From the beginning, Part 3- Pregnant and Alone

First of all I must apologize that this part of the story has taken me a month to write... it's definitely the most painful part of it all and I don't like to relive it if I can help it. Also, Colby and I were both less than stellar in some of our behavior and treatment of each other during this time. I don't want to sugar coat any of it, but I also don't want people to get the wrong impressions and make judgments of either of us based solely on things we said and did during this very tumultuous period of our relationship. So, forgive me for taking so long. It's a pretty sensitive subject and it has been difficult to know how to approach it all. I hope I have done it justice without being either too forthcoming or too withheld.

Second of all I must address something I neglected to mention before... another HUGE factor in our downfall was the fact that I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder when I was 14 years old, and medicated consistently for it up until shortly after we got married, when I randomly went off my meds cold turkey a few times. At least once it was because we lost medical insurance, but I think most of the times it happened were when I would miss a few doses and think, "Well, I still feel fine, so I must not need my medication anymore," only to realize a month or two down the road that I was still in sad, sad mental and emotional shape. When we separated, I had been off my medication for a few months and I know that was absolutely a factor in the way I treated Colby. I went back on it immediately after our separation, only to go off again when I found out I was pregnant. I am happy to say I have not been medicated ever since then and I'm doing just fine now. Thank you, counseling, self-discovery, and personal growth!

Alright, on with the story...

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There are still some songs I can't hear without a wave of bitterness, heartache, and even sometimes residual anger washing over me. I hate that I'm still affected by them in this way but thankfully those feelings continue to fade with time. Hoobastank's song, "What Happened To Us?" is one that was almost a bit of a premonition for me. When I first heard this song, we were still together and, on the surface, happy. It nearly made me cry, because I thought, "This song could so easily be about us if we screw things up." After the separation, I couldn't hear it without falling into a sobbing mess of tears.

I felt so very alone in my situation. Pregnant and "single," but still married. How many people were in my shoes? I felt like I was the only one. I'm sure I'm not the only person who has been there, but I'd never heard of anybody. None of my family or friends understood. I felt like all of the other pregnant, single women were single because their pregnancy had complicated their relationships and the fathers had run off to become deadbeat dads. I know people assumed that was the case with us, but Colby had left the marriage prior to either of us knowing we were going to become parents.

I wanted so badly to work things out, but Colby moved on pretty quickly to a female friend he'd had for a few years. She was fresh out of a long-term relationship as well, and I'm sure they both found comfort and solace in each other. This was, and still is, the hardest part for me. Our breakup had been a long time coming, especially for Colby, but I'd been in such denial that it hit me like a ton of bricks. My whole world was torn out from under me. All of my hopes, dreams, and plans for the future were instantly destroyed. I'd been so dependent on Colby, on our marriage, for my happiness, that I didn't know how to function without him. I didn't know how to be just Karyn.

I was on the biggest emotional roller coaster ride of my life. One day I'd want to do everything I could to make "us" work again, and the next day I wanted nothing to do with him ever again. The pregnancy only compounded this, I'm sure, with all those extra hormones running through me. On the days I felt so much hatred for Colby, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do about this new life growing inside of me, this child that would be part of him. There was a little voice that said, "Well, there's always abortion, you could just tell everyone you had a miscarriage," but I knew I could never do it. My next option was adoption, but I didn't think I'd have the strength. I had wanted to become a mother for so long... how could I give up my baby, my own flesh and blood? Deep inside I knew there was only one option; I was going to keep my baby.

I wanted to try to involve Colby as much as possible in the pregnancy, but he was reluctant. I had hoped that being a part of it would make him realize what he was going to be missing out on and want to be a part of our lives, or at least to give things another shot. I invited him to my appointments, to ultrasounds, to hear the heartbeat for the first time, but he couldn't separate "the baby" from "Karyn" and he didn't want to spend any time with me. I complicated things. I made his life harder. So he backed away, thinking it was best to avoid conflict, and in turn, I grew more and more angry at him for what I saw as a refusal to be involved in his child's life. After a while, I blocked him out intentionally. When I found out I was having a boy, I swore everyone to secrecy and I made my MySpace page private so I could post updates without him being able to see them. If he was interested in knowing details, I wanted him to come to me and ask, not to find out through the grapevine or the internet (of course, there was one person, who told another person, who told someone else, and it got back to him anyway). This backfired on me, of course, and only served to create more hostility between us.

When I was about six months pregnant, my focus became centered on myself, my baby, and on surviving. I went back to school, and I went back to work part-time. I was intent on becoming an independent, happy, single mom. I moved beyond hoping for reconciliation and accepted things the way they were. A month or so later, as I was nearing the end of my pregnancy, things became a lot more friendly between Colby and I. I was no longer pressuring him to be in a relationship he did not want to be a part of, but I also believe the lack of significant contact between us had been a good thing. It gave us both a chance to go longer than a week without getting into an argument and reminding each other exactly how much we couldn't stand to be around one another. Unfortunately, I sometimes have a problem with not knowing when to keep my mouth shut, and in one fell swoop I managed to sabotage any hope of us being on friendly terms in the foreseeable future by insulting his girlfriend during a conversation we were having online.

