“Stop having conversations through text.”
We hung our heads in shame, knowing full well what sort of texts we’d been sending each other the past few months. Caps were used. Exclamation points and expletives sent through unsuspecting airwaves, as if reading them on a tiny screen made them any less powerful.
Our counselor – a small, sweet thing with sincere eyes who seemed slightly unnerved by my incessant tears and gritted teeth – had quite quickly figured out what we needed.
We didn’t need a band-aid for our broken hearts; certainly we were well beyond that, considering we were already living under separate roofs. We also didn’t need some cliche, love-will-prevail song and dance about finding our way back to each other.
Even though I wouldn’t have admitted it at the time, we were there to end our marriage.
Our first step on that path was to actually talk to each other.
We’d been together six years but married less than two. In that time, I’m not exactly sure how much we’d really done that. Of course, we’d chat about music and movies, divulge in friend and family drama, complain about work. But to get down to the real questions – like, did you really want to have a baby or were you just humoring me?
No, no. Real conversations were for successful marriages, and we were hell-bent on failing.
So when we began to not only talk but listen to each other, the tension in our shoulders softened, and the anger in our eyes was no longer a murky cloud, threatening our vision and speech. We were communicating for the first time in our relationship – and the conversation headed straight for divorce.
It’s entirely possible that if we’d kept not talking to each other, we’d have stayed together forever. Instead, we found a better, calmer place, where we are good parents and best friends.
We still text. Sometimes we even catch ourselves having conversations on our phones – which, at least in my case, now recognizes the spelling of the odd little nickname we chose to keep for each other.
Mostly though, we talk. And that works out quite well.
* Note: I think I have something pretty unique going on, and I’ve decided to write weekly about it. I’m not exactly sure why – maybe it’ll be a book someday, who knows? – but for now, it’s just me talking about my divorce, and the happy village/family we’ve created in spite of it.
