No Anniversary Dinner This Year: On Getting a Divorce and Growing Up in the Midwest

I.  On February 27, 1999 Helen and I attended the Foster-Walker dorm formal at Comiskey Park (as it was called then) in Chicago.  I was a senior and she was a sophomore at Northwestern.  We'd known each other for almost a year, and briefly dated the previous spring.  But with this date we officially became a couple.

That September I briefly went to Turkmenistan--one of the "Stans" carved out of the former USSR--ostensibly to join the US Peace Corps.  I'd begun the Peace Corps application process in January 1999, before becoming serious with Helen.  I carried forth with this process even after things were very serious indeed (we first said that we loved each other on May 12, 1999, after a perfect walk along Sheridan Road to the Baha'i House of Worship.)  My heart wasn't in it because I didn't want to be apart from Helen, but it seemed distasteful to walk away from the Peace Corps.  So I ended up going all the way to Turkmenistan, realizing how miserable I was, and coming back to the US...all in 72 hours.  I had no job (but eventually found a great job at the Massage Therapy Foundation in Evanston) and began living illegally out of Helen's Northwestern dorm room. I'd graduated the year before, and did eventually find an apartment in Chicago.

On February 27, 2000 we had dinner at Geja's in Chicago.  Thus began our tradition of sumptuous dinners to celebrate this special day.  On the train ride home I proposed to Helen, completely spontaneously, standing outside at the Howard St. El stop as we waited for the Purple line to take us back to Evanston. It was cold, but the heating lamps worked. (I didn't have a ring, and had to save up for it for the next several months.)  Helen said yes.

On February 27, 2001 we were married in a civil ceremony in Cook County performed by Judge Adam D. Bourgeois Jr. (who went on to have his judicial license suspended in 2004.)  This was a rather plain ceremony, and upon conclusion Helen pointed out that we were "stuck," always to be together.  I thought this was cute at the time, but in retrospect "stuck" wasn't the most romantic of all possible words.

Six months later, on September 1, we had a wonderfully romantic wedding celebration where family and friends gathered together.  We wrote our own vows, selected poems to be read in a sequence to represent the life cycle of a marriage, asked our musically gifted friends to lend their talents to the evening, and even choreographed our own dance to James Taylor's song "How Sweet it is to be Loved by You."  Va Pensiero, a 5 star  restaurant in Evanston, was our restaurant of choice.

Our vows were written in large part to acknowledge that marriage is difficult but precious, and penned on one glorious afternoon in Evanston in the summer of 2001:

"I will treasure your unique perspective and personality.
"I will always appreciate your love, as well as the many ways you express it.
"I will be committed to our marriage, especially during difficult times.
"I will strive to keep passion in the life we share.
"And finally, I will support your dreams, and work toward our dreams together."

The wedding ceremony was magical--absolutely unique, if for no other reason than that we were already married!  In addition to the vows, we wrote a "Lover's Conversation" to explain how we had fallen in love and to reaffirm our lifelong commitment to each other.  (The conversation is here.) Helen's parents and grandmother came from Hong Kong, and our friends and family came from around the country.  As it turned out, it took place just ten days before the September 11 attacks, the day that Helen's family was supposed to fly home.  They were stranded in the US for several days.  Looking back, it's hard not to see the wedding ceremony as taking place in a more innocent time when the biggest concern was that I needed to run home to get the credit card to pay the bill at the end of the night.

Although Sep. 1, 2001 was a glorious day, Sep. 1 wasn't our legal anniversary. So we soon settled into a gluttonous pattern of marking the occasion by eating at one of the best restaurants in whatever city we were living in at the time.  After I discovered blogging, I marked these occasions every year: 2005 , 2006 , 2007 , 2008.

In 2009 there won't be any anniversary dinner--nothing to blog about--because Helen and I are in the process of getting a divorce. Those precociously mature wedding vows (I was 24, Helen 21 when we wrote them) didn't prove binding forever. 

II. Requests for dissolution filed in Alameda County--presumably in all of California, but I'm not sure--only provide two options for why you're taking this step: "irreconcilable differences" or "incurable insanity."  You can only check one.  I laughed at the fact that I could have chosen insanity, but checked the irreconcilable differences box.

Both options include a citation to the relevant portion of the California code, so you can look up what they mean if you want to.  But the concept of irreconcilable differences is plain enough; two people with such different goals in life, or such little shared sense of what it means to live a good life, that soldiering on is pointless.  As I've often thought since we decided to get a divorce, I'd rather that we both be happy apart than neither of us be happy together.

