I love (the idea of) you

I have a huge secret.

Well… actually, I have several huge secrets, but let’s ration my crazy to one blog at a time for more juicy materials in the long run. That way it’s beneficial to all parties: I’ll have more to write about and you’ll feel better about yourself for being less of a fucking mess than I am. #winwinwin

I’ve been writing around this particular secret for a while now.

Wow… I’m really selling my brand right now, aren’t I? WELL NO MORE (of this particular) SECRET – I’m going to be brave and face my own fears. I’m choosing honesty like a True Hero (I don’t know if that’s what real heroes do, but I can’t lie for the life of me and I think that’s part of the reason my marriage never worked out).

Anyway… It’s cringe-worthy so please cover your ears eyes, or perhaps just stop reading right now. Otherwise, you’d want to throw the closest, heaviest, object at my direction, hoping my brain will re-adjust to it’s normal setting.

Before you get all judge-y, can I just jump in here and say that at least I’m admitting I have a problem???

OK – I feel like I’ve established that pretty well. I hope you’re prepared and that you’re on my side – or that at least you can understand my reasoning and emotional logic.

Here we go…

I’ve… sort of…. been… talking… to… this guy… who… lives… in… Iran.

Phew! Glad the secret’s out. Waiting for phone calls/ angry emails/ frustrated direct messages on Instagram, and Facebook comments to pour in (well at least from my mom and the 2 friends who read my blog).

So I’m obviously not going into any sort of detail about this person – because I’ve had enough judgement from myself and don’t need it from ya’ll.

BUT I’m going to put on my therapist hat and assess the situation:

Because my marriage was atypical (met online, went back home, got married, brought him here – realized we had nothing in common because we grew up in two different worlds), my divorce process is also atypical. I need to go through a different system, with weird rules and complicated paperwork.

I had to speak with a lawyer who specializes in cases like mine – and I hope you’re ready to be hit with some UNBELIEVABLE stats: he told me that in one week alone, he’s gone through 90 of these divorces!

I still can’t wrap my head around those facts – and I don’t want to brag (I kinda do), but I’ve been getting fan-mail from incredible women in similar situations and there are SO many of us out there, it’s ridiculous.

This blog is inspired by one of those beautiful and brave souls:

She wrote me a few weeks ago and told me she was about to get married and wasn’t sure if she was making the right choice. She had caught her fiance in a few lies and was beginning to see more and more cultural differences between herself and him. I wanted to scream and say “GIRL, RUN if you don’t want to turn out like me: 5 years of nothing but misery and living with the false hope of things finally working out one magical day”. But I’m a semi-professional, so I told her to be patient with herself because she deserved it. I said “no one will judge you based on the decision that you make. Do what makes you happy, and if what makes you happy changes in the meantime, that’s no problem either.”

For weeks, I had been thinking about her every day – wondering if she had made the right choice. Wondering if I had said too little. Feeling guilty for not telling her EXACTLY how I felt.

Until today when she finally wrote me back and told me she broke off the engagement and that she feels “content and free”!!!

“He showed his true self once I made the decision” she wrote “and even though I know I made the right choice, part of me misses the old him or who I thought he was”.

As I wrote back to her with the biggest fucking smile on my face, I told her we’ve fallen in love with the idea of a person we’ve never met or spent much time with. We create a perfect creature that smells incredible and always says the right thing. So to tie this whole thing together – I think that’s where my problem lies, and why there are so many of us failing at these marriages.

We’re true helpless romantics! We look for nothing but the good in people. It’s so easy to not see the bad, the lies, or the quirks that we won’t necessary like, over the phone. It’s easy to avoid confrontation: you just hang up! It’s easy to forgive and forget because you’re not staring into each other’s eyes with pain, resentment and tears running down your eyes: that agonizing picture doesn’t get burnt like a permanent tattoo on your brain. The screaming and the yelling over each other, that cold touch, and that disappointing and hurtful gaze doesn’t exist.

You’re essentially dating yourself (in more than one way… hahaha). You talk yourself into and outta fights. You take a breather and convince yourself you’re blowing things out of proportion. You miss them and tell yourself you’re just being dramatic. Oh the amount of times I thought “if this distance wasn’t between us then we’d never even be discussing this”.

With every red flag you say “this is not a typical fight”. “This would be a non-issue if he was here or if we were together”.

You keep closing your eyes and looking away until one day it’s your wedding night and you’re crying hysterically in the bathroom, looking at your perfect hair in the mirror – surrounded by so many red flags that you can’t breathe. Now that’s an image that’s been engraved on my mind since May 23rd, 2013. #neverforget