When I married my first husband

we had a big church wedding complete with bridesmaids, tuxedos, a long white veil with a bow, and a unity candle.  I was not your typical bridezilla, in that the ceremony and reception were 3,000 miles away from where we lived, and we couldn't exactly drop $500 bucks per flight to meticulously decide on every gold-edged cocktail napkin or monogrammed piece of fruit.  So, when the minister suggested that my fiance and I light the unity candle together, but still keep the separate candles lit to symbolize our combined unity and individual independence, I shrugged and went along with the program.  As I recall, I did have a brief initial misgiving tied with the romantic notion of the two of us being "as one."  But that was quickly replaced with thoughts of "these are new times, and I'm a modern, empowered, independent woman" etc.  Plus it was fourteen hours until the actual wedding, and I was too busy worrying that our best man hadn't decided to show up yet.

Five years later, that minister's suggestion came trickling back into my head, a bit muddled and fuzzied from the Jack Daniels resting in my lap and the 3-page Dear Joan letter hanging from my fingertips.  Our unity candle had been snuffed out, while the flames from the two very independent candles burned on after five years of separate bank accounts, separate friends and, eventually, separate rooms in a two-bedroom apartment.  The ensuing divorce quickly slipped from one stage to another - move out, write a list of claimed items, wait for the signed papers in the mail, move on.

Ten years, three kids, two mortgages, one fat happy husband beside me later, that minister with his conflagrant advice dances in my thoughts once again.  We are as one, my current husband and I.  Same bank account.  Same house.  Same kids.  Same debt.  Same #?"@#& thoughts!  He's probably thinking about this same minister now even though he never met him.  How, I wonder, did I manage to burn from one extreme to the other?  (Wait, is my husband wondering this too?)  Now I am fighting for my separate flame.  But in a good way.

Here is my summation of this whole unity candle thing.  That Episcopalian minister was (gasp) right.  A good, strong marriage must keep three candles aflame.  There are the obvious reasons i.e. we work together as a team, but are also individuals.  And there are the underlying, sneaky, blame it on human foibles reasons.  One is that, sometimes, when I am sitting or lying next to my husband, I forget that he is actually there.  His breathing.  Light snoring.  The warm temperature that rises from his body.  All of it is coming from my body as well.  He is me.  And that is good in many ways, except, well I am afraid one day I may end up picking his nose instead of mine.  In other words, we people with our nasty little habits that we usually reserve for quiet times in private places can be not so pretty.  And some of these habits can be not-so-little.  Many of us have the bad habit of not treating ourselves the way we should.  We eat Cheetos instead of carrots.  We watch television instead of reading a book.  We beat ourselves up about a traffic ticket instead of patting ourselves on the back about completing a huge work project.  If I feel that my husband and I are the same person, then I am treating him like I'm treating myself.  And, quite frankly, I'm not treating myself.  So that is why I am now putting us through a separation process. 

My husband is not me.  He needs to be acknowledged as a separate person.  He needs love notes packed with a healthy lunch before he goes to work.  He needs to be asked how his day was when he returns from work, because it might actually have been a different experience from mine.  And, when I lie next to my husband, the little hairs on my back, arms and legs need to tingle from the warmth radiating from his skin.  Did you ever try tickling yourself when you were a kid?  I did.  And it just didn't work out.