How deep was your love?

In my first marriage, we got together for reasons not involving love. I was 18 at the time and knew it was time to jump ship. This was the first cross roads in my life that I had encountered.  There were two paths. One would have been a path to self destruction, and the other would have been a path of self discovery and adventure. I chose the latter.

As time went on, we learned to love one another. The struggle we faced by being so young made it all that more intense. It taught us to go with the flow of things and cling to one another during those difficult times. We were the best of friends. It wasn’t until years later, when we started growing apart due to wanting different things out of life, that I  ended it. The time had come to be on my own and see what the world had to offer.

It was a mutual divorce and we split everything we owned. We sold the house and I had escrow issue two checks, one to him and one to me of equal amounts. I gave him all the furniture as I decided to move across the state and wanted to travel light. He kept his truck and I kept my car. We never had any children together because I never wanted any with him, but we did have my dog Sandy. In the end, he tried to keep her after changing his mind later once everything was said and done. But that didn’t last long, and he gave her back to me saying that I had made a big mistake. At that point, we went our separate ways and that was that.

As the years passed, I meet my second husband and moved over seas to Greece. I took it very slow this time. I waited a year before moving to Greece, and then we married a year and a half after we moved in together. We married for love and a deep love at that. We spoke in depth about how difficult our relationship would be, not only for me living in a foreign country, but also about the marriage by bringing together two different cultures.

In the beginning, the strain on our relationship was caused by his family and cultural differences. We couldn’t change the way his family felt about our relationship, but we were able to work out our cultural differences. We took both cultures, intertwined them, and made it our own. It was a relationship of compromise. Of course, I had to compromise more than he did because I was living in his country, but he tried the best he could to work with me.

At times, there were misunderstandings with one another. He had a difficult time with the English language. Translating what was said from English into Greek, more often than not, did not mean the same thing. During those times, we would sit down and I would explain in order for him to understand. We made it work.

From the day I met my second husband, I knew right then and there he was the man I wanted to have a child with. We waited a couple of years. Once we were both in agreement, it only took that one time and I was pregnant. We were ecstatic.  He accompanied me to every doctor’s appointment during my pregnancy (because the doctor didn’t speak English) and he enjoyed the attention while waiting in a waiting room filled with women. The pregnancy went smoothly, except for the fact I couldn’t gain weight. I remember he tried to fatten me up during that last month of my pregnancy by getting me Greek pizza on a daily basis. It was an exciting time for us. I don’t remember us laughing as much as we did during my pregnancy as we watched as I grew bigger and bigger. Hell, I didn’t even feel like I was pregnant!

Once our daughter came along, we were on cloud nine. We both wanted to teach her so much. We agreed that both Greek and English would be spoken in the home. He would speak to her in Greek and I would speak to her in English. As a result, she became fluent in both languages. For example, when we were both in a room with her and she was talking, she would be looking at me and talking in English, and then would turn to her father and continue her conversation in Greek. It amazed us.

My husband had always been a work-a-holic and would not only work the hours of operation in the country, but would also work evenings and weekends, including Sundays. But prior to my daughter coming along, he always made time for me on weekends. However, once we became parents, things changed. He got deeper into this work and the only time he would give us was Sunday afternoons. As time went by, the  time we had spent together became non-existent.

By the time my daughter was two, me and my husband began to grow apart. He got even deeper into his work and began working longer hours. There was not much of conversation left between the two of us anymore and when we did talk, it was about the business. He was always tired and didn’t have much time for us when he came home from work. I spent all my time with my daughter, and he spent all his time at work. And that’s where the story of this blog begins.

I gave the guy almost two years to work on the marriage, but during that time, he refused to do so. By the end of the second year, I had had enough. Things had gotten so bad between us and he still refused to work on the marriage. There were threats of kidnapping charges that entire last year I was there from fear that I would be leaving with our daughter. So the only way for me to leave was to say I was going home for a visit. Once gone, I started rebuilding my life. We continued communicating for a year and a half  on a daily basis and I was hoping that he would change and if he would have, I would have considered returning. Unfortunately, that never happened. He went on with his life and so did I. There has been very little communication since then even though we have a daughter together.

Once back in the states, my first husband came looking for me when he heard I returned from Greece. I didn’t even know he knew I had been there for nine years. When he found me, we began talking like two old friends. We spoke of the relationships we had been in with other people and laughed a lot about the past we shared. We were there for one another to talk to whenever we needed conversation. I remember one specific conversation we had when a mutual friend of ours committed suicide. We talked about how we were two individuals alone, and if we were to die, no one would ever know it. We felt we were destined to be alone for the rest of our lives.

We continued our friendship for a few years, I can remember when I got a job with the state and my car broke down. I didn’t wanna pass up the opportunity and he lent me his car to get to and from work for an entire week.

He was also there when I was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer or so I was told, and was sent to a cancer center. He knew I didn’t have family and went with me for moral support even though I never asked him to.

When he found out that he had two kids from an old girlfriend after taking a paternity test, I was there to give him advice on kids as he had never had any children before. He wanted to be a father so badly but the kids were already pre-teens at the time, and his relationship with them never worked out. I’ve never seen a father try so hard.

When he decided to travel across country with a new girlfriend, he contacted me when he was running low of cash and I would wire him money.

Today, I do not know where he is. Communication was lost because I uprooted myself and left the state. However, I do know that if our paths ever cross again, our conversations will be filled with what we had been up to over the last several years.

Having been in two marriages, I have learned the deeper the love, the harder communication is after divorce. I truly believe that there can be no deep disappointment when there was no deep love in a marriage, and perhaps that is why communication can just flow after divorce for those whose love was never deep love.

What do you think?