On the next thrilling episode...

No, I haven't written it yet.

Part of the problem is I started to think about the period from Christmas 2002 to Christmas 2006, and I remembered a lot of things. A lot of things.

Stuff that I had shut away, stuff that I've buried, told lies about, adjusted the facts to fit my intended narrative of my past. And that has to change, and that means putting everything down on here. And that is going to be painful, and has me paralyzed.

What I haven't done, yet, is mention the things that happened in mine and Jen's marriage that fueled the self-destruction. This is going to look like a lot of finger pointing, particularly at Jen, but it's really me attempting to explain some of the things that happened which affected my state of mind, and which fed into my decision making. Which was poor sometime.

For example, the first argument we had after I arrived in the US, Jen picked up the phone to talk to her dad. That looked, to me, like she was calling for support to prove me wrong.

I haven't mentioned that before we got married, Jen went out to lunch with an ex-boyfriend, and he tried to kiss her. She told him that wouldn't be happening, nor would she be leaving me, which is the other thing he suggested.

One of the first arguments we had after we were married was because I had no idea how to use the bank, or medical services, in the US. It's different. It was hard to get a job without a degree (and how I feel about the "need" for a degree in jobs is another post for another time.) And so I was jobless, unable to do much of anything without needing directions, dependent on someone else for my livelihood for the first time since I left home.

I haven't mentioned that in 2001, Jen was working at Horsetown, and we had an argument about something stupid. It was the first real argument we'd had, and we'd been on the phone. Jen wasn't feeling good -- she had a cold, and had been suffering for days. When she hung up she said she was going to work -- I called her work later, when she should have been on break -- to apologize, because I'd been wrong about whatever it was we disagreed on -- but I was told that she'd called out for her shift because she was sick.

She never told me where she'd been, never told me later that she had felt too sick and decided to stay home. I never asked, too scared to lose what we had. But what I do know is that, deep down, this affected me from then on, until I brought it up to Jen in late 2006. By which time, I had damaged our marriage in ways that I am still trying to forgive myself for. I am sure that there was nothing untoward going on, but the nagging feeling that Jen hadn't been straight with me fed into a downward spiral for my self esteem -- and from there, it was easy to make choices that weren't very loving.

So...next time we go back to me talking about the things I did that destroyed the marriage. It's not going to be pretty, it may actually destroy any chance of a continuing friendship I have with Jen, and she may never trust me again. Or maybe, knowing everything, finally, the foundation of a real trust can be put down.

What you should know is that you're going to get an abridged version, not entirely sanitized, but definitely abridged. Jen is going to get the full story, and that's probably okay.