1st Marriages are forever. Part 1

When I got married the first time it was forever. At least that is what I thought at the time. I still think it should be and in a way it still is if you have children with 1st spouse. They never go away. Even if they aren’t physically there you have to deal with the aftermath of that loss in your children every day of their lives.

I met my first husband when I was 17 years old. We both worked at Montgomery Wards at Valley west mall. I worked in the men’s department and was cross training in the Shoe department on his first day. He was a hansom 18 year old that liked to dress in sans a belt pants. (Give him a break is was just after the disco craze.) He was also the most annoying, arrogant person I had ever met. He followed me around that whole day asking for a kiss. I couldn’t stand him. He considered himself and atheist and a player. I considered him icky.

We worked together for probably a month or two the time table gets fuzzy around this part of it. He continued to ask me out daily and I continued to say no. But one day I said ok, but the only place I will go with you is to church. I figured that would shut him up but he said ok and I was stuck, I had to take him to church.

My father seemed to hate him on sight. Not a very good thing for a minister to do but what can I say I’m his only child. I started taking him to church and it didn’t go well. My father is an Assembly of God minister and the AG churches are very charismatic and therefore foreign to most Christian people and down right weird to non Christians. The first time he attended and evening prayer meeting and there was an overly spiritual alter call he made fun of it. While people were at the alter lifting their hands and speaking in tongues there he stood in the back of the church in the sight of my father making fun of them. I was horrified. But still he came with me every week. During this time my heart softened to him because I could see that he was hurting and like many young girls we think we can fix the broken boy. I too fell into this trap. Then one night we had a special speaker at church. I can’t tell you what he said but I know something snapped in (Let’s call him Chris) Chris’s heart. I got up from the alter to return to my seat and Chris was not there. I found Chris in the grass outside the church crying. He said he felt empty inside and that he wanted what I had. I prayed with him there in the grass that night. The next morning Chris called me and was elated. He said he had a dream that he wrestled with the devil all night long but that he had won the fight. He felt like a new man.

So it began…..Needless to say we fell in love and my father most definitely did not. He was not happy about me dating much less dating Chris. This caused some major problems in my family which basically pushed me out the door as quickly as possible.

That is a different story thread for a different time.

So basically I met Chris at 17 and married him at 18. Looking back now I can see that I even though I truly did love Chris, I was in desperate need to leave my house. I felt it was a matter of my safety. I don’t think I would have rushed if hadn’t been afraid at home. But who knows what I would have done. Chris and I were married in June 1983. He was 20 and I turned 19 the next month. We were poor but happy….for the most part.

We continued having issues with my father that put a strain on our marriage but we were good together at least for a while anyway.

I can look back now and say it started falling apart the year Chris’s father died. I don’t know the exact year. I think we had been married 4 or 5 years by then. Our marriage had survived a horrible motorcycle accident and bankruptcy. But his father dieing did him in mentally. He hadn’t gotten to see his father much because he had moved away from his children when Chris’s mother and he got divorced. He lived in Vermont and they move to Arizona. Chris maybe saw his dad twice between the age of 10 and 20. Funny thing about absence sometimes it makes a child put their absent parent on a pedestal. This is what Chris had done. When his dad died the grief mixed with regret overwhelmed him and everything changed.