with anyone else (my gay friends excepted) and so, eventually, I stopped going dancing.
I remember the conversation we had early on about cheating. About how I had never, not once, ever cheated on a boyfriend. And while I had been unceremoniously dumped a couple times by boys who wanted to chase someone else, I had always appreciated the guys who did that over the guys who stepped out. I wanted my ex to know that while I hoped he would not want to stop being with me, that if he was heading that way with someone else to please have the decency to end our relationship first before jumping into bed with someone else. I was totally in for doing the same. Wanna guess how well that ended up working?
In all that I somehow learned to accept less that what was presented. I was presented with a "great guy" who initially was a dancer, a short-order cook, and a faithful partner. And when that was not fulfilled, I accepted it. I mean, I had married the guy. I had made the commitment without the requirements list. I had married for love. I accepted the love I thought I deserved.
I did that a couple more times since then, accepting what I must have thought I deserved, sure (or convinced?) that I was too fat, to ugly, too stupid to deserve better.
I have changed. I think better of myself and my desires now, and have spent a little time thinking about how I got to that frame of mind in the first place. Family history, traumatic events, life, all just getting in my own way. I might just be alone for a while more. I am okay with that, because I love myself a whole bunch now, and if accepting the love I think I deserve is true, I am getting everything I deserve, and more.
