I’m Ray. Not really, but for Glass Gloves purposes I’m Ray. Shohn invited me to add some posts and share my separation/divorce experiences here. I’ve already posted a few observations.

I’m 55 years old, married (kind of) to my third wife. (NO NO! Keep reading!)

I was married in 1974 to my first wife, the mother of my only child. I moved from the city we lived in to another 8 hours’ drive away for a job in 1983. She would not move. There’s other factors I’ll skip. In my youth (OK, 33 years old is young when you’re in your 50’s) I filed for and got a divorce.

In Glass Gloves, I’ve already referred to my second wife as “Rachel”. We were married in 1992. We lived happily. We loved each other very much. But in January, 2000, she was diagnosed with cancer. Within two months Jesus released her from her cancer and called her home. I miss her even now. I learned a lot about the grief of losing a spouse then. I’ll share it with Glass Gloves soon. It might be important for someone.

I followed the statistics, and by November, 2000 I was married to “Mrs. Ray”. We loved each other very much, too. But about 18 months ago, Mrs. Ray began having doubts about me. Lots of little things, but they all added up. No affair, drugs, violence, or other “bad” things. Just lots of little stuff. In fact my pastor calls this a “divorce of annoyances”. I do not belittle her reasons, but they run from controlling to lying to procrastination and so on. Sound familiar to anyone? Raise your hands. OK thank you.

Here are some details about my current situation. Hopefully, this may sound familiar to a reader. In other words, these things have happened before, but not to me. And probably not to you, at least until now either.

As I said, Mrs. Ray started complaining about many little things. It seems I often offended people. Or I lied about something. Or I spent money on upgrading my computer when she thinks I should not have. (Hello out there! Do you really, really need Vista right now?) As time wore on, these things built up into frustration on her part, and also on my part as I tried and tried to figure out what I could do to smooth out my marriage. We began seeing a counselor.

Here’s the final straw: In a heated discussion (Honestly, we are pretty good about not arguing, but we do have heated discussions.) I began a sentence, and Mrs. Ray immediately jumped to a 100% wrong conclusion. I suddenly said “Shut up!” (never done that before to my wife!)

Mrs. Ray said “What??”

I replied, “You’ve taken this the absolute wrong way! Let me explain!”

She got up and said “I’m through!” and began to walk away.

I did another thing that I have never ever done to my wife. Ever. I reached out, grabbed her by the hand and pushed her back into her chair. In fear, she did sit down. I told Mrs. Ray that she had the way wrong idea, and I explained what I was trying to say. I explained why I grabbed her like I did – I was desperate that she not walk away with the totally wrong idea. Then she did get up and leave.

That was pretty much it. By the weekend she told me we were getting a divorce. I’ve left out many details, but I did want to share our “last moments” with Glass Gloves. Firstly, so readers will know how I “got” here. Secondly, so that readers might see something similar to their situation (or not).

I will be sharing things I’ve learned here in Glass Gloves. Hopefully I can help another reader realize this is nothing new. Other people have gone through this, and survived one way or another.

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