When someone close to me is going through something serious, I have a hard time getting it off my mind. I want the best for everyone I love and it's a pain in the ass when you realize that maybe some things just aren't meant to be. A friend of mine, two very good friends actually, have hit a rough patch in their 12-year marriage. They're both around my age and met waaaay back in 2001 (I introduced them). After about a year together, they married, my accident having made them realize how short our time on earth is and that they wanted to spend their lives together. Because of that, I was one of only a handful of people at the wedding. For the next decade or so, they flourished as a couple. They were happy, loved their work and spent a fair amount of time traveling together. Then, they began to explore the idea of becoming parents. They'd gone back and forth about it for years, wanting to do as much as a couple as possible before adding kids to the mix. But this chick was born to be a mother, she's one of the most caring and loving people I've ever known (I felt the same way about MOC during our time together and she's turned out to be an amazing mom). They began asking what parenthood is like, what the upsides and downsides are, etc. And then none of us heard anything else about it. We all figured they'd changed their minds so we never mentioned it again. In June of this year, she texted me and said she was moving back to her hometown and was going to work on getting her Masters degree. When I caught that she didn't include her husband in the scenario, she quickly corrected herself by saying that he would commute between NY and her hometown, and added that everything was fine between them (even though I didn't ask). That was the first hint of trouble. And things have only gotten worse since then.
As the months rolled by, friends and family began to notice that one of them showing up to an event without the other was becoming a common occurrence. At first, none of us connected the dots because we're rarely all in the same place at once and these absences were little more than a, "No, he/she wasn't there" sidenote in passing. But DMC's new wife pointed out that a lot of the changes the female friend has been making are the kind you'd expect of someone just out of a relationship. Worried, I bit the bullet last month and asked if everything was okay. And the response was not at all what we'd expected. Everyone assumed her decision to go back to school was spurred by the loss of her job. Instead, we were informed that they'd been trying to have a baby for the last two years only to find out that it's highly unlikely it will ever happen. That's why she's opted to make so many changes lately. And everything since June makes a ton of sense now that the last piece of the puzzle has been inserted. And I feel awful. It sucks when people who don't want kids can have a mess of them, while those who do and would be amazing parents can't even have one. I know how badly she wanted that. Apparently, they were in the process of discussing adoption when she began making all kinds of changes without consulting him (moving, college, etc).
When this friend divulged all of this last month, he was just beginning to worry about the state of the marriage but decided to go with a "wait and see" approach about it all. He said he believed she was just grieving over all that had happened but would rebound and they would get back on an adoption track. What a difference a month makes. She was sick over Thanksgiving, so she stayed behind while he flew home for the holiday and he seemed encouraged by how upset she was over missing being with the family (you grasp at straws when things are that dire, ya'll). The plan was for them to spend Christmas with his family, but when he arrived home last week he was sans wife and wedding band. The ring could be nothing, they were both eternally forgetful of them for years, but her evasiveness when asked about her holiday plans is starting to worry me. All either of them will say about anything is, "It's fine", and according to DMC he genuinely seems fine, not depressed or sad or any of that. There's a rather large family event coming up this weekend, so if she doesn't attend that, it's probably time to really worry. I hope they can work it out because they're both wonderful people.
My sister and I talked about the situation this morning and concluded relationships are hard. That's not news obviously, but our experiences are quite different since I'm a manwhore (or what we call Manwhore Lite, these days) and she's been happily committed to someone for 16 years now. She says to me, she says, "Look, relationships are hard under the best of circumstances, I can't imagine them at the worst...". And I was like, dude...your husband's brother had heart surgery a year into your relationship, then ya'll were teen parents, then your best friend died and your twin almost died, then your son was born prematurely and deaf in one ear and then you adopted another son who is also deaf. Methinks ya'll have seen the best of times and the worst of times. And our exchange got me thinking even deeper about a story from my London travels. I went on a long-delayed blind date while I was there and the chick turned out to be two years out of a divorce. They'd met young, dated for five years and then married when she was in her late 20's (he was older by about five years). Less than five years into the marriage, the whole thing was over. He fell into a depression over some things and was unwilling to try and pull himself out of it, or let her help him in any way. They tried counseling but he was uninterested when he bothered to show up, which was only once or twice. For a year, she tried to get ish back on track and be there for him and love him out of the hole he was in but it just didn't work. The disconnect led to the revelation that they'd been having problems even before his depression and they just weren't in love anymore. They divorced and months later he realized what he'd lost and tried to get her back, but she'd moved on emotionally. I'm worried these two friends of mine are heading towards a similar fate. But I really hope that's not the case...
