Dear Internet,
I wrote the below on September 9, 2014, a week after TSTBEH and I had split up. What I was so sure then has changed dramatically over the months that what I’m so sure of now doesn’t look like below.
But if you’re curious as to the demise of a marriage and why, here is where you begin.
I’m sleeping on the couch we bought for $3K and imported from Italy, which is doing a fine job of jacking up my back and hips. I thought after decades of being poor and making less than $12K a year, the trappings of having a big girl job and disposable income would cure most of my ills. Because that is how it works. You get your degrees and your post-new-American Dream life, and your world comes easy. Because NOW you have money.
Except, they forget to tell you your friends find it awkward to hang out with you in your fancy house (or you lose friends because now that you’re “successful” you apparently wipe your ass with $100 bills). The same friends who were with you when you were poor, ditched you when you’re rich. The same friends whom after you announce your seperation, with the exception of 2, did not offer you any kind of help.
That your soon to be ex-husband wouldn’t take a vacation or go on vacation with you since your honeymoon 4.5 years prior because it would eat into his aggressive plan for retirement savings. And if you can only hold out 15 more years! We can live in Europe — that’s what is really important. We do not live for today, but for 15 years hence.
The same person who stopped having sex with you two years after you got together because they had already been down that road before, so why bother? Then claimed to be asexual, then told you you could have lovers on the side but knew you wouldn’t because you wanted the big love, not the casual fling. (But through all of this, still found it appropriate to touch you in a sexual manner and was, teehee, just joking and really Lisa, we’re both just too fat to have sex.)
But on paper, everything was grand! You were walking around with 0 balance $30K in credit in your purse, driving a $40K car, and owned two properties in beyond desirable locations. And so what if your husband wouldn’t fuck you, or go out with you, or meet your friends, or who told you after you tell them you are getting sued for standing for what you believe in, “Oh fuck, we’re going to lose the house!” OR a myriad of other things — life could be a lot worse.
I had big love 9 years ago and it went away. I swore to myself I would never go without again or settle. But I compromised and settled. Because we’re adults and that’s what you do. Big love is for Romeo and Juliet, not aging alternative hipsters. Then big love came back, with book in hand, and quietly tells you it’s only been you all this time.
There was never anyone else but you. And you know this is true because you’ve found big love’s notes, piling up for years, across the internet. Searching for you. Waiting for you, for when you’re ready. Figure your life out, big love says, and come to me when you’re ready.
xoxo,
Lisa
This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2014, 2014, 2012, 2010, 2003, 1999