Chapter 32: The Kaleidoscope of Divorce

From the book Making the Second Half Man

From the last chapter…

I struggled to stay employed and sane in a suburban life I hated, and one I sensed was not healthy for my children. This caused a rift between Terri and me.

And now for the next chapter!

The Kaleidoscope of Divorce

Examining a failed marriage is a lot like looking through a kaleidoscope. Each piece of broken glass represents one of the reasons for its failure. Some pieces shine more brightly than others, and you say to yourself, “That’s it! That’s why we didn’t make it.”

Photo by Brant Huddleston

But you are fooling yourself. In a marriage as long as my first one (nearly 30 years,) there are countless shards of broken glass, and no one is responsible.

Furthermore, when your former spouse picks up that same kaleidoscope and peers through it, the image they see is different from the one you saw. The pieces of colored glass have shifted, tumbled, and changed their relationship with each other. What shines most brightly for the Other is not the same as it was for you. Their explanation for the failure will surely be different than yours.

When I look through the kaleidoscope of my marriage to Terri, the piece of glass that catches my eye is broadly explained by author David Deide’s two classes of unhealthy men — the hot-tempered King Kong of the universe and the pathetic capitulating wimp. Both men are driven by their ego. Both are manipulative and controlling. Both are weak.

Sadly, I was both of them when I was married to Terri. If I couldn’t get my way with one character, I would try the other. I alternated between raging like a madman and capitulating like a pussy  —  both repulsive behaviors guaranteed to make matters worse.

I never found my center in that marriage, my North Star, the solid character who stays the course no matter how strong the gale or which way the wind blows. I still had not answered, much less grappled with, the explosive question: Who am I?

Me in the summer of 2006, the year Terri left