My Other Anniversary

We met in the spring of 1981, at a contra dance in a church basement just west of the White House. I was a 25-year-old "overgrown kid," who only a few months earlier, had piled all my possessions into a newly-purchased 1980 Honda Civic and left my home near Cincinnati, to come to Washington DC for a job with the Federal government. She was petite, demure, and I liked the way she looked at me when we danced. She was from Cleveland, and I was intrigued by the "three-bar cross" around her neck. She was "Greek Catholic," she said. I knew what that was, even though I had never met one personally. As the saying goes, "One thing led to another." By the end of that year, we were engaged. By the end of the following year, we were married. There was little in the way of "marriage preparation." Our pastor wasn't into that sort of thing, preferring to leave it to others. He wasn't much help later on either.

The wedding was on a mild, sunny day. My bride and I were crowned with flower wreathes around our heads, and were led around the icon stand in procession. The reception was at an old-style Virginia inn, with a few of our friends on fiddle and piano playing old time tunes. The bride annd I were the last to leave, still doing the "Salty Dog Rag" at nine in the evening.

We stayed together nearly eight years, much of it tumultuous. But I knew what "for better or worse" meant, and I walked the walk, believing that somehow God would provide. There were several miscarriages, in the midst of which we were blessed with one son, named Paul, for both his grandfathers. When he was born, I became twice the man I was, for I had been charged with the care of a precious gift from God. "Tadpole" was a bright and handsome little boy, who could identify eighteen makes of cars before he was two, and was climbing trees before he was three. His mother was an intense, controlling sort of woman, who couldn't leave a man alone for more than five minutes. But she was also extremely bright and persuasive, and most of the time she knew what she was talking about, or at least appeared to. For someone who went from living with his parents to living with her in such a short time, my going along seemed the easiest thing to do.

But after awhile, you resent being the "fall guy" in the house. And the one "in charge" comes to resent your weakness, even as she works so hard to exploit it. We went to counseling as things got worse. One therapist, who worked out of a Catholic parish, ended up doing more harm than good, as he admitted in the end to being a mere tool for her, in what he called "triangulation."

Thirteen years ago today, I came home from work. Instead of finding her and my son, I found a note.

What I have referred to as "my former life" ended that day, and my new life began. In time, I learned from friends and family (including members of her own) of how things looked from a distance. For many of those years, I was an angry man, beaten up for every mistake I never made -- if not by my wife, then by myself. When the bottom fell out, so did most of my rage. To this day, if I never have a life with a woman again, I am better off.

They can say what they will about the sanctity of marriage. But when ours was falling apart, there was little recourse for us. The years since have seen the onset of Promise Keepers, and attorneys who work to save marriages, not facilitate divorces. Too little, too late.

Or is it? I have grown old gracefully in those years. There have been a few bouts with depression, the fallout from years of physical and mental abuse. The challenge is to look forward. Even those who do not deserve forgiveness must sometimes be forgiven, lest their presence comes to rule over us, and the anger eats away at our very being.

I took to the dance gypsy circuit for the next few years, wandering from one gathering to the next, reveling in the whirling dervish. I still do that today when the need arises, and the highway calls.

I have learned to help others. The "separated and divorced ministry" in the Diocese of Arlington was a joke, bordering on malpractice (a story for another day). So I invented my own. I have given away over a dozen copies of Abigail Trafford's Crazy Time: Surviving Divorce and Building a New Life. It has helped many to help themselves. In every copy I sign the same thing:

"To X... because I'm on a mission from God. David."

And so, the mission continues.