The Day The Music Died: The Moment I Knew It Was Time To Divorce

You know that song “American Pie”? I love that song. My mother and step-father liked to listen to oldies stations in the car so I grew up knowing that song by heart.

When searching for the best way to describe how I knew my marriage was over, that’s what comes to mind. “The day the music died.” That song also makes me think of the movie La Bamba with Lou Diamond Phillips…I think it’s the only Lou Diamond Phillips movie I’ve ever watched start to finish, now that I think of it.

I know exactly the day the music died. It had a massive stroke and fell into a coma on December 29, 2013. On December 30, 2013 I woke up and within fifteen minutes knew my marriage was over. I’ve spent the last six months trying to revive a dead being, mainly because the other half of my marriage -“The Spouse” – refuses to acknowledge it’s over. He will try to get better, he will change. He promises.

Guess what? I’ve been hearing his promises almost every week since last October, when I first made a move towards separation. That time, I begged him to go to counseling. He refused. So I left, I went to stay with a friend who promised she had room for me and would make room for the girls.

She didn’t really have room for me though, and as a woman who has always been single, never had kids, and was over 60…she didn’t want to make room for two children as well. Plus Spousy-Boy (SB for short) promised to attend counseling.

He has attended counseling. Sort of. Just like he pays the bills. Sort of. SB’s theory on paying bills is to just pay the past due amount – just enough to keep the landlord from threatening eviction, or the power on, or the most important thing – the cable and internet on so he can watch his games and read his wrestling articles while trying to hide his addiction to pornography.

But doing just enough to keep the lights on is a great analogy for our marriage. SB does just enough…he attends the counseling, when I force him to. And he does what the counselor says…for 24 hours. Seriously, you could set your watch.

Leave the counselor’s office on a Monday at 2:00pm with him promising to help out more? He will do the dishes and cook dinner and start laundry and even promise to vacuum, until 2:00pm on Tuesday. Then it’s back to surfing the net while blaring the television and getting mad when the children keep interrupting him to ask for help with homework, something he promised he would also do, but hey! The window of trying harder has passed, girls! Too late! Ask your mother!

So what comes next? A “trial separation.” In the state we live in you cannot file for divorce without being separated for six months, and as long as I am around SB will never do that. So I have to leave. And because I have stopped working to take care of the home and kids and SB while SB works two jobs, I have no source of independent income, so it means moving in with my mother and stepfather and sister. The fact that they live 800 miles away sucks. For my girls and SB.

As for me? I think the distance will be good. I’m too quick to want to rescue SB and give in. We met with our counselor yesterday, probably for the final time as a couple. And SB called our pastor (well, my pastor, SB has a love/hate relationship with religion) who I think finally made SB realize what an idiot he is. As for me? I’ve set a date for our big move, later in July.

The music died in December… can it be re-written in July? And is that not a great song lyric, or what?