A Marriage Gone Bad

Since no one reads any more, especially blogs, I feel like I can get more personal. I'm writing purely for self reflection and therapy, but maybe someone will one day benefit from this message.

In 2015 I was separated from my wife after a 32 year marriage and the divorce was finalized a year later.

Here are some lessons I learned:

Go With Your Gut

As I was dating her there was a small, nagging feeling that I was making a mistake. It's called doubt. I was told that you can never be completely certain in a relationship, but this turned out to be false. If you have any doubts at all, or if you are seeing or sensing red flags, don't marry that person. I can tell you that "red flags" and "show stoppers" do not go away, so you either have to make peace with that or abort the relationship.

Take Your Time and Think It Through

Once I was out of college I wanted to move on with my life. It was programmed in me to get married, get a house, and have children. I was ready to get married and move to the next steps. I thought that once I married and settled down I could continue my work as a writer, which is something I was really into at the time.

Secondly, my wife was a pretty good match for the things I was looking for at the time, but as I look back I realize my "list" of what I was wanting in a spouse was shallow and superficial. What attracts me to a woman now is far deeper than what I was searching for then. I got married at age 23, which is too young. I now wish I had waited a couple of years to think it out more.

Cut Your Loses Early

If you are unhappy in a bad marriage, get out of it. My conscience is clean because I made a good faith effort to save the marriage. I studied The 5 Love Languages and tried to practice them on her. I suggested marriage counseling, which she refused.

For me, the final turning point in the marriage was in 2011 when I happened to be in Destin, FL at a conference. By coincidence my wife was vacationing with my daughter near by. When I offered to come by her place and stay for a night she refused to see me. That was completely mind boggling and killed the last traces of affection I had for her. I should have divorced her right then, but I foolishly let the marriage drag on for another four years. There were reasons I wanted to stay married: I liked her mother and sister, I didn't want to be the only divorcee on my side of the family, I worried about the financial impact, and I didn't want to upset my daughters, even though they were grown. As it turns out, these were all bad reasons. I simply didn't have the decisiveness in me to do what was necessary.

Bad Warning Signs

I would describe the feelings in my marriage as "neutral," and never "happy." I just figured a marriage was supposed to be that way. So, I developed deep friendships with several women who shared my interests and passions. Half the people I've spoken to said I was having "emotional affairs" and others have said that if it wasn't physical we were "just friends," and it was harmless. To this day I'm not sure, but I can say that creating these friendships was a warning sign that my marriage was going dead. If you are married and feel yourself being strongly drawn to others, that's a problem, and you need to stop immediately and assess, preferably with counseling. Otherwise, you are navigating your ship into dangerous waters and you can hurt the other two individuals as well as yourself. So, again, take action early and end the marriage if you find yourself being seriously and regularly drawn to others.

Conclusion 

So, don't rush into a marriage — take extra time to really make sure. And if it goes bad after you've made an honest attempt to fix it, then cut your loses and end it. Since my separation and divorce a few years ago I've been a much happier person. The financial hit was devastating, but it's a small price to pay for freedom. I'm finding that I really enjoy being single and will be far more careful and thoughtful if I enter into a second marriage.

Photo credit: Leon Biss

Idealism & Lifelong Depression

I can summarize my life of depression by defining it as a temporary feeling of "hopelessness." It usually is related to relationships or jobs, or both. And then I also suffer from an underlying depression, which I'll get to later.

I remember my first hard depression was during the summer of my sophomore year in college. Once out of college for the summer I worked as a maintenance man for a newspaper plant. Most of my time was spent doing yard work at the publisher's estate. My social connections were cut off and I was spending long days in the brutal heat. I thought I would never get a girlfriend or that I would never get a white collar job. The process repeated itself the next summer. I did finally get a girlfriend and moved into the office.

The next big depression that I recall was in the mid-80s when I was miserable at a job. The job itself was a pure dream job -- I was associate editor of an aviation magazine. I worked for a good company that provided many benefits and paid holidays. But my immediate supervisor was an unhappy human being who made me miserable.

During that time I became a very negative person. A wake-up call was when a couple of my friends said, "I almost stopped hanging out with you because you were so negative." I did leave that job, and my next two jobs were wonderful, and kept me happily employed for 29 years. But the lesson I learned is that depression is something that should always be kept hidden. Why? Because a depressed person is often seen as negative. Also, no one really cares if you're depressed, and they don't understand it. So, to this day, when someone asks how I'm doing, my response is always "great."

