Getting this out of the way

I have so much I want to be blogging about--all baby girl's new, amazing skills, how uncontrollable I am when it comes to buying things for her, our adventures in solid foods. But I just can't seem to focus on any of those fun nuggets enough to develop them into full-fledged posts. My mind keeps coming back to another topic, one that is decidedly less fun. My hopes are that by getting it out of my brain and into the blog, it will somehow help me process the news and unclog the creative juices. So here we go.

After 33 years of marriage, TH's parents are separating. (It's funny. I can know that news, know it to be true, and be seemingly unaffected by it, but just putting it into type made me cold and anxious.) They told us this last weekend while they were down here visiting.

No, it's not a surprise. In the almost-15 years I've known TH, they have been talking about divorce the entire time. They have . . . had . . . an unhealthy marriage, a toxic relationship. Neither of them respected the other. Neither of them was polite to the other. They were always loud. Always argumentative. But they never followed through with any of their threats. They come from a culture where you stay together no matter how miserable you are. I'm not sure if it's the Russian side or the Jewish side, or a perfect storm of both, but for them, suffering is a way of life, an art form, a badge of honor. One of them, usually TH's dad, would call TH every other year or so and bluster about divorce. But they trudged through, unhappily married, all this time.

Until now. We knew we were going to have another "talk." No one was surprised. We always have "talks" about their marriage, about what each of them want the other to do, how they want the other to change. They were in fine spirits all day, caught up in the euphoria of seeing baby girl. When it was time, we all sat down, and I noticed my FIL looking . . . tired. Not just tired. Haggard. And then my MIL read us a letter he had written her three years ago, threatening to leave her. But then she had gotten sick. Had a mental breakdown. And he stayed. And took care of her. And now that she's back, now that she's recovered, they are back to their old ways, and she has finally had enough. She was the one to say it. "I want separation." She cited the letter, reminding everyone that this is what my FIL has wanted for years. That she's not doing this TO him, that she's simply finally agreeing WITH him.

He is going to move out. Find an apartment. She is going to stay in the house. Alone.

Neither of them has ever lived by themselves. EVER. They are 60 years old. She doesn't know how to work a computer. He has never been in charge of paying bills.

I'm sad. I come from a divorced-parents home. In fact, I never knew my parents together. I am the first one to say there is absolutely no reason to stay together "just for the kids." I know that people can be healthier, happier when they are divorced, on their own, than when they continue to trap themselves in an unhappy marriage. But still, I'm sad.

I'm sad for the time they lost while forcing themselves to stay together. Starting over at 60 is not something that will be easy, and I hope that their chances at individual happiness and at finding comfortable companionship is not lost. I'm sad for their misery all these years. I'm sad for the reality of a failed marriage, of two people who were mad for each other in the beginning, who lost that somewhere along the way, somewhere along the journey of poverty and refugees and immigration and building new lives in a new country.

And I'm sad for the implications this holds for my own family. Two daily phone calls to TH instead of just one. More complaining. More problems to vent about. More loneliness to seek refuge from in our family. More help needed to solve problems their spouse could have helped them through previously. I have struggled all along with the strain TH's parents put on him, on us, how much they lean on him (on us), how much they are a constant presence in his (in our) life. And now that is only going to be compounded.

And when they're old? 20 years from now? And can no longer live on their own? I refuse to think of the implications. Refuse.

It's not that I think they're making a mistake. Their marriage was like an gangrenous limb. Infected. It had to come off. But I am fearful of what life is going to be like, adjusting to the amputation. Of the new problems it will create in all our lives.

I found out this weekend they were engaged after knowing each other only 3 weeks. Three weeks. She had been dating a wealthy man who had no clue about romance. She asked him for flowers, and he told her he would give her the money to go buy whatever she wanted. My FIL was coming out of the army. They met, and he was everything her current beau was not. Impulsive. Emotional. Intense. Artistic. She was beautiful. He told us this weekend that he proposed to her while drunk.

Such a tragically beautiful beginning. Swept away in a whirlwind.

Such a tragically beautiful journey. Determined to provide a better life for their children, they fled their home as refugees, living homeless, taking care of only each other for six months as they wandered through Europe, looking for a way to America. Starting a new life from scratch. Not speaking the language. Eking out a life slowly, tortuously.

Maybe they were never designed to last as a couple. An ill match from the beginning. Maybe it was their journey that killed them.

No matter. It was their tragically beautiful story that gave me my husband. And my daughter. And for that I am thankful to them. For everything they went through.

And now I can only wish them the same happiness they have allowed me to find.

That, and pray that their fall does not bring us all down.