(a slightly sanitized version of a diary entry)

Experience robs me of hope and then returns it anew.

I am reminded by love that I am a two time loser. It makes me sad and angry and angry and sad when someone tells me I failed my first wife since I abandoned the marriage. And then her illness got worse and then she died. Died while I was on my honeymoon with wife number two who when the news broke told me "you deal with this".

I am reminded by friends that I gave up on my second marriage leaving three under age 10 kids with divorced parents. "Shame on you" my closest friend in Beijing said at the time. "Shame on you."

And do I feel shame and guilt. Of course. More than anyone who makes these acquisitions can know. Mimi would still be alive if I did not leave her. I live with this everyday.

With my second marriage, my then nine year old daughter, broken hearted and making Valentine's day cards for her parents to give each other so they can make up and be a family again.

To paraphrase Eleanor Roosevelt, at the end of the day you are left to judge yourself. Did those who judge me now know what it is like to watch someone you love self destruct, head in toilet nightly? Not for a month or two or a year or two but for seven years. And how I still supported her with hospital and institutional stays. How at the end I was still shopping for her Ensure and delivering to her back porch because she was too weak to answer the door. And because I was too weak to see her then. A hand wave, a week smile, was the last I saw of Mimi before cleaning out her belongings.

And with my second wife, I was her vehicle for attention. First, as a couple and someone to show off to her friends. And then for the kids, especially the oldest. At some point she turned on me and then sabotaged our marriage. Or simply wanted to be free of me perceiving me as some kind of conscious. And did I try to save the marriage? I asked for three things. First, promise fidelity. Second, come clean about past transgressions. Third, work with me on strengthening our marriage. She would not get past the first question, so that was that. Actually that wasn't that as I spent a year re-asking. Then begging, literally saying "I beg you" and then even offering to allow her to sleep around if the family could be kept. She declined and is so delusional that to this day would say nothing changed with her. Do I feel shame? Yes, and I shamed myself getting there.

So now when I am questioned by a new lover that I may actually love, I wonder. How could she know to judge? Am I just a delivery vehicle for dreams of marriage and a child.

Times two