Rebuilding Rob

As I’m writing this on Sunday evening, I am on the road heading back from Madison, Wisconsin back to Detroit. My visit with Kid 1 went very well. He seems to be doing all right, but I think it helped that he got to see both me and X1 at the same time.

But all of this – watching Fleishman is in trouble, seeing X1 again on the heels of what would’ve been our 25th wedding anniversary, my conversation with Veronica from the other night, hell even this prompt – it all brings me back to one truth that I have this far been unwilling to admit:

Right now, gun-at-my-head moment, I don’t ever want to get married again.

I’m scared of what marriage will do to me again. Maybe I am just afraid of adulting, but hearing after other people is enormous responsibility that quite frankly, I don’t know that I’m really even up to now. This is not to say that I am unwilling or unable to provide for my sons. This isn’t even a way to say that I’m a cheap date and I don’t want to take Veronica out. In fact, I almost always pay for everything whenever we go. She has to make a point sometimes to stop and say “I’ve got this one tonight“.

I’m just afraid of what marriage or even a permanent long-term relationship will turn me into. I don’t want to give up the things that make me, me. I happen to like Rob. I love the fact that I make a point to visit different major and minor league baseball stadiums every summer now. That’s the closest thing I have to a vacation every year. I don’t want to sacrifice that. I don’t want to get into the monotony of going to work, coming home at night, getting caught up with family stuff, and just having that mundane nuclear family existence

I used to think that was the goal – the 2.5 children, the white picket-fence and a minivan in the suburbs – until very recently. But I’m starting to realize a lot of the feelings that I had when I was married or when I even wasn’t a long-term relationship with that too, seemed pretty normal.

I guess what I need to explore now is what is it that makes people want to go back? What is it that makes people want to go back and try to build a family yet again? Ever since X1 and I got married, I always thought to myself that if that ever failed, I wouldn’t rule out trying to get married again; but I probably wouldn’t go into that well for a third time.

X2 and I never even got married. Hell, we never even set a wedding date. But right now getting married again is probably the furthest thing from my mind. I’m just scared of what it will do to me.

Thanks for stopping by Rebuilding Rob. Be sure to like, 👍 comment and subscribe to my blog below. It’s greatly appreciated! Also, feel free to follow me on social media as well! Check out my most recent posts as well as some earlier, related (and perhaps, not-so-related) posts:

• Of Training Wheels and Christmas Lights
• Charity Starts at Home (And I’m Back in My Childhood One)
• The Muscle of Empathy
• Where Do We Go From Here? Five Years Since January 6.
• Bugs, Boundaries, and the Art of Not Being Invisible

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The article “The Committed Bachelor” first appeared in Rebuilding Rob.