I Left My Marriage Because The Lawn Mattered More Than Me

If only he cared as much about our marriage as he did our grass.

They say the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the fence. But I’d say if you notice that it is, it’s time to pay attention as to why. Maybe someone’s taking care of the grass. Maybe someone’s watering it, fertilizing it, and making sure the grass gets what it needs.

Or maybe the grass looks so damn good because someone’s taking care of it and nothing else.

I’m a caretaker at heart. I take care of people and things because I care about people and things. I care about relationships, so I take care of them. I care about my kids and my partner, so I take care of them. If something matters to them, it matters to me. The two go hand in hand.

Unfortunately, my former husband didn’t see things the same way I did. He wasn’t much for taking care of people or things.

Except for the grass. He did take really good care of the grass. He watered, fertilized, edged, and weeded it. We had a pretty amazing lawn.

But that’s where his responsibilities ended. I took care of just about everything else. The caretaking of his requests along with the needs of the kids and the household all fell on my shoulders. Those things were in his not-mine-to-take-care-of pile. His caretaking seemed to end when he stepped on the back porch.

Scratch that.

It ended with the lawn. I did most of the shoveling, too.

I tried many times to ask for help, but my requests fell on deaf ears. He’d talk a good talk and say he’d take care of something that mattered to me, but he rarely did. There always seemed to be something else that had his attention or took up his time.

From watching a sporting event on TV to reseeding the lawn, there was always something that mattered more to him than lending a hand with the kids or the rest of the household to-do list.

I just couldn’t count on him.

And sadly, my need for affection and intimacy fell under his not-mine-to-take-care-of umbrella as well. My hands took care of my needs in that area far more often than his hands ever did. It’s a good thing we were fertile or we never would’ve had kids.

Taking care of what mattered to me, including our marriage, just never seemed to matter to him. It wasn’t on his radar screen at all.

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” ~Maya Angelou

One of the biggest mistakes I made in my marriage was my failure to believe what I was seeing. I wanted so much to believe that he cared enough to follow through with what he said he’d do. I wanted so much to believe he cared about our marriage and what mattered to me. I continuously believed his words when instead I should’ve been paying attention to his actions. They weren’t matching up, yet I kept trying to believe that he felt the same way as I did.

I kept thinking, maybe if I just asked the right way.

Maybe if I just got the timing right.

But I could never seem to master that elusive magic formula to direct some of his lawn maintenance cares to the maintenance of things that mattered to me.

Fast forward two years post-divorce. I met someone and during our initial conversations, he said he’d be happy to give me a foot rub.

I told him he got a point for that.

“Only one point?!” he exclaimed.

I replied, “Well, you earn ten points when you actually do it.”

“Ah,” he said. “I see. You’ve been with someone who didn’t take care and follow through on the things he said he’d do.”

Bingo.

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, shame on both of us.” ~ Stephen King

Fool me for 25 years, now that’s just sad.

After many years of trying, I finally realized there was no magic formula. For our entire marriage, he’d been showing me who he was. I’d been a fool to believe differently.

The problem was much bigger than the attention he gave to the lawn. The real problem was having to accept the hard truth that taking care of what mattered to me mattered so little to him.

And then one day, I’d had enough. I told him I was done washing the dishes. I planned the meals, did the grocery shopping, and did the cooking. He could do the cleanup.

He stared at me with a blank look on his face.

My kids tell me it was at that moment that they knew I wasn’t going to stick around much longer. And they were right. Soon after that, I did move out.

In this small way, I was finally standing up for myself, albeit through the tiny chore of dishwashing. I mean really, the dishes were just a drop in the bucket.

The caretaker in me had taken care of enough.

I’d taken care of everyone and everything else.

It was now time to take care of me.

Kasey Sparks, © 2021