NOTE: As I mentally deconstruct the demise of my marriage, I am publishing a series of short essays about things that happened, the way I felt, and so on. It's intended to illustrate my mental state at the time, and provide a kind of chronicle of my emotional state, hopefully helping me not make the same mistakes in future relationships.

5/13/03 1:05 PM: I very rarely talked about the things I felt Yuri did wrong, to me. I never liked keeping those facts in long term memory, since I was worried it would color my view of her and make me feel negatively, which wasn't something I wanted for someone I loved more than anything, more than myself. It's sad to me that I loved her that much and still managed to make some world-class mistakes.

In any case, Yuri asked me to tell her, so she could avoid making those mistakes again. The only thing I harped on, throughout the duration of our marriage, was proximity. I wanted her close to me, as she was in our first year and a half. I never had to reach for her because she was always up under my arm, almost underfoot. It was wonderful. But then we moved into a one-bedroom house, and the larger expanse of space (her coming from a room in her mother's home, me from a bachelor apartment in the Jungle) seemed to pull her away. It affected our love life, it affected my mood.

So I started running down the things I couldn't put out of my mind:

• How she criminalized the way I thought, demanding to know nothing about whole areas of my life. Despite my hatred and venom for the world, she's never seen me raise a hand in anger or commit an act of violence. She made me feel like the ways I naturally felt about things were wrong, and I was some kind of monster for feeling that way, one she didn't want around the children she wanted to have, or almost any children.
• How she never acknowledged that the long hours I put in, working at dot coms and ad agencies, were to provide a stable economic place for her. I've spent more than $45,000 in mortgage payments from April 2000 to May 2003. From September 1995 to March 2000, I spent less than $22,000 in rent. I can't find anything in my whole life I've spent $45,000 on, not of my own money that I worked for.
• How she never listened to the things I tried to tell her, about ways to deal with me when things got rough. How an embrace could silence the vitriol she came to avoid. How cuddling could give me time to open up and talk about the fear and hurt I felt, but didn't know how to say while standing up. How that made me feel like my words were meaningless.
• How she misrepresented her attraction for me, how it was contingent upon so many external factors that it became impossible for me to juggle them and deal with the crises du jour. How loving me became dependant on how much she had left after dealing with higher priorities.
• How she ran away from difficulty, whenever she had a problem she turned to alcohol or solitude or stoicism or driving away from me or more time at her job. How she never stood and dealt with things in the really dangerous waters.
• How seamlessly she slid out of our bed and our commonality, and how much she came to be many of the things I wanted -- staying up late, taking work less seriously, confronting me with things she felt were wrong, accepting her need for therapy -- only after all was said and done.
• How she wanted me to feel like it was "our" house, but her behavior reinforced the idea it was hers alone. Like telling me we couldn't put nails in the walls or make holes, only to turn around and hang a scarab papyrus in the bathroom on a nail.
• How her absent-minded re-arranging of things -- scissors, books, clothes, et cetera -- without telling me made me feel like I lived in a state of flux, and like little in our shared space could be considered stable.
• How her decision to register for what seemed like seventy billion dollars worth of glassware would give us an untouchable cabinet full of things we rarely used, and regretted when we did (breakages, cleaning), in lieu of what I wanted, a pure cash wedding where we could both save for the future.

Now, I hold no grudges for these things -- I have a sizeable litany of transgressions, from abandoning her when her father had his cancer surgery, to criticizing her joys and ignoring her fatigue. Real life happened to us, it knocked us down hard, and we didn't get back up. When push came to shove, we weren't there for each other. She can't recover from that, not enough to stay married to me.

I hold no grudges, and I am willing to forgive, but I can't really forget that they happened. To be honest, it's hard to even type them, because my love for her compels me to stop, to let her off the hook. But she asked, so I tried my best to tell her, in the hopes that one day -- probably separately -- we can make certain to never make the same mistakes again.