But why? Weren't we a great couple? Yes, I think, we were an extremely unique pair that proved the old adage that opposites attract.  We like different movies, different TV shows, and have different interests.  So we were thrilled to discover a shared bond with the old ABC TV show "The Practice," which we started watching when we still had rabbit ears.

Dogging us through all these years were much more fundamental differences than TV or movies.  Helen never wants to settle down in one place, I want to eventually have roots somewhere (and the Bay Area is a great place to land, both professionally and personally.)  As long ago as when we lived in Evanston I attended a workshop about how to run for local government office; I was not very serious about doing this, but the idea of making a difference in the community was deeply compelling.  To do that, though, you need to stick around somewhere for a while.

We've never stayed in one place very long, from the time we left Chicago for Washington DC until now.  For that entire period, though, it always "worked."  The National Library of Medicine fellowship in Washington DC was two years, with a firm ending date.  This was a good reason to move up to New York (although I did resist leaving DC, because we left just as we were becoming rooted.)  The three years in NYC were magical; I will always love New York.  But Helen got into Berkeley, an amazing MBA program all the way across the country.  Meanwhile I landed what was by far the most important professional position I've held to date, at the UCSF Library.  It was an easy choice, really.

Now Helen is approaching her MBA graduation date, and the old travel bug has surfaced again.  She went to London last fall for a semester abroad, and from my perspective didn't really want to come back.  Helen and I met up in NYC a week before Thanksgiving last year, which was a chance to meet in the middle between London and Berkeley and to see some old friends.  But I felt a distance that weekend.  We were fine among groups of friends, but has very little to talk about when it was just the two of us.

Then, our European jaunt over the holidays--the most ambitious trip we'd ever taken, which we discussed as a much delayed honeymoon--confirmed that something had changed.  We generally bickered and had a thoroughly miserable time, despite my lighthearted blog posts that made it seem like life was perfect.  I traveled all around Europe wondering why she hated me. 

I don't think it's hate, just a profound and permanent distance that must be acknowledged.  Helen and I began dating when she was 18 and were married when she was 20.  This is quite young, and she told me last month that she wanted to be single.  I made some brief noises about getting a trial separation, but within days I knew that a full divorce would be better for me too.  Now I no longer have to pretend (to myself and to her) that I want to keep marching around the world, and I can get busy planting those roots in San Francisco.  Helen's going back to London by the end of May, with or without a job.

And oh...I really want to be a parent. That issue was rapidly becoming a larger facet of those irreconcilable differences.

So in the end, Helen's desire for divorce was shocking but not surprising.  Some things aren't worth saving, no matter how much they were once worth.  These tough issues--settling down vs. moving, parenting or not--were always stealthy companions in what was a happy relationship for many years.  I thought time was on my side here, because my desires were more typical of what people come to want as they get older.

I was wrong. 

III. In the midst of this tumult, and perhaps not coincidentally, I've become a passionate fan of Annie Dillard.  A passage from her autobiography, An American Childhood, has resonated with me deeply in recent weeks:

"So the Midwest nourishes us...and presents us with the spectacle of a land and a people completed and certain. And so we run to our bedrooms and read in a fever, and love the big hardwood trees outside the windows, and the terrible Midwest summers, and the terrible Midwest winters...And so we leave it sorrowfully, having grown strong and restless by opposing with all our will and mind and muscle its simple, loving, single will for us: that we stay, that we stay and find a place among its familiar possibilities."

I'm a child of the Midwest with great fondness for those growing up years.  There really is something to the cliche that Columbus, Ohio and cities like it are a "good place to raise a family."  So I know what Dillard is talking about, and am grateful that growing up in "the heartland" was the foundation for my life.

But I also know that Annie Dillard left the Midwest and didn't go back.  For a certain type of person, those "familiar possibilities" become constraining rather than comforting.  Life must be challenging and risky to be its most rewarding, and you're not as likely to find these attributes among well-traveled paths.

I'm not sure that I was such a person when I left Ohio to go to Northwestern (still in the Midwest, but at least a place where you didn't need a car to get around, an amazing novelty to me at the time.)  But I've taken many risks since meeting Helen, and with her I've seen much more of the world than I would have ever thought possible when I was growing up.

Now that lure of the familiar is calling, although like Annie Dillard I'm not going home to find it.  In SF the larger world is close by and the warmth I remember from Ohio is just as readily at hand.

