I feel like I should apologize.
After all, my mother was there, and saw the whole thing. My grandmother was honored at the occasion, and some of my best friends were on hand to see it all go down. My oldest brother stood beside me, I looked across the aisle to catch the eye of my sister. My father cried, at the time with pride and joy. I stood before God, and everyone, and said two words that would change my life forever: “I do.”
And, right now, I don’t. I’m not. I…can’t.
My marriage is practically over, and has been since sometime in June, maybe July, I don’t know exactly when it ended because I didn’t end it. My wife did. To be clear right here right now: I am not blaming Hannah for the failing of my marriage, I guess I should say, our marriage. I’m not blaming me, either.
Blame implies intent, and it was neither Hannah nor my intent to end the marriage we started three years, nine months, twenty five days, and roughly six hours ago. At this time then we were in our bed (no, don’t get icked out) reading all the cards we got, absorbing the well wishes of those who gave us their best on our special day, listening to the Atlantic Ocean crash against the beach.
When Hannah packed her bags and left this May it was on a relocation for work that happened to coincide with an agreed upon separation. Our marriage has been enduring my depression and mental illness and Hannah’s burden of caring for me and working full time. One or the other would have been manageable, perhaps, but not both. Also, two years back, I dealt her a hard blow: I de-converted from evangelical Christianity. In the process I inadvertently damaged my wife’s religion and her marriage. She married one person, one person who prayed with her during our wedding ceremony and stood before God to promise I wouldn’t ever hurt her, and now she was married to a person who now not only no longer had a God to promise to, but was adamant no God at all existed. In my religious self-destruction, Hannah caught a lot of shrapnel and collateral damage.
Along the way, we struggled with each other and ourselves over who we were, what we were about, and what we were doing with our lives. I, for much of the marriage, have been completely unable to answer those questions or even reasonably approach them. Hannah felt trapped and unable to assert herself, a self that continually diminished the longer she was with me. More and more of her life was spent trying to keep me on an even keel.
The failure of the marriage was my fault. Had I been mentally well and able to share my burdens and care for Hannah as a husband, and had I regained my faith, Hannah would not have felt so alone, so tired, so scared all the time. The failure of the marriage was Hannah’s fault. If she had stuck by her vows and her promises and not left me, she would have been around to see breakthroughs we never thought possible in my condition, and the start of me standing on my own two feet. But the failure of the marriage is not Hannah’s fault. It is not my fault. It is our fault. It takes two to tango, and just as strangely, it takes two to keep tangoing. One person dancing is not a tango, and it really doesn’t matter who stopped dancing, or who started dancing a different dance. When both partners stop being in harmony, the tango is over.
But, because the marriage failed and many of you were there to see it begin and witness the promise I made, I feel I should apologize to you for failing to uphold the marriage, for letting it fail, for not keeping it together. I’m sorry the words I spoke proved empty and vain. I am sorry that I wasted your time and your trust and your well wishes. I am sorry that I proved a failure as a husband and that you had to see it. It was never my intention, never what I wanted.
At this moment, I feel empty. There is a massive, gaping, bleeding hole in my heart and in my bed, and on my couch, and in my life. My wife is missing. I want her back. I really feel that we haven’t given this marriage our all, not yet. But I am only one person. No matter how hard I dance on the hard wood, I cannot dance a tango solo. I don’t know what is going on for Hannah, not anymore, so I can’t speculate or talk about that. Everything else in my life is finally starting to go right. As soon as I can get a job, I’ll be good. I just need someone to share it with for the rest of my life.
And since you were there to see me promise that of and with Hannah, and that has shattered: I offer my apology. And I thank you, for all your support and love along the way. I learned a lot from Hannah, she will always be incredibly special to me, and I will love her till the day I die.
Hannah, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I failed you. I wish you all the happiness in the world. I love you.
a simple man 