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Marrying Mr. Wrong
She thought he was "the one." Did relationship red flags indicate otherwise?
by Isabel Rose
He says it has nothing to do with it: I told him we never talk, so he’s talking.
I say, “What about the baby?” and he tells me, with exasperation that I mistake for passion, that he loves me and is thrilled at the thought of becoming a dad. Suddenly way too exhausted to fight for our marriage anymore, I decide to feel reassured by his excitement. I decide to calm down. I decide to be happy. It’s amazing all the things you can decide to do when you really want something to work.
SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
It’s a magnificent morning. I tell my baby nurse I’d like to take my newborn daughter to the Baby Gap in the Winter Garden, which is attached to the World Trade Centers. Our conversation is interrupted when a plane flies by the window of my living room. A moment later it hits the North Tower. I think about the plane and my proximity to the buildings. My husband took an 8 A.M. flight to Washington, D.C., for a meeting near the Pentagon so I know he isn’t reachable. I decide that if a piece of the plane hit something on the ground, the whole neighborhood could go up in flames. “Let’s go,” I say to the nurse.
En route to the Upper East Side, I hear that an 8 A.M. commuter flight has flown into the Pentagon. Is my husband dead? I wonder. My husband isn’t dead. He sends an email to my father from his Blackberry many hours later. There is cheering and general rejoicing at my parents’ apartment. Intellectually, I’m relieved but I’m too numb to feel actual relief. As usual, I feel nothing in the moment; I feel nothing at all.
I lie awake most of the night watching the news. One station keeps playing the frantic phone message of a 32-year-old woman to her fiancé. The bereaved fiancé is in his early thirties, wearing a light blue Oxford shirt that matches his eyes; that matches my husband’s eyes. “She’s my soul mate,” he tells the newscaster between sobs. “I don’t want to be alive without her. I don’t want to be alive … ”
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1 Tony // Oct 7, 2008 at 2:16 am
I hate this drivel. Can’t understand why I have wasted my time with the neurotic ramblings and rantings of such shallow losers.
2 Tony // Oct 7, 2008 at 2:12 am
The blitherings of an overprivelidged spoilt person with too much empty time in which to create “dramas” where there need not be any. Grow the f*ck up!
3 Chris // Sep 22, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Not all women are worth marrying. Most I’ve meet should not ever get married. Can’t handle money, make meaningful sacrifice (having kids is a sacrifice, but if that’s what it took..wow, sad), can’t help in the kitchen, clean or figure out basics of life.
Honestly, I ended up marrying one of the sex in the city chick set. Your husband sounds very close to my behavior while I was married. So far from my divorce I’m glad in some ways I ended up getting raked in the coals for paying her debts over the years while married (72k) for the two awesome kids we had.
The kids now live with me because she understood that she barely took care of herself before kids and her molly home-maker skills were not there. She kept the house because it meant something to own a pile of bricks. I just wish sometimes that she would pay her child support, she makes as much as me (around 80k a year) and maybe take them to a park rather than the mall.
For those interested, child services ended up bring the kids to my place because her Mom wanted them to eat more than canned goods and take out. My 8 year old daughter and 7 year old son are now in the proper weight category for their ages, versus 120% over. Veggies, fruit, less meat, no salt, no pop, milk always and lots of visits to the park. Plus movie/pizza night on Fridays.
My ex is in her late thirties with a cabinet of pills ranging from the heart variety (bad eating), the happiness enhancers (lots of fun hanging around while someone switches from one SSRI to another) and the sleeping kind.
So far from the dates I’ve had over the past two years most women I have met really haven’t figured what they want out of life and I’m dating 35-45 year old women that continue with the nonsense that they are 20, savy and a character from a tv show. Men are a bit wary as well, and we put up those red flags as soon as we spot a phony. Easier to be called an ass than introduce our kids to someone that couldn’t find their ass with both hands.
4 Twinkle // Sep 19, 2008 at 4:48 pm
very angry with those guys like Benny ben & Russ.
Sometime we go through life looking and hoping for something special. good guy meets good girl and you think this equals perfect marriage. Both have been hurt, both have issues and because you both share pain and joy makes you think this is my perfect partner. We all meet for different reasons and connections but getting married isn’t necessarily the right answer, but because you have nothing good to compare it with or feel lonely it seems like the obvious answer. These decisions could be made with the best intentions but unfortunately we don’t learn this sort of decision making at school…we have to figure that out for ourselves which sometimes to late or wrong. And for the comment about him being a good guy, you never marry some because they are good but also you never stay with them just because they are a good guy, that is not the only critieria for marriage. Whoever wrote this message was inspired and found themselves..it is unfortunate that it happened in the aftermath of baby but we are all not perfect..plus we always want things work out..which really annoys me about negative posts because all you wanted to do is make yourself and your partner happy. The lesson to learn is to listen to your gut, those voices in your head ( even if you may doubt they are low self esteem) because deep down you want the best for yourself and if thats not what your getting then its time to move on!
5 Inside the Biden Marriage // Sep 19, 2008 at 3:42 pm
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