July 29th 2017
I am still relatively new to some forms of social media. I’ve been on Facebook for more than 5 years, I have a Twitter and a Snapchat account that I never use and right now I’m constantly on Instagram and posting to my blog.
Recently, during one of my late night into the early morning sessions of just random scrolling through feeds. I couldn’t sleep when I saw a repost from one of the people I follow on Instagram from the actor Russell Crowe. Supposedly he has a new Instagram account so I checked it out. Found some interesting posts and went about continuing the random scrolling.
As I sat there mindlessly looking at the pictures, posts and videos my thoughts went to a never-ending argument that I had with my former husband that was so ridiculous that sometimes I think “Did that really happen?”
It was about the actor, Russell Crowe. I remember in the late 90’s is when I actually saw some of his first movies. They weren’t that great but I loved his voice. There was just something about it that was intriguing to me.
Then in 1997 I met my future husband and that was one of the things that drew me to him, his voice. He had an accent, he was middle-eastern and spoke Arabic on occasion. There were certain things that my ex would pronounce and it sounded kind of funny so it would make me smile. Whenever we were arguing with each other he would just throw those words randomly out there basically to end the argument and try to get me to smile instead of being mad at him. It always worked.
That happiness in my life only lasted for a couple of years then at year 2 of our marriage everything between us changed. I had our third child in 1999 and became pregnant with our last in 2000. Maybe it was the stress of our growing family, we just stopped communicating and talking with each other. I missed those late night conversations and silly discussions.
I rediscovered this actor while I was pregnant with my last child actually quite by accident. I had gone to play bingo with my mother and a movie he was in was playing on one of the TV’s from that point forward he became one of my favorites. It was during this time I turned to watching a lot of movies to block out the sorrow I felt. A few hours in a dimly lit theater kept me going through some pretty rough times.
The downside was that anytime I went to see a movie with this actor in it caused such pettiness and jealously in my ex-husband. It was laughable and my then family (parents and sisters) thought it was funny. It became this inside joke to everyone. They also became rather petty themselves about it and would use it just to get my ex riled up and irk him. I would get Russell Crowe movies or related items for my birthdays and as Christmas presents from them.
I was trying to hold on to our marriage and would plan “date” nights. Dinner and a movie but if that actor was in any of the movies it would start an argument and the date night would never happen or when we arrived at the movie theater my ex would go to a different movie all together while I went alone.
I never understood why he was so jealous and fixated on someone who did not exist in our world. He was this person that was an actor and that was his job, to perform in a movie. So, I liked some of his movies but not all of them. It never made sense to me. I would never mention the actor unless there was news about an upcoming movie. It’s not like I talked about this person all the time or fantasized about him while I was with my husband. That would have never happened because I did have respect for my husband’s feelings yet I also knew that I wasn’t going to be controlled by his jealously either. There had to be mutual respect that should be commonplace in any relationship.
My ex had his favorite actresses but I didn’t get this notion in my head that he was going to run away with one of them that was a common theme with him. Yet once again, I was like “You can’t be serious?”
Then one day toward the end of our relationship in 2012, I was sitting there watching TV and this entertainment news program was on. They were talking about Russell Crowe’s separation from his wife. I wasn’t really paying that much attention to it when all of sudden this voice said “You, know you’re not really his type.” I turned around and my ex had been standing there watching the program. I looked at him and said “Excuse me?” He reiterated, “You’re not his type and he would never go for you, you’re not beautiful enough” then he walked away.
I knew at that moment things were not going to last very long between us. I was at my lowest point career wise, struggling with the depression & anxiety and my weight had ballooned to 225 lbs. I was miserable enough but then to have someone stab you in the heart that way just to be mean was too much. I started withdrawing more and more after that.
I also got mad at him for just taking things too far with the whole being petty and jealous over this person so I went out and bought every Russell Crowe movie that I could find, put his pictures and other actors on my screen savers on both my computer and iPad, we were sharing a home office space at that time so he would see them every day. I watched these actors’ movies every weekend and repeated this for a year. He wasn’t the only one that could be petty. Not one of my finest moments.
It wasn’t until after I started the process of separation and divorce in 2014 when my ex finally let it go. I had moved out and was still dropping by on the weekends to visit my kids because they didn’t live with me. He would ask if I wanted to watch a movie on cable or ones they had rented. I would say okay to try to maintain some sort of peace between us. That was the first time in over 7 years we had watched any movie together. We didn’t say anything the whole time and all I could do was sit there and feel uncomfortable. During those times we watched “Noah”, “Les Misérables”, “Man of Steel” and “The Next Three Days”.
We never talked after the movies, I would just get up and go home. I never knew why he did it. A part of me wanted to believe that he was trying to apologize but I knew better than that. That was not him. He didn’t apologize and never admitted to any wrong doing.
It will soon be a year since he passed away.
I’m still here, stuck with these awful memories that made me question everything between us. It was a strange marriage. It broke me down. It made me miserable.
I had to claw my way out of the downward spiral of depression and anxiety it compounded.
The only thing it didn’t change was well, I’m still a Russell Crowe fan and now an Instagram follower.
Thanks for stopping by.
Have a great week!
Suzanne
love to bake 