The stranger and me.

A lot of things my ex-wife said to me when she came out and asked for a divorce were wrong. One thing she got right though was when she said to me “You don’t know me AT ALL”.  At the time I thought I knew her better than anyone and I told her so. I genuinely believed it. Within days though she proved herself right when ‘the stranger’ arrived.

‘The stranger’ was a new version of the woman I loved with all my heart. The stranger was cold, detached, merciless and hell bent on a course to destroy our family. I was stunned at the change in her. Within the space of a few hours the girl I married was gone. Shock doesn’t even come close to describing what I felt as this transition happened in front of my eyes.

With the benefit of hindsight I can admit now that I did not know her. I realize now that my marriage existed mostly in my own head. She had checked out of the marriage months, if not years before but I kept soldiering on making the minute adjustments and compromises every day that kept the marriage alive in my heart while it died in hers. 

My wife never came back. The stranger stayed. It was impossible for me to reconcile in my heart and in my head that the person I loved and trusted completely was simply gone. With a lot of counseling it started to gel that I would never see her again so I decided to write my wife a letter. A goodbye letter. I gave it to the stranger to read. I told my wife that I loved her and that I appreciated all that she had done for me. I told her that she was a wonderful person and an amazing mother.  I ended the letter by saying “Goodbye my beautiful wife.”

I let my wife die that day. Not literally of course... but in my heart I separated my wife from ‘the stranger’. From that moment on I could grieve a death and remember her fondly as the person she was up until the moment she stopped loving me. I don’t know when that moment was but I will treasure for the rest of my life all of the moments I had with her before that.

I have moved on and today I am loved by someone else. The stranger still exists in her own world but I - by MY choosing - am not part of that world. The grieving has ended and it helps me to know that my marriage wasn’t wasted time or ‘all for nothing’. I was loved and so was she. I will always hold on to that and no stranger will take it from me.