I wouldn't be here in the Bay Area without Helen--in the trivial sense of her acceptance to Berkeley's MBA program, sure, but also in the more profound sense of the type of life we led together to make it to this point.  Sometimes I'm angry about how things turned out, and have a hard time acknowledging that anger.  Sometimes I'm sad, which is much easier for me to admit.  

Ultimately, though, I'm aiming for gratitude about the relationship we've had over all these years.  I think I'll get there.

Comments

[Allison Landa]

Oh, Marcus. This is ... is the word beautiful? Yes, it is. The depth of feeling and recollection here is beautiful.

Of course you and Helen would not be who you are today without the other. You pay wonderful tribute to that here.

Adam and I are here if ever you need us.

[T Scott]

When Sandy and I got married, I was convinced that it was forever. But after a dozen years we found that we had grown irreparably in different directions. It is now nearly twenty years since that marriage fell apart and it is still astonishing to me to realize that the relationship that I thought was "forever" was just one episode in a life that has now wound on through more than half a century. But I treasure and cherish those years. The best of what we had together was magical and wonderful and brilliant indeed and I am so grateful for what we had.

Sandy felt that the divorce invalidated everything that we'd had -- she didn't just lose the future that we thought we were going to have together, she lost the past that we had shared. I don't know if she ever got over that, and that is my greatest regret.

What you are trying to do is keep the best of what you had, and it is really important that you do that. Let yourself be angry and frustrated and despondent too. That's all part of it. A failed marriage, for whatever good reasons, is still a failed marriage and that is well worth weeping over. But as you move through the grieving, if you can still treasure and honor the best of what you had, you'll be stronger for it.

The years I had with Sandy were wonderful, and I'm thankful for it. I ruefully acknowledge the youthful arrogant idealism I brought to that relationship, and I've been humbler and better at relationships since. The sadness I feel over the breakup never quite goes away, but I wouldn't really want it to. That's a way of honoring it as well.

A broken heart can't ever be restored to what it once was. And I don't want to smooth the ragged edges -- I earned 'em. The amazing thing is how powerfully it can continue to love -- in many ways, even stronger than before.

[Kimberly]

Hi Marcus,

I was sent over here by Linda Socha who said I had a few things in common with you and might enjoy your blog. Just thought I'd say hi and introduce myself! This will be my first year without an anniversary as well.

[John Evans]

Hi Marcus,

Just wanted to let you know that I read this. We're here to support you however we can. I am so happy that you are in my life, and I appreciate the period of time when I knew you as part of a couple, too. Moving forward, I know that you will find new, maybe even unexpected, ways to be happy and content, too.

Sincerely,
John

[Christine Ngo]

Hi Marcus,

I am very sorry and sad to read this. I met Helen shortly while she was in London late last year. Please stay strong and know that you're never alone even on a path less traveled. Stay in touch.

Best,

Christine

[[email protected]]

Hi Marcus,
I am breathless reading these posts. I was so moved by the first one I serendipitously saw this morning on Facebook that I read it out to my grieving father. Somehow, the mutual pain we share, me the loss of my beloved mother and Dad the loss of his beloved wife, binds us closer than we have ever been.

I am much older than you at age 45 but I can tell you that the desire to be rooted and to know the familiar is much stronger when you are single. I have been single an awfully long, long time and consequently a bit of a nut. However, I am social and love people and being single is preferable to being in a doomed relationship.

I must confess to some guilt in not seeing these posts for months. Since my mother died in late 2008, I have been less than myself. I hardly sleep and I, too, have anger issues about her leaving me. I am (and will always be) a 'momma's boy' but I think I just plain loved dear old mom.

I hope your singlehood allows us to work together somehow (he says with other twinges of regret, since your efforts in this regard have been more productive than my own).

fondly
Dean

[Joyce]

I have to admit, I noticed your status had changed on Facebook, but I didn't dare ask about what had happened.

Marcus, I think you're very brave to be so candid about your experience and so mature for taking the perspective you have. I tend towards bitterness and despair, so I'm amazed at how well you're doing.

I think you both should be commended for being so mature and considerate of each other's feelings during what can be an otherwise excruciating experience.

Please let me know if there's anything I can do from afar. I hope you're well.

[Divorced]

I am in exactly situation as you are, except that I am "Helen"... less than a year since divorce, he found someone who is a replica of me physically.. that makes me think.. with or without me, there is no loss for him. Like you, "I'm aiming for gratitude about the relationship we've had over all these years"..7 years in total, easily replaced in less than 12 months.. I used to think too, that marriage is forever.. it can be forever.. but who is in it can change..