Moving Forward

Those two periods of my life were my worst depressions, but I've had many more small ones that were also related to jobs and relationships. More recently my last employer was in a state of decline, and so was my marriage. I was depressed because I was in a bad marriage but didn't have the courage to get out. I kept thinking about finances, or the impact on my grown children, or the stigma of being the only divorced person in my family. So, I stayed in a miserable marriage, which was a mistake.

Then, I lost my job of 26 years. It wasn't depressing until I realized that I couldn't get another job with similar pay and benefits. Eventually, I had to take a huge cut in pay and benefits to become re-employed. I don't make enough to pay my expenses, and I'm on a slowly sinking ship.

Beneath the Surface

Underneath the regular bouts of depression over relationships and finances is a lifelong depression about the state of the world. My problem is that I think too much and ever since age 10 I've been sad about humanity's relentless, savage rape of our planet. I constantly think about Leanita McClain, a fellow journalist in Chicago who committed suicide in 1984. She was an African-American reporter with a promising career. As a newspaper reporter she saw too much, and unlike most people, she felt too much. I like to call myself a "hopeless idealist," and I believe she was one too. In one of her writings she said:

"Why can’t people just be people and live in peace and harmony. Maybe I’m in search of the perfect world. Or maybe I’m just me. That’s it. I’m me. But ... to be me is to be nothing — to be nothing is to be me. And I love all people. Even pink polka-dotted ones with olive ears.”

And to me, I've always had the same thought process, except I include caring for the Earth as well. Why can't we just get along and take care of the planet? That sounds simple, right?

Leanita killed herself at age 32, and I was 24 at the time, and working as editor of a small town newspaper. Her death never left me. Sure, she was diagnosed as having a lifetime of clinical depression, but I think it was her powerful idealism that fueled the pain. In other words, she cared too much, and I guess I do too.

Depression Coping Mechanisms

When I'm depressed I enjoy going into deep, hard sleeps, where I am taken off to a faraway land. I have vivid dreams, which serve as free entertainment. I think the deep sleeping is your body's way of protecting and comforting you. You get to escape reality for a brief while. Then you wake up, and your problems are still there, but at least you are well rested and can think with a clear head.

Another coping mechanism I had was retail therapy. As my last employer was sinking I would go out to eat a lot and buy Starbucks every day. Just getting that coffee gave me a brief moment of satisfaction and escapism. Retail therapy also helped -- I went on a buying binge and purchased an Apple Watch, camera, and other fun items.

Operation Breakout

I have to muster the discipline to find a way to earn more income, so that I can pay my bills and start saving again. In regards to relationships, I've had some incredible women in my life but the ones I'm attracted to the most are the ones who want to be "just friends." Haha, that's the way it goes and it's perfectly okay. I am grateful for their friendships and happy to have their company. I have no complaints at all.

Conclusion

I know I've had a relatively cushy life so far. There are others who have had a far worse ride than me. I have learned and am still learning to be sensitive to others who suffer from depression. Sometimes the reasons that people give me for their depression seems minor, but it's very real to them. So, I try to be understanding.

My Blogging Career, Phase II

It's early Saturday morning and I'm sitting in an auto garage waiting room. It's time to blog. I actually blog all the time in my head, but never seem to have time to write it down. For now, a few rambling thoughts:

The Risks

Words are powerful. My writing career started with my high school newspaper. The assistant principal called me into his office to review an editorial I wrote. We discussed it, I argued my points, and I won. Little did I know that a year later the same newspaper would make national news over a censorship court case.

I loved journalism and spent four years on my college newspaper, where I worked my way up to editor-in-chief. Controversy was my life. Sparring with the administration was part of the job. No fluff pieces from me.

I continued my journalism after college, where I started as a newspaper reporter. By age 22 I was editor of a small town newspaper. I quickly learned that one wrong word could get people upset and even get you sued. So, when our current crap president constantly screams "fake news," he is making a lie out of thin air. The truth is, as a reporter I strived to get things correct. If I screwed up there was the embarrassment of having to run a correction or even legal threats.

In 2004 I began my life as a blogger, which I'll talk more about later. In 2010 I wrote a blog critical of religion and posted it on Facebook. The family sent my oldest daughter to talk to me, and she said, "you're upsetting grandma." No one confronted me directly but I felt that I was being ostracized by family members for several years. Just for the record, I believe religion is toxic, and I make no apology if that hurts someone's feelings.

During my blogging I also had to constantly worry about employment. I am a strong environmentalist and I worked in an industry full of conservative small business owners, who felt that the Republican Party was best for them. It wouldn't take too much digging to find that I am a pro-green political progressive. I make no apologies.

