Wedding Woes and Alcohol Part 1

This is the weekend of my second wedding anniversary. I find that there is no way to avoid the abject humiliation and soul crushing depression that happens when you're sitting at home, alone, cuddling with your dog and binge watching "Orange is the New Black" on your second wedding anniversary. Especially when your husband is off to somewhere, with some people, in some place--none of which you know anything about.

I don't blame anyone for wondering: "Wow, what was so bad about their marriage that her husband filed for divorce less than two years after marrying her??? Is she crazy? An adulterer? An unruly lush?"

Not an adulterer. Crazy? Unruly? Lush? Well...those are all subject to interpretation. Other stories for another occasion. Today, I'm starting the story of how I demolished a happy, healthy relationship with my husband, and crumbled a marriage in less than two years!

In regard to my current situation, today I received this text from my sister:

Oh God, people are thinking about this!

While I appreciate the concern and support, it is a bit rough knowing that a whole bunch of people are probably thinking about, or hoping for, the same thing.

If I'm totally honest, the marriage really started to crumble before we were even married. My parents confronted me at the first Christmas after we were engaged, and compelled me to pick a date and start planning the wedding. That was the beginning of the end...

First of all, it was a lot of choices. Making decisions is not my strong point. I have historically struggled with flexibility as well. I was hell bent on a haunted, Halloween wedding at the Deerfield Inn, a famously haunted AND historical lodging in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains of Western Massachusetts.

I feel a deep passion for Halloween. It is my favorite holiday, and probably the only time I feel the same joy and excitement of a child on Christmas morning.

Basically, Halloween is awesome. My husband and I even went so far as to meet with the event coordinator at the Inn. She told us that we could spend our first wedding night in the haunted room. I was almost giddy with excitement. I envisioned myself with a Halloween wedding/wedding dress something like this:

What I actually looked like was this:

And the wedding looked something like this:

Absolutely lovely, but entirely different from anything I had envisioned. Not Halloween. Not Haunted. Not Small. Not Personal. NOT ME.

I get myself into situations like this because I have a fear of confrontation. I also have an obsessive need to be liked by others. A true passive-aggressive, my own wants and needs get put on the back-burner in an effort to garner the approval and affection of others, to avoid conflict or any potential disapproval of others, and to present the illusion of flexibility. But like a true passive-aggressive, those needs are not forgotten. In fact, they are carefully stored in the file cabinet of my memory to be used at a later date: a date that it is too late to meet those wants and needs, but allows me to feel completely justified in using my overlooked wants and needs as ammunition in any and all future disagreements.

Compare and Contrast:

Actual Wedding

Wedding Envisioned

To my credit, I did on one occasion try to communicate with my husband how I felt about the wedding we were planning and why it made me feel uncomfortable. That attempt ended in an 8-hour sleepless night, arguing with my soon-to-be husband in his Grandparents' house, while his brother slept on the couch behind us. Eventually, I just yielded to his will. I loved him, and I was tired of arguing. That was actually the first major argument we ever had. It was also the first time I questioned if I was making the right decision.

Second of all, planning a wedding was a lot of work! I spent 3 days straight inside, never going out, barely eating or sleeping, and doing nothing other than composing our wedding website. The website thorough and, in my opinion, demonstrated the perfect blend of humor and sentiment. And while I'm pleased with how it came out, in retrospect, it is a bit unclear if it was worth that level of sacrifice and effort; especially since the marriage was well on the way to a divorce within two years. I tend to be a bit obsessive, and a bit of a perfectionist. Apparently, these sorts of characteristics can lend to a thorough wedding website, but an entirely unpleasant wedding.

Wow, 729 Days!

It was some time during the period between Christmas and the wedding (six months later) that things started to fall apart. First, everything about the wedding was turning out to be an enormous disappointment. Then, we had our first serious argument, and started questioning if I was making the right choice. But rather than follow through with the questioning, and either sorting through our troubles or making a difficult choice to end a relationship of several years, I decided to give in to him. Always, in the back of my mind, a voice reminded me that I was in my early 30's. And, sadly, I believed that it would be unlikely for me to ever get married or have children if I broke off the wedding.

I also truly loved my husband and wanted to share my life with him. So I put my thoughts and feelings aside, and at that point, I began to drink...a lot.

Little did I know, at that time, I would be childless and alone two years later. But in the meantime...

To be continued...

For full wedding website: http://www.theknot.com/wedding/Garrett-Elizabeth