Our wedding was like a dream.
One night after 10 years of marriage, I dropped a bomb at dinner, "I want a divorce."
She didn’t scream or cry, but quietly asked, “Why?” I ignored the question. I didn’t know how to tell her I had fallen in love with someone else. I presented divorce papers, which I thought were quite generous. After looking over them quickly, she tore them up. We went to bed in separate rooms that night, but I could hear her crying softly. That bothered me, and I thought a little about our past…
We had had a good beginning together. She was the woman of my dreams. But somehow the magic disappeared. It’s difficult to say why or how. Our communication slowed and dwindled to a trickle. We lost interest in each other, and having a child didn’t help. We grew further and further apart, and nobody did anything about it. Well, once she tried to get me to go to a marriage counselor with her. But that was the last thing I wanted to do. They just think they know everything!
At some point I finally fell asleep.
In the morning, she surprised me with her own divorce papers. Feelings of guilt began to grow in me. I knew I had blown it.
The document contained the following conditions:
· She wanted no monetary compensation. Hmmm… Surprising.
· She requested that I stay for one more month and in that time we lead as normal a married life as possible. She explained that our son was already struggling in school and had exams to get through. She didn’t want to further upset him with our broken marriage. Reasonable enough.
· Her last condition was really strange: she asked me to remember how I had carried her over the threshold on our wedding night and requested that I carry her from the bedroom to the front door every morning on my way to work for the next 30 days.
I thought that was absurd, but just to make our last days together bearable, I decided to go along with it. I figured I could stand it for a month.
That first morning we were both a little clumsy and stiff. We hadn’t been intimate with each other for a long while… But our son clapped behind us exclaiming, “Daddy is holding Mommy in his arms!” His words brought me a sense of pain. She closed her eyes and said softly, “Don’t tell our son about the divorce.” Some strange feelings stirred in me and I thought some more about our past.
I had to admit, I had been pretty selfish. Although I had promised to take care of her for the rest of my life, I had not done much. I had hardly taken the time to ask her how she was doing, or what she was thinking about. I hadn’t been much of a support, kind of left her to herself. I remembered how she had tried a few times to get closer to me, but my shortsightedness, and possibly fear, had caused me to repulse her efforts.
The second day, it went a little smoother. She leaned on my chest, and I could smell her perfume. For the first time I noticed she had wrinkles. She looked tired.
On the fourth day when I picked her up, a certain sense of intimacy began to return. This was the woman who had given me 10 years of her life. A week later I felt an old familiar feeling growing, something akin to love.
As the month slipped by, it became easier and easier to carry her. I thought maybe the workout was strengthening my muscles. Then, on the last morning, I saw her trying on different clothes, frustrated that nothing fit well. I suddenly realized she had lost a lot of weight. Was I the reason? Then our son bounced into the room and said, “Daddy, it’s time to carry Mommy out!” He had obviously embraced this new tradition wholeheartedly. I held her tightly that morning, like on our wedding day. I could hardly put her down at the front door.
As I drove to work that morning, I made a decision. When I arrived at the office, I rushed in and told Jane I had changed my mind and would not get a divorce. She was shocked and angry… I was sorry, but I had decided I should be true to my wife till death do us part.
The marriage bed – a place of love, security and trust – or of walls, fear and escape
On the way home I picked up some flowers and wrote her a card, “I’ll carry you out every morning until death do us part.” When I arrived at home, I bounded up the stairs, nervous and excited to give her the good news. She was still in bed and didn’t react to my voice: she just lay there motionless. I shook her and called her name. I was so confused. I called the ambulance, but it was too late: she was dead. Her doctor told me she had been fighting cancer for months – alone. She knew she would soon die, and wanted our son to remember me as a loving husband, who had lovingly carried his mommy to the door every morning.
Oh, how I miss my wife! If only…
To make dreams come true, we have to make PRO RELATIONSHIP decisions every day