All the time you hear in the news about someone getting fired for posting something on Twitter or Facebook. Again, words are powerful and what you write in the Internet world will go everywhere and will never go away. Just yesterday I learned that a close friend of mine is being threatened by a neo Nazi for saying something negative about "white people." Well, I'll go ahead and say it - white people suck. They are arrogant and walk around with a sense of entitlement. 

So, here I am in 2018, and I really need to start blogging more, and not worry about the risks. Having lost my old job and having lost my wife, I have little to lose. It's not that what I'm saying is bad or wrong, it's just that I get sick of people constantly ignoring the obvious because of political correctness or because it's "no big deal." I always want to be the boy who screams, "the Emperor has no clothes."

Toad the Blogger

In 2003 I had a year of epiphanies, and in 2004 I decided to start writing them down. After all, I had been a writer since third grade. My middle school allowed me to take creative writing as an independent study, and I continued my writing throughout high school. Writing was and is in my blood. So, I began to blog.

As I began blogging I acquired a group of loyal followers and made friends with other bloggers. Many evenings I would come home from work and spend several hours working on a single blog post. I had thoughts and feelings inside me that needed to come out. I started really thinking about our screwed-up world and began putting my observations in writing.

During my blogging I became friends with a fellow blogger who was a prolific writer. I really enjoyed his articles. But then he took a dark turn. He was in an unhappy marriage and he began to write about his pre-marriage sexual forays. He even told me that he had some women followers who were getting off on his writings. One day his mother-in-law found his blog and he disappeared. I finally heard from him and learned about his story. His marriage was in ruins.

In this current time of political sensitivity and "snowflakes," you have to be more careful about what you write, or at least willing to accept more consequences. Political correctness and counter political correctness are out of control. 

Sadly, blogging is now old fashioned and I don't seem to be getting my old followers back. People don't read much anymore, or they are so desensitized and beaten that they just don't care about anything. The focus for most people these days is quick gratification. Blogging was replaced somewhat by Facebook, and now Twitter and Snapchat. Most people now only seem to process information in brief soundbites. Society is being dumbed down into nothingness.

The Future

I lost my job of 26 years and had to take a huge pay cut to get reemployed. I am struggling for survival. I have to worry about things that I've never had to before, like keeping up with bills and health insurance. The future for me looks bleak. So many of my friends have lost their wonderful jobs and are underemployed or unemployed. When you hit your 50s the work world dumps you, and you have to spend the rest of your life trying to squeeze out a few dollars from the economy, to survive until you can get Social Security and Medicare. It sort of sucks.

I Must Keep Writing

I spent so many years cultivating my writing skills, yet I now work in the security industry where my talent sees little use. In my younger years I started six novels, but always ran out of steam and never finished one. I was an editor for 26 years, and worked on a teen newspaper, parenting publications, and industry trade magazines. It's sad that all this skill and practice will go to the grave with me, or that I will never write the Great American Novel. 

Purpose

My theme for blogging has always been "saving the world." I like to examine the various issues in our world and show the hypocrisy and problems with various behaviors. I proudly have four blogs, plus an aggregator where I combine all blog posts. Here are my blogs:

Letters To Pluto - Personal reflection.

The Second Sun - The study of delusions and my personal soapbox.

The Singularity - Social behavior.

We Live on a Planet - Environmentalism and sustainability.

Oh My Todd - Aggregator for all my blogs

I write because I enjoy it. I write for therapy and relaxation. I write so that I can record my journal and the evolution of my awareness and knowledge. While I've lost my audience, I still enjoy writing for others. I always have this secret hope that my blog will inspire people in ways that make the world a better place. 

A couple of years ago I started to question WHY I should try to save the world. Over the past decade I've become increasingly disappointed and jaded toward my fellow human beings. I began thinking, "why does the Universe care if this little green and blue dot is destroyed? There is no one out there to care." And I used to think it was humanity's destiny to populate the Universe. Why? So that we can just fuck up more planets? No, humans are the most destructive and disgusting animal on Earth, and they need to be quarantined. 

In 2015, right after my divorce, a lovely young lady came into my life and she really loves animals, especially dogs. And I mean she REALLY loves animals. She gave me the clarity to see a new purpose in life and gave me a new purpose. I now see that the purpose of life is to save this planet from ourselves, out of respect for the other animals that also call Earth home. The diversity of creatures is amazing, and it's up to us to protect them. I know that other people have the calling to help their fellow human, and that's beautiful as well. But, my particular calling is to use my writing skills and talent to help animals and the environment. I think I'm too angry and hurt to do much social work now, although I know it's the right thing to do. One day soon I know I may need the help of a kindhearted soul, and I will appreciate them very much.