Repeat or Retreat: Together and Apart, #3

By Ruth Hay

Yvette Lawrence is divorced, raising two young children whom she shares with her ex. She has not yet adjusted to this different life in which her ex has a new wife.

Conrad Pender is recently divorced, starting over, and moving away from home, with no special hopes for the future.

Can these two heart-broken people overcome the failures in their lives and try again to make a successful marriage?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ruth Hay
• Release date: Nov 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215535509

Book preview

REPEAT OR RETREAT

YVETTE AND CONRAD

Yvette Lawrence is divorced, raising two young children whom she shares with her ex. She has not yet adjusted to this different life in which her ex has a new wife.

Conrad Pender is recently divorced, starting over, and moving away from home, with no special hopes for the future.

Can these two heart-broken people overcome the failures in their lives and try again to make a successful marriage?

ONE

CONRAD

"It was never in my life plan to be divorced.

I married Louisa with every intention of staying married for the rest of my days, but that is not how it turned out.

I tried.

Believe me I tried so hard to make it work.

I accepted the blame every time she accused me of negligence, or of a lack of attention to her needs.

I always made an effort to do better, although often I was at a loss to understand how I had failed her.

Coming here to see you, Mr. Collins, is my final attempt to fix my marriage to Louisa.

Can you help me?"

My sessions with the psychiatrist had been recorded for me.

I listened to them over and over again, when I reached the pit of despondency after we finally divorced.

Not that I listened obsessively to all our sessions. That would have been weird.

But I did return to the key points when I finally began to understand what had happened to my six-year marriage.

I did this because it was still difficult for me to comprehend the mental disorder that governed my wife’s behaviour. I had never heard the term ‘Narcissist’ before. I really did resist that diagnosis. Dr. Collins had a hard time persuading me it was a real thing, and not at all uncommon in the general population.

The session in which he finally spelled it out for me in black and white terms that I had to accept, was the one I returned to the most during the first year after we split.

"Conrad, the failure of your marriage is not your fault. You have been dealing with a person who does not think as you do. Louisa is a narcissist with covert features. You could not have known this while you two were courting. Only when you were truly committed to your wife did her true nature reveal itself in her behaviours.

A narcissist is forever dissatisfied. You could not meet her demands because they were unrealistic and based only on her own perceived needs.

The key thing you told me, over and over again in our sessions, Conrad, was how confused you were by her accusations. You repeated these words, ‘I just could not understand why it was always my fault, no matter what went wrong.’"

But Dr. Collins, are you saying I could not fix our marriage no matter what I tried to do?

"Yes, Conrad. That is exactly what I am saying to you.

Louisa cannot change. Her behaviour stems from a childhood trauma that you could not now, or ever, do anything about.

You must now decide about your future. I can tell you, Conrad, your survival with Louisa under these conditions is almost impossible."

I can still remember the bolt of lightning that shot through me when I absorbed the expert’s words for the first time.

It was like a catharsis.

It was like being freed from a prison cell.

It was like the burden of shame and guilt for our failed relationship, dropped off my shoulders and I could finally see a distant hope of a future in which I could start again.

---

Of course, nothing in life is that simple.

I began this relationship with real feelings toward Louisa, and despite this diagnosis, which I now believed with every fibre of my being, I could not just abandon her.

I asked the doctor how I could help my wife.

His advice was chilling. He told me I had only two choices.

Try to persuade her to accept treatment for her mental illness.

Leave the marriage at once and save myself.

Dr. Collins discussed each of these choices in more detail for me.

The first was unlikely, because narcissists do not ever believe they are the one at fault.

Even when one accepts treatment, it is almost never beneficial.

The second choice seemed heartless and cruel to me, but he emphasized leaving was the only way to save my sanity.

I thought long and hard during the final months of our marriage. Each day I began to understand how impossible my position was. It felt like a bright light was now shining on my life and I could see the daily accusations and trivial demands that had been keeping me unbalanced and unhappy.

Oh, I tried to explain to Louisa how her behaviour affected me, but she seemed unable to understand my reactions or take any responsibility for her constant harping on my faults and failures.

I took some time but I worked out a way to exit from this untenable situation with some of my pride intact.

---

I needed another professional to assist me at this point.

I found a divorce lawyer who accepted my proposal for a no-fault divorce that would provide Louisa with a home and enough money to live there for as long as she wished.

On his advice, I retained ownership of the property.

Because I had a generous inheritance from my deceased parents, I was able to fund this option.

My conscience was salved.

I endured my wife’s endless accusations until I took the initiative and left our home behind me.

A small apartment was all I needed as the bolthole that gave me the time to heal my spirit and look ahead.

I was finally free of my past.

I was starting all over again as if I had erased the past five years of misery.

I was alone and lonely.

TWO

YVETTE

It was just another day, in a long run of days when nothing went as well as she hoped.

Getting the two kids up, fed and dressed for school, with lunch boxes packed, was the usual hassle, but today they made it on time.

There was always a big sigh from Yvette when her children were safely delivered into the hands of their teachers. Now she was able to concentrate on her own day that consisted of a very busy morning at the grocery store inspecting the shelves, supervising the new hires, and tracking down the expected arrival of fresh produce.

Getting the assistant manager position was such a help. The pay was decent, the working conditions better than most, and she was allowed to leave early in the afternoon so she could collect Marlon and Marie from school and take them home with her.

It was not even close to what she did before the divorce, but she often felt grateful that the extremely high-pressured job in sales had been left behind her, when she became the custodial parent.

As a single woman, she could no longer afford the extortionate childcare costs.

It was a compromise, among many that were necessary, when she and Brian finally split up.

---

She had twenty minutes to grab lunch.

When the weather was good, she always took her bakery department deli sandwich outside to the staff picnic tables. A breath of fresh air was so welcome. She often spent those precious minutes looking back to the last three years and wondering if she should have done anything differently.

The strange thing was that everyone she met, including her old friends, assumed Yvette was the injured party in the divorce, and she had the right to demolish her husband’s perfidy at every opportunity. What Yvette knew was that her friends were only partially correct.

Yes, her husband had been unfaithful and he had gone on to quickly marry his ‘girlfriend’.

Yes, it was awful for Yvette.

Yes, she had suffered economically from the decision to divorce and life was a struggle now.

But what her friends did not know was the depth of her regret at losing her marriage.

The bitter truth was that she loved Brian still, in spite of everything that had been said and done.

Her friends thought she was a saint.

Yvette knew she was a sad fool who may have reacted too swiftly to her husband’s confession about his new romance with Joanna.

It was a dreadful thought that she might have wrecked the lives of all four of them, parents and children, when there was a chance that patience and forgiveness could have saved their marriage.

Brian Lawrence insisted on some parental rights.

Yvette was in no position to refuse as the trade-off was his financial help with the condo maintenance bills. He collected the children for two weekends a month.

Yvette dreaded the handover at the door of the condo where she and the children continued to live after the divorce. She spent hours trying to look her best as well as preparing the children’s overnight bags for the weekend. Brian always collected the children and Yvette wanted to appear happy