Sins of our fathers

Today would have been my parents forty-something wedding anniversary, if they had stayed together. Instead, they were divorced after twenty something years and eight kids. That happened when I was eight, and I lived with my mother growing up, not really seeing my father much until I was about sixteen. At that age I asked my father why, in his opinion, did he and my mom split up?

He gave me a few reasons, the main one being  that he and my mom had too much miscommunication. He also mentioned feeling unappreciated by my mom, and instead of communicating that clearly, he sought appreciation from other sources. When I told my mom that dad had felt unappreciated, she seemed surprised. How could he feel unappreciated? She gave him eights kids, dinner on the table at five each night, a clean and comfortable home, what else did he want?

Before my husband (who is also from a broken home) and I got married, I distinctly remember us having a conversation about the importance of communication, and how we would strive to be better than our parents. We would make it work where they couldn't. We wouldn't repeat their mistakes.

Now here I sit, eight and a half years later, and he and I are in the middle of a divorce. The reason? I would say the inability to communicate.

Pride comes before destruction, it seems.

There are other things. Two people who have spent more than half their marriage apart from each other shouldn't be surprised when they wake up to find they have changed, and they didn't change together. But you could have knocked me over with a feather several months ago when my husband informed me that he didn't feel appreciated by me. I was astounded. How can you not feel appreciated, I ranted, when I've given you two beautiful children, when I've waited for you on deployments, and wrote to you every day, and gave you love and support and on and on and on and on and oooooooooooonnn.

It dawned on me recently (like, Monday) that my way of thinking I was being appreciative was not his way of feeling appreciated. It never occurred to me to ask him how he needed me to show support, because I just assumed what I was doing was right, or good enough. It never occurred to him to tell me different because he's the "suck it up and keep it to yourself" type. Comes from being a Marine, I think, and also the home he grew up in.

Ironically, when the whole thing was laid out, it turned out we were both feeling the same way: Unappreciated, and in some ways unloved and disrespected. Who knew? Neither of us.

Better than our parents?

Hmmm...