The Ex

I got married in the fall. Georgia is hot and muggy much of the year. I imagined we would be married for several years before having children and having a fall anniversary date would be conducive to making love all day once a year on our wedding anniversary. 

I soon was unexpectedly pregnant and learned I was pregnant around the time I was realizing "I'm married to a jackass and this was a mistake." Had I not turned up pregnant, I likely would have gotten divorced around the time my first child was born.

In Germany, while we still had only one child, I arranged overnight daycare when my husband had some job-related social event we needed to attend in the evening, imagining it would give us time alone and we would make love until the wee hours of the morning. 

The man I married in part because at age eighteen he said to me out of the blue one day "I'll meet your needs. All you have to do is ask." didn't have sex with me at all that night. Instead, he picked a fight with me and we fought until the wee hours of the morning, something we did regularly, no daycare expenses required.

During our long, drawn out divorce where we continued to live together for over a year while separating our lives, while desperately trying to walk away from a stupid argument while he followed me around and refused to drop it, I told him once "I'm trying to escape the metaphorical prison of our marriage. I don't exactly see going to actual prison for murdering you as an improvement."

Another time, I told him under similar circumstances "The one and only time I can get your undivided attention, I desperately wish you would go back to ignoring me like you usually do."

On a third occasion while he again refused to stop fighting with me no matter what I did, I told him "We could have made this marriage work if you had spent four to six hours straight in bed with me ONCE for every TWENTY times you spent four to six hours straight arguing with me."

That finally put a stop to the nonstop nightmare where he only spoke to me to fight with me and then wouldn't shut the hell up no matter what I did to desperately try to make peace and have ANYTHING but THIS SHIT. 

I don't think the marriage failed because of ME.