A few weeks later, I called Colby from the car as my dad sped to the hospital. I figured I owed him at least that much, to know that his son was about to be born. He was at work an hour away and didn't feel comfortable coming to the hospital to sit in the waiting room full of people there in support of me, and we both knew I wouldn't want him in the room. I didn't realize it then, but he wouldn't have made it anyway. I was 8cm dilated when I arrived at the hospital, and I'd only been in labor for just under 3 hours. I hadn't even recognized it as labor until 2 hours in. I was only 37 weeks along, and knowing that most first time moms go beyond their estimated due dates, I was expecting another 4 weeks of pregnancy. Our little man had other plans, though, and he arrived 3 weeks early after just over 4 hours of labor on March 11, 2008, at 2:31am. He weighed 6lbs, 9oz, and was 20.75 inches long with apgars of 9 and 9, and was absolutely beautiful and perfect in every way!

Next time in Part 4: Single parenthood

From the beginning, Part 2- Divorce sucks!

"I don't have any more 'try' left in me. I just don't love you anymore. I'm sorry. I think... I want a divorce."

It was July 13, 2007. I don't think I have ever felt so broken and desolate. They say you don't know what you've got until it's gone, and I never knew the truth of that statement until the day I found myself staring divorce right in the face. I was pitiful enough to actually get down on my knees and beg. I pleaded with him to give me another chance. "Just one more chance, I promise this time it will be different!" But he was broken down, too, and felt he had no more chances to give. How many times had I told him I would change? There were many, and I always did so well... for a while. I was so good to him, I treated him respectfully, but somehow I always managed to fall back into my old ways, and he just couldn't believe me anymore. He knew it wouldn't last.

So I packed a bag and went to my parents' house and told them I was going to be divorced at 22. In the shadow of their happy, stable, loving, 36.5 years of marriage, I felt like a complete and utter failure. Hadn't they taught me by their great example what a marriage should be? How to love and cherish? How to honor and respect? All I could think about was how embarrassed I would be when the word started to get out. I didn't want to face the smirks, the knowing glances, the "I told you so"s. Everybody said we were too young...

Where had we gone so very, very wrong? I didn't figure out the answer to this question right away. In fact, I don't think I really got it until a couple years later. There were a lot of different factors that led to our separation, a lot of stupid things done, and a lot of selfishness on both of our parts, but looking back, none of them were THE reason. They were all products of the reason, which, as discussed in Part 1, was the precedent we had set in our friendship and early dating relationship. He would do anything to get my attention, and I took full advantage of it. Age and immaturity also played a factor, I'm sure.

In the days following, I think I went through the entire grief cycle about 500 times, frequently getting stuck on denial, anger, and depression. Just when I thought I'd come to accept it, I'd cycle back around to bargaining and try to convince Colby that we could work it out. There had been, of course, the initial shock upon realizing that my husband was really leaving, but it was nothing in comparison to the shock I was about to experience.

On July 29, a little over 2 weeks after Colby and I separated, I was sitting at the river by myself, thinking, crying, praying to whatever or whoever was out there to listen. The very last thing I remember saying was, "Please, just send me an angel or something... someone to get me through this." I looked around, my eyes still blurry with tears, half expecting a handsome stranger to walk out of the trees behind me, when it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn't gotten my period. I'd been expecting it a couple days earlier, so I got in my car, headed to The Dollar Tree to pick up a couple of pregnancy tests, and headed home.

I was so dizzy with shock when I saw TWO pink lines in the result window that I literally almost fell over on my head. I called Colby to tell him. Neither of us were expecting it. I remember thinking, "This is the proof that we're not supposed to get divorced. This is the glue that will hold us together. We'll work this out." But Colby could hardly believe that I was really pregnant, and he definitely still didn't believe that there was any chance for us. He felt broken and beyond any hope of repair.

My journey to single motherhood had officially started. I'd been granted the angel I'd so desperately needed.

Next time in Part 3: Pregnant and single (apparently I'm too long-winded to have even thought I could combine that with the divorce part)!

Colby's perspective on our almost-divorce

I decided to have Colby write his perspective. I thought it might be interesting for people to hear it from both of us how and why we think things went sour. Who knows, maybe it'll help someone! So, in continuation from Part 1- Marriage is HARD!, here is Colby's side of the story.

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I knew then that marriage wouldn't be easy, I never said it would be. I was just hoping that it would only be as hard as dating is. I mean, really it's the same concept. From the start things were rough. Being overworked and underpaid is hard enough without adding on top of that doing your portion of EVERYTHING.

