Home of the Brave

It’s 2011.  This year will mark ten years since 9-11.  It will also be ten years ago that I called off my wedding.  The two are entwined for me because my ex called me on 9-11 to make sure I was okay – still looking after me even after it wasn’t his job anymore.

I’ve been thinking about him a lot in the last week.  One reason is that I saw The Fighter – and it reminded me SO much of Nick* and his brother, if the venue had been a hockey rink and not a boxing ring.  The other reason is that I know a lovely, strong woman who is going through the same thing as I did a decade ago and I wish I could stop her tears and tell her how much better it’s going to get.

I met Nick a couple years before we got engaged.  He was gorgeous.  I remember seeing him across the bar and I couldn’t stop looking at him, his eyes, his smile…everything.  My friend finally went over and got him to come over and that was that pretty much.  We became inseparable pretty fast. 

Nick and I could not have been more different.  Our upbringings were like black and white.  I was blessed to be born to a loving, traditional family.  We weren’t spoiled but we didn’t want for anything.  Nick grew up in a trailer park, pulled between parents, and going without the basic necessities of life at times.  I remember when my mom met him, and I said, ‘I don’t know mom, he says ‘youze’, I just don’t think I can deal.’  She said that if that was the only thing wrong that I could find about him, that I was way too picky and would be single forever.  I overlooked it.  Well, I tried to correct it at all times.  I also tried to correct how much he drank, the fact that he did drugs, the fact that he had trouble holding down a job.  I financially bailed him and his brother out over and over again. 

In the Spring of 2000, I went away to Australia and truth be told, I was considering breaking up with him when I got back.  But, the trip was cut short when we learned my mother had a brain tumour and I flew home. 

For the next nine months, Nick was incredible.  Others may disagree, but I would have never made it through without him.  He knew what I needed.  He knew when a silent foot massage was better than pressuring me to talk.  He and my mom became incredibly close.  I think he was the only one that didn’t treat her like she was sick.  I didn’t know it, but he had asked my mom permission to marry me when she was in the hospital and she begged him to look after me and make sure I was happy.

After my mom died, it unravelled.  I didn’t see it then but it did.  In May of 2001, we got engaged.  I paid for the ring.  Romantic eh?  I started planning this big country club wedding not taking into account how uncomfortable Nick and his entire family would be.  It was bizarre.  Then he just started to push me away.  He says it wasn’t purposeful but the drinking escalated, the drugs escalated.  He started spending my money.  And he started hanging out with his brother who, like in The Fighter, was in and out of jail and stuck in the rut of the life he was born into.  I truly believe Nick wanted a different life for himself but as my Dad wisely said later, it takes generations of people wanting change to move away from that life.

I had lunch with a girlfriend who said ‘do you really want to do this?’ and I said no.  I don’t want to get married.  So I called off the wedding but vowed that I still wanted to be with him.  He knew I was full of crap.  After a bender with his brother and my credit card, I walked into the washroom at work and started to sob.  I walked into my bosses office and said I need to go home and break up with Nick.  I walked over to my dad’s office and said the same.  Then I went home and waited.  When the words came out of my mouth, it was like a 500 pound weight was lifted off my shoulders.

He wasn’t happy.  My sister came and picked me up and she and I and my nephew headed to the cottage we had rented.  I cried through the night and in the morning she brought me a coffee and I said, ‘I’m done crying over him.’  She said she knew, gave me a hug and left.  I felt peace for the first time in a year.  Nick moved out that weekend.  His brother helped him and left notes all over my apartment for me to find about what a bitch I was etc.  I told Nick and they didn’t speak for months.  But brotherhood is powerful and last I heard they were tight again.

I have never ONCE questioned my decision.  Ever.  As my Dad also said, my life wouldn’t have been horrible.  He said that all a father wants is for someone to love their daughter and that he didn’t doubt how much Nick loved me for a minute but that our differences were too profound to overcome.  He was right.

What can I say to my lovely friend?

You WILL look back on this period and be empowered.  Not now, not in a month, but you will.  There are many, many women out there who don’t have the balls to do what you just did.  They are living in unhappy marriages full of regret or divorced and raising kids in two households.

You WILL find love again.  I haven’t yet but I don’t doubt that I will.  Maybe it will be this year – maybe it will be 15 years from now but I know that I will and so will you … and it will be awesome.

You are BRAVE.  People said I was brave to have a kid by myself.  I disagreed.  I do think it’s brave to walk away from something like a marriage when the ball is rolling, when the invites are done, when your friends are all getting married and when you choose to be happy and make yourself happy and not worry about the fallout.  You must be happy or you will never be happy in your relationship.

You will be happy again.  And you’ll find someone who you won’t need to change…because you never will be able to change someone, even with all the love in the world.  And you realized that in time my friend.  Good for you.

Oh and lastly, you can have an amazing family….all by yourself…if you want to!

*not his real name