Failure of perfection

I am slowly understanding that though Nancy always painted herself as the strong one in our marriage... the perfect one, the one who paid all the bills on time and took her car in for oil changes and sent thank-you notes and smiled and curtsied... well, I think maybe I ended up being stronger after all, if only because I chose not to let the hurt and anger interfere with trying to rebuild a friendship we had once had.

But no more. I can't do that any more. I talked to her briefly today, and her voice was harder and angrier than I think I've ever heard a human be. Most people, over time, let that hurt and anger flow out of themselves. She's apparently bottling it, then fermenting it in the bottle. I don't think I want to be around when the corks fly.

Something I hadn't thought of till right now is that her parents' divorce when she was 12 or 13 affected her tremendously, probably in ways she never even realized. Her fear of loss, or her atonement for the role maybe she felt she played in that divorce, may have eventually led to her own divorce from me. And sure enough, Nancy, the Perfect One, now has the distinction of being the first of her siblings to have a trashed marriage.

I am wondering if that won't cripple her for the rest of her life. The life she says she's "moving on with" but which, the more I watch, she seems to be running away into.

Run away, leave the past and all the people who helped make it. Wipe the slate clean, and you can take a shot once more at being perfect.

Or not.