By Boyd Lemon / Guest contributor
I have been married and divorced three times. A few years after my last divorce I wrote a memoir about my journey to understand my role in the destruction of those three marriages, “Digging Deep: A Writer Uncovers His Marriages.” The process was excruciating for me, but, in the end, healing. I recommend the writing process it to anyone who has gone through a divorce. I decided to publish the book because I believe it will help others to deal with issues in their own marriages, as well as those recovering from divorce, in these times when individuals and couples are struggling with the new order in relationships. I also wanted to show people how writing about traumatic events, such as war, death or divorce can heal. Below is an excerpt from the final pages of the memoir, when I came to realize more fully my role in the failure of my marriages.
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I wanted from marriage somebody to allay my sexual insecurities, to adore me, to hug and kiss me when I got home from work and tell me I was okay and my world was thriving, to produce children for me and care for them, and to encourage me when I was feeling low and inadequate. I wanted a housekeeper and a cook and someone to do my errands and laundry and keep fresh sheets on my bed. But I didn’t want someone I had to pay attention to, notice, comfort in times of need, listen to. I didn’t want to try to provide for her needs or even allow her to try. And I surely did not want a partner to deal with. I didn’t pay attention to my wives because I didn’t want to.
Deep down I knew this vaguely, but on the rare occasions when a hint of realization clawed its way through the brush and thistles, the fog and murk, up to my consciousness, I beat it back with devastating psychic force, and with alcohol.
Before now, I had little understanding about the failure of my marriages. I had stopped at the conclusion that I had married overly needy women. What bullshit that was. What does “needy” mean in the context of a marriage or any partnership? Every individual has needs. Everybody also has wants — a nice dinner out, good-looking clothes, a vacation in the Bahamas, a game of golf, a massage, a fast car. None of these are needs, but maybe having such a want fulfilled once in a while is a need.
Simply labeling my wives as needy is meaningless. The relevant questions are: what does she need from me, and am I willing to fulfill those needs? If she can’t handle my having female friends, am I willing to give them up? If she won’t allow me as much time alone as I want, am I willing to live with less? If she needs frequent physical affection, am I willing to provide it? I didn’t ask those questions. If I had asked them and answered them honestly, the answers for all three wives were, no, I was not willing to fulfill those needs.
I shut down the real me who didn’t want the demands of a wife and family and listened only to the part of me that wanted the goodies — sex to allay my insecurities, a family for its status — the part my parents and my society taught me. Then, after twenty-seven years of three failed marriages, I buried the whole thing for another twelve years.
I also shut down the authentic me, the me that didn’t want to work the better part of a lifetime helping the rich get richer, that wanted to teach, help those who needed it, create and learn. I allowed someone else, the inauthentic me, to carry on my life. The real me surfaced occasionally, but it brought stress and fear. Before long I buried it again.
Perhaps I unconsciously did not want to meet the demands of marriage because I was an only child with no relatives my age and few neighborhood children to play with. I simply had no experience in the types of relationships that would have taught me how to interact in a marital partnership. When I reached adulthood the concepts of partnership, which required giving up control and complex human interaction, were unfamiliar and scary. I had always been a loner. So I avoided the responsibilities of partnership, unaware that my avoidance would doom almost any marriage. Writing about my marriages has, little by little, unearthed this lifelong, mostly unconscious struggle between the authentic and the inauthentic me, finally bringing the authentic me to the surface. This realization brings me a profound paradox of sadness and peace — sadness that I spent nearly a lifetime losing this struggle; peace that I have finally won it and can live authentically with the life I have left.
While writing this memoir, I dated a nice woman for nearly a year. She told me that she wanted to move our relationship to the next level — beyond just dating. She made it clear that she was looking to get married, and I might be her future husband. I realized then that I did not want to be married to her or anyone. I told her, and we broke up.
I never should have married. But I did. I couldn’t effectively deal with what has become in the past sixty years or so a tricky, difficult relationship. I am not alone in that failure. Do I regret ever getting married? All experiences shape who we are. If I hadn’t married these women, I would be a different person. And who can say I would be happier or more fulfilled? My wives helped shape who I am. I don’t regret who I am, so I don’t regret the marriages. And I can’t imagine not ever having known my four children.
My journey to Boston to live with Kate stimulated me to write. Boston is a good writing city, especially in the winter when so often it is cold and wet and dark. There are a lot of writers here, and though I don’t know many of them, I have a sense that I’m doing what should be done here. Writing, for me, is a kind of psychotherapy —better. It digs up things that talking doesn’t. It has exposed me to myself. Writing practice is a way of slowing down and digesting our memories. It provides a chance to figure out how we got where we are.
Though we never fully understand, through writing I see closer than ever before some of the things I buried, something like the authentic me. I want to help those I love, to make a difference in their lives. I want to create something the world wouldn’t have if I hadn’t lived. I don’t need material things beyond the basic necessities, and I won’t make sacrifices to get them anymore. I yearn to experience how others in different cultures live their lives. I receive life, instead of chasing it.
I want my children and grandchildren to know the me I have discovered and the process I went through. My parents told me little about their lives or the lives of my grandparents and great-grandparents. There was so much I never asked them. I really didn’t know my parents — a terrible loss. If my journey to understand myself and my marriages interests others, I would be grateful to share it. But I wrote this memoir for me — to get as close to me as I could, to find the authentic me. Writing got me closer. But I’m not finished. I hunger to understand as much as I can before I die. I will continue to write what I buried, to dig deep.
— Author Boyd Lemon’s memoir, “Digging Deep: A Writer Uncovers His Marriages,” is available in print and EBook editions on Amazon.com, BarnsandNoble.com and by order from bookstores. There is more information on his website, http://www.BoydLemon-Writer.com