This Is Why I Am No Longer Married, Part Negative One

Here is today's thought for the day: "Unhappiness is 99% selfishness."

Wow. Take a moment to let that one settle. Simple and yet...TRUE. Except I would probably bring the 99 down a couple of notches, to like say 98.3%. Just because it's my blog and I can if I want to.

I married an unhappy guy. We met, married and lived in New York City in the 90s where being discontent and disenfranchised was hip and part of the East Village/CBGBs mentality. He was the first seemingly "available" man I had ever met. He looked right at me and held my gaze, which is not easy for me to do. He told me he liked me and that he thought I was funny in the very first conversation we had. He said he would call, he told me when (the next day), and HE DID (holy crap). He did not attempt to make me jealous when he felt insecure by checking out or flirting with other women. When it came to me, there wasn't a game in the console slot of his person - he just dived in head first and, I guess, hoped for the best. How attractive is that, I ask you?

It was scary too - I needed a lot of help from my girlfriends. But wow. Such a compliment, a man who is blindly willing to trust that you're a good enough person not to stomp on his heart; who moves forward despite all the wiggy freak-out that shows up in one's head with new beginnings. Sounds about perfect, right?

Yet, if disgruntlement with the world at large was the badge of the very hip, then he was the Sheriff of the hipster posse. Okay, I was hip, but I wasn't very good at it. My glass has always been half full, even though I wore all black, berets and smoked with a cigarette holder. He was MASTER of hip, particularly when it came to disgruntlement. His glass was half empty - wait, no - three-quarters, dammit! People sucked, places sucked, things sucked. And, according to him, all of it sucked on purpose, like a plot to victimize all suckees. Just to fuck with your reality.

You think I'm exaggerating, don't you? I'm really not. Here's a regular day: We get up, it's too cold and the super in our building has made it that way because he's anti-semitic. We get dressed and the dry cleaner has not sufficiently cleaned his shirt. They don't like him because he doesn't tip. We walk to the subway and it screetches too loudly, because our tax dollars are used to line the pockets of the mayor so that he can take his mistress to the opera.

Are you feeling like tuning out? Because we're not even to work yet. The coffee guy put sugar in his coffee because he's jealous of his good looks, the elevator's too small because they didn't know how to build them in the 1940's, the bosses hate him because he knows the right thing to do before they do, blah, blah, blah - lunch. Which sucks. Meetings suck, rides home suck, dinner sucks, etc. I think that's probably enough for now, because in simple remembrance of these days my fingers have become depressed and are not willing to continue typing to finish out the example day.

In the beginning, of course, I attempt to counter all this suckiness by suggesting simple explanations or derailing the downer. The super himself is Jewish, I have never tipped the dry cleaner and grape juice stains for life, the mayor broke up with his mistress. Hey, look, the sun's out, there's your best friend, they cleaned up the park. But these things that I think are going to soothe and help make positive situations out of negative ones are lost on him and actually make him despise me for my light touch.

I think what's most amazing about my part in the whole marriage is that I couldn't see this simple fact for well over ten years: My ex is very, very comfortable in his discomfort - and really doesn't want life to feel any better. It would totally negate everything he has ever said and thought and he would then feel lost or like a complete horse's arse. But a curmudgeon he is and that is what he'll stay. And I wish him well in his preferred state of unhappiness.

Today I am grateful that I can hear the surf and feel the wind on my face and love my friends and family - and maybe even a man again, if only from afar. For today anyway.