Surviving My Ex's

This afternoon I had a dream about my first ex-husband. 

In real life, I was married to him for 17 months back in 1966-67. He was in medical school that his wealthy parents paid for. I was a first-year high school English teacher, commuting 25 miles to my job every day. I paid all of the living expenses--rent, food, gasoline, utilities, car repair--everything  with my $5,000/year salary. The Corvair, our only car, frequently broke down, leaving me stranded on the isolated country roads in winter blizzards and thick fog. My husband treated me with contempt and disrespect, and on weekend nights, he left me alone in our one-bedroom, sparsely-furnished apartment to go out to "male parties." 

Years later while writing the story of that relationship for my life writers' group, it seemed clear to me that he was sleeping with the girl he was still in love with who dumped him several years before we were married.

In 2003, I wrote to him on a whim. He was a prominent MD in a nearby area. I had legally changed my name 20 years before, and thought that if he ever wanted to be in touch with me, he wouldn't be able to find me. It was an upbeat 8 or 10-sentence letter in which I told him I'd had a happy life and I hoped he had, and here was my "new" name if he ever wanted to find me. 

I didn't include anything about how much I'd loved him and for all the years after I left him, I thought I saw him everywhere. I looked for him to show up where I was performing, and when I saw someone who looked like him, I'd nearly have a heart attack. 

He didn't reply to my letter, and I resolved to never intrude in his life again.

A year later, in 2004, someone sent me a letter with my changed name, with no return address. It was postmarked from the town where he and I had lived, typed on an old typewriter, and signed with the first name only of a woman who had been his friend back then. At least, I thought it might be her. In this letter, "she" told me that my ex-husband had just written a historical novel about his grandfather, with a love-interest character that reminded her of me, and that my ex-husband would be "very happy" to hear from me.

I wrote him, congratulated him on his book, and asked him if he wanted to send me a copy, or if I should order it. His jackhammer reply stunned me. He was in love with his present wife of many years. His life with me was a painful part of his past, and he never, ever, ever thought about me. If I ever contacted him again, he would consider it harassment. 

The words didn't sound truthful to me. I pictured his wife standing over him, dictating the words while he wrote them down. His wife is the only person who could have known my changed name and found me. I ordered his book. It was poorly-written, poorly-crafted--an awkward, even embarrassing entry into the world of literature. I thought about posting a review of it on Amazon and rejected that idea.

In my dream today, I was sending him the anonymous letter in registered mail to make sure that he got it and understood why I had written to him the second time. I wanted him to know what really happened. After waking up, I went to the computer and did a search for him. Surprise! The registered letter would have to go to a grave in a cemetary. He died in 2007, when I lived in Ohio. Hmm. Maybe he already knows about the letter and who sent it to me.

Now I'm wondering how I feel with two of my three husbands already vanished from life in their 60's. I'm a widow twice, and although I wasn't listed as a survivor in either of the obituaries, I am a survivor of those relationships. I think of how young we were when we married--I was still in my twenties for all three--how hopeful we were that we would create fulfilling lives for ourselves. I thought we would all live forever. 

I had the choice in all of those marriages to either submit to male dominance and live out my life in quiet desperation, or leave and have no one to blame but myself for my problems. When I left my third husband, after our band was no longer together on the road, I told him I had only one life to live--and it couldn't be his life.
 
Every time I get a new boyfriend, my psychiatrist of 20+ years starts shaking his head. His neck muscles jut out, and he reminds me between gritted teeth that I can't handle relationships like that and I must not start one. He's right.

These days I'm walking hand and hand into the sunset with myself. Since I couldn't be listed as a survivor on any other partner's obituary, I hope my friends and family will list me as a survivor on my own obituary. Wouldn't that just make us all laugh!