I just got back from cleaning out the den in the house my wife and I shared. She left a year ago and inside that room is the sum total of our life together she did not pick through to start anew. I’ve moved to a new city and have a crappy little apartment I need to fill. I needed winter clothes and blankets so I went back with my girlfriend. Another ex- was there (renting the place with some good friends) and without the support of the two of them, I never could have done it.
Inside was wedding videos, and the saved accoutrements of that day. I have the silver chalice from which my ex-wife and I drank to our undying love. The teddy bear sent to us to celebrate the birth of our child that would not live to be born. Burned hopes and dead dreams like the tomb of a life that would never happen. I found old poems I had written to her and anniversary cards she had scribbled to me. Echoes of a love that is gone. I packed up what I needed, sifting through these artifacts like a bones from a long dead civilization.
I wept. A lot.
But, in the end, I have started to heal. Not just manage. Not just shove it aside into a nightmare box to unspool in my head when I go to sleep. I have started to heal. To accept myself and move beyond being a crippled little thing.
I have found my strength again.
More importantly, I have found my weaknesses. I am starting to become a more complete person. I don’t know if it was on purpose or accidental. I am not sure that matters. In the end I am starting to fix the things inside of me that hold me back without sacrificing the things that are good but cause me to look at ugly truths and move forward.
I hope the same for everyone.
Because pain is not the end. It is not an end unto itself, but it is a beginning. A good sign that better things are coming.
Jamesdanielross's Blog 
I wrote to you a long time ago, when you posted your divorce. I’m probably going to regret posting this in all honesty, but I am burning with curiosity, from one anonymous voice to another, if you had to choose one word as to why your marriage failed, what word would it be?
Blessings to you and yours.
I remember the post. I had a thousand things to say to it, most of them full of knives. Instead I took time and let it go, because I was not done processing the divorce. I did consider your words, for whatever that is worth.
What word encapsulates my divorce? The one word? Indifference.
I spent a lot of time trying to be the man my exwife wanted me to be. I lost my job, entered into depression and had a hard time trying. Once that happened we fell apart. Example:
My wife was working long hours. I tried to make sure that I had dinner waiting when she got home. I wasn’t working, but I was writing to try to produce some books. Sometimes I lost track of time, so I didn’t always succeed but I tried. Then I’d meet her at the door, pulling on a happy face over my own searing self doubt and pain. I wanted her to know I loved her and needed her. I’d take her many bags and cases of work equipment and bring them into the house.
She, however, was not impressed. Eventually she just asked me to stop. Said she needed to decompress after work. So I stopped.
During The Fight, The Last Fight, she complained I had stopped meeting her at the door when she got home. I defended myself by saying she had told me to. She replied she had not meant she did not mean she had not wanted help with the cases. Just my attention.
She needed a valet, not a husband.
There were other problems, but seeing as everything is over, I don’t see the value of reiterating them. I am perfectly willing to admit I am not what she wanted anymore, or what she needed. But it wasn’t a matter of lack of love, of attention, or off trying. At a certain point she just didn’t need me and she left. She was not hurtful, or cruel. She was indifferent.
She didn’t feel like explaining her indifference, and I was rebuffed when I asked.
I can finally admit that I still love her, as much as I ever have. I am starting to accept I always will. But it will never be reciprocated even if she felt the same as I did.
I hope that helps you find whatever it is you are looking for.
Fox Crow II is finished, and is looking for a home. As soon as I can It will see print. Thank you for your kind words.
And may you have twice the blessings that I have had.
Also, I look forward to the next Fox Crow, been waiting for eva!!!^^