I've never been a very neat person, a little mess never hurt anyone. I've also not ever been known for my motivation to prepare meals. I like cooking as much as the next guy, but having food brought to you is so much nicer. And that's what wives do, right? They bring the food to you in your lazy chair while you watch TV. I'm sure I would've fit in during the 1950's. Or maybe it would have been fine, if she wasn't already doing the same amount of work outside the house as me.

So there we were. Lazy and resentful. I'm sure I could've done a lot more to be a worthwhile husband, but I just didn't. It's not that I felt she didn't deserve it, I guess I felt I had reached a goal and didn't need to concern myself with the minor details I had before.

It wasn't even 6 months into the marriage before we started hitting rocks. Big rocks that can sink ships. Instead of fixing the ship or removing the rocks, we pushed on. The relationship should just take care of itself. Saying that we both made mistakes is kind of like saying that it tends to rain in the northwest.

I would never claim to be innocent in our transgressions, but that wasn't my reasoning for leaving. I didn't factor in what I had done as reasons to leave. Those were just the things that I had done that I had to deal with. We had been doing the same routine for at least a year. Identify the problem, fight about the problem, work to resolve the problem, be satisfied with the results then relapse 3 months later. I read something recently that really applied to how I felt and acted: "Women show a lack of love with a lack of respect. Men show a lack of respect with a lack of love."

By the time I had told her that I wasn't able to try anymore, I had been out of the relationship for months. Nothing mattered at all. I didn't care about the apartment I lived in, the car I drove, the things I had. I didn't care about my appearance and probably most importantly, my relationship. It wasn't a fight that drove us apart. No anger, no final straw. It was more like a weight that had been bearing down on the relationship for so long that it just was destroyed. It didn't even resemble a functional marriage. Looking back at it, I'm glad we almost got divorced, it was the only thing that could possibly reset our relationship.

Next time: Part 2- Divorce SUCKS!

From the beginning, Part 1- Marriage is HARD!

Preface: I guess I consider my adult life to have 3 distinct time periods. There are those of you who met me in high school and knew me when I was a newlywed. There are some of you who met me while I was a single mom going through a rough divorce. There are still quite a few more of you who have only met me in the last year and a half, after Colby and I got back together, and maybe had no idea that things weren't always as peaceful and loving as they are now.

Colby's commentary has been added in italics and parenthesis below. :-)
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Colby and I met in high school. He was a freshman and I was a sophomore, and we were both in band. I played the trumpet, and he sat directly behind me in the percussion section. We didn't really know each other for the first year we were in school together, but sometime at the beginning of his sophomore year, we started talking and spending time together. I'm fairly sure he was into me immediately, but his feelings were not reciprocated. So, for the next two years, he spent a good portion of his time trying to impress me. We spent many waking hours together and we were the VERY BEST of friends. Anyone who didn't know better was sure we were actually dating. I can't even tell you how many times I told him, "I love you as a friend, but that's all. You need to get over me, move on, it's never going to happen for us." I think he tried really hard to get over me, too, but he just never managed to (the thing is, she really liked me and she just didn’t want to admit it for some reason. It was probably my old haircut. She “fixed” it a few times).

I still remember so clearly the day I started to feel like maybe there was more between us than just a friendship. I had graduated, and he was in his senior year. I had broken up with my boyfriend a couple of months prior, and he was single and still pining after me. There was nothing different about the day itself (except that I got some pro advice to act like I didn’t like her all day. It worked crazy good!). We were just hanging out like always, but for some reason, I couldn't stop thinking about how much I wanted to kiss him. He knew it was coming because I'd been eluding to it all evening, but he was too chicken to make the first move in case he was wrong, and I'd been worried that it would somehow mess up the friendship we had. Finally he said, "I think you want to kiss me," and so I did. There really aren't any words to accurately describe how that moment felt, so I won't even try. Needless to say, it was a turning point. Just over 6 months later, he proposed to me at his senior prom, and 4 months after that, we got married. 

Everyone told us marriage was hard, and we always said, "We know!" But the truth is, you don't really know until you're experiencing it. And when you're 18 and 19 years old, the "hard stuff" can get overwhelming pretty quickly. We hadn't even been married 6 months when second thoughts started making their way into our relationship, but we kept at it. We did the best we could, but it's hard when you're both still trying to figure out who you are. There are a lot of variables and selfish, immature actions on both parts that led to our separation, but I think the key factor was probably something that my dad said to Colby when he asked for my hand in marriage. "If you want to marry her, you need to realize that she is an in-charge person, and there is going to come a day when you want to be the man of the house, and she might not take too well to that." (He also told me later that women go into marriage hoping that their man will change, men go in hoping their woman won’t…. powerful stuff). Basically, I didn't have enough respect for him to actually let him wear the pants in the relationship, and while he'd been content to let me run things up to that point, eventually it was going to get old.

And it did.

Unfortunately, I was too stubborn and set in my ways to change. I tried. I really did! But by the time Colby had had enough of me, we had been following the same pattern for almost 6 years. It's pretty hard to change the dynamic of a relationship with ruts as deep as ours had become. 

Next time in part 2: divorce!