I almost ended my 30-year relationship with Vince over a lollipop.
Yes. A lollipop.
Before you judge me, or the kids start celebrating the fact that they will now get two Christmases, let me explain. I think I’m experiencing perimenopause and it’s kind of like being a teenager again in that your body and hormones are betraying you – turning you into a person you didn’t think you were. Unable to control your emotions or reactions to things as easily as you had before.
Plus, I get hot now and this is NOT normal. I’m usually a frigid ice chest all the time, wearing long pj’s to bed, house coats, and slippers. But I’ve woken up lately, covered in sweat and sometimes my ears feel like Satan himself is sucking on them. WTH is going on?!
I also think the tell-tale hormonal swings of “the change” were actually what caused my marriage to almost end two weeks ago. I think, because of perimenopause, I was ready to separate from my husband who I’ve been with for almost three decades…because he bought my kid a sucker.
Before we discuss what almost ended it all, let me level-set you on our relationship:
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- We get along the majority of the time (despite how much I make fun of him on social media)
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- We don’t have any big secrets or infidelities to cause a rift
Whoremones
Over the past month or so, small things have happened. We had a few arguments in front of the kids. This has occured before and, while I don’t love it, we also show them the good too. They see affection and apologies. They see laughter.
But for some reason, this month I started taking stock of the bad more than the good. The little fights we had in front of our kids recently tipped the scales…no, the scale wasn’t tipped, it was tossed on its side after one argument in the car over a friggin’ lollipop. My perimeno-mind, lacking its usual level of hormones, went slightly batshit.
The Bag of Bad Decisions
A few weeks ago, while on the way to Disney for the night to celebrate Gianna’s birthday, we stopped to get gas. Vince and Evie went into the store to use the bathroom while I pumped. They came out looking like thieves, holding a white plastic grocery bag.
Great. My nerves tinged a bit. I knew the bag held bad decisions. I wasn’t going to say anything at first though. Whatever, it’s a celebration day. They can have sugar. I was going to keep quiet about my thoughts until he got in the car and opened the bag.
Not only did he get her candy – he purchased her AND Marina a double-sided lollipop with one end being the sucker and the other a vat of liquid syrupy sugar. I have NEVER bought these for any of our children. I have never let them have them, despite years of begging. I don’t know why, but these syrup-sugar things and the candies that look like fucking baby bottles trigger me. Like, are we just forcing obesity and diabetes on our children now? Is that our parenting strategy? WTF?!
So, despite my initial plan to keep quiet, I gave him attitude about the lollipop…
Whoopsie. This poked the bear.
Vince was apparently on edge before this as well, so when I gave him attitude about his diabetes-on-a-stick purchase for our two young kids, he got upset with me. Wayyyy more upset than someone should get about a lollipop. He yelled, a bit too much, and I don’t know why, but this fight, a fight over a lollipop, snapped something inside of me.
Meet The Lawyer
In that moment, as he yelled at me, I saw the interaction from my kids’ eyes who were seated behind us in the car. A front row view of their parents. I saw him yelling and them taking it all in. My mind flashed to the future, and I realized their own relationships would be just like this because we’re giving them this blueprint for love.
Something in my mind and heart felt like it just severed. I became disconnected from my heart. Like in the movie Inside Out when Joy and Sadness leave Riley and she goes numb. I felt that detachment Riley felt. The emotion now in charge in my mind was cold, logical, and a bit heartless.
Like….a Lawyer.
A detached, analytical voice in my head started presenting her evidence, “you can’t show the kids this is love, Kris. You are giving them the example of what to expect in a relationship. You need to be a good mom and make a change.“
My mind weighed my options like a court case. What do I do here?
End it?
He might be better off too.
He could find someone that shows him more affection and spends tons of quality time. Sure, they might not manage his life like I do, but he’d probably be happier.
But ending it seemed like a drastic verdict, even for my estrogen-depleted, analytical, heartless brain.
Counseling. That’s it. We could go to counseling. Try to find a way to communicate better. You don’t just abandon a 30-year relationship without bringing in an expert witness. That’s not logical.
So, after a day of internal over-analysis with The Lawyer controlling my decisions, I decided to give Vince an ultimatum – go our separate ways or go to counseling.
Now, mind you, I had not said a word to Vince about any of this. We were together all weekend with the kids and, after our one argument in the car over the lollipop, I had not really spoken to him at all. The Lawyer thought it was better this way.
After making this decision on our life, I began looking for a time to speak to him about it. But no time was right. I didn’t want to do it in front of the kids. I didn’t want to do it right before bedtime. No time. There is no good time. The Lawyer said, “write him an email, Kris. You need to get this off your mind and you need to tell him how you ‘feel’. Writing it down is a better option anyways. You communicate better that way.”
Ok, yeah. You’re right. Let me do that.
So, after three decades of being together, I gave Vince an ultimatum about our relationship…over EMAIL. What a dick move, right?!
Fucking lawyers.
Well, as soon as I hit send on my email, I felt a wave of relief wash over me. I did it. I took those feelings and got them out of me. I gave them to Vince to handle and now it was on him. Thank God. I couldn’t handle internalizing all of that anymore.
He got the email and of course felt blindsided. Like “crazy bitch, where is this coming from?!” We exchanged texts and phone calls. He didn’t want to end things, but he didn’t want counseling either. He didn’t want to check a box just to check a box if that’s all it was.
The Lawyer, who was still in control at this time, gave nothing back. No emotion. The ultimatum was still what it was. We weren’t negotiating.
However, once he got back home, and we were face to face, I felt The Lawyer begin to weaken.
So this is Love
I was upstairs in the toy room, sun shining through the windows when he came up to watch the kids and say goodbye. I felt him behind me and suddenly, I saw us through his eyes. The kids playing. The family moments he would miss if this all really ended. The severing of all that we created together over these past three decades.
The Lawyer got quiet. My heart got heavier. A feeling started creeping back in slightly…Sadness.
Vince asked, “is it OK if I give you a hug?”
And I agreed. I needed a hug.
As soon as he wrapped his arms around me, my heart burst alive again. Like all the estrogen and progesterone just rushed back in from some dam that finally broke and release the river of emotion it was holding back.
My head resting under his chin just as it had when we were younger and so in love. The feeling of his arms around my back, holding me close just like he always has. All the tears I’ve cried into his shirts over the past thirty years, I cried a bit more that day.
My mind flashed to the kids as they played at our feet. I saw us through their eyes again. This time, their parents were holding each other in the middle of the morning. For no reason apparent to them. Just standing there, holding each other.
And that was good. That was love.
In that hug, we agreed to not give up. We would go to counseling. Not as an ultimatum, but because we matter. We need to make it. We want to make it. We’ve built so much together that it can’t end over a fucking lollipop and hormones.