Sometimes Rocket Scientists are Wrong

My almost-ex-husband is brilliant.  

Not just smart or bright - brilliant.  I knew that when I met him, even though he was still struggling through his undergraduate degree.  Five years after we started dating, he got his mechanical engineering degree; two years later, he earned his master's degree in industrial engineering; and now he is, quite literally, a rocket scientist.  His brain is a wonder, and works so differently than my artistic grey matter.

I've always deeply respected his work ethic and God-given intelligence that got him there (I still do).  For his bedtime reading he would bring an engineering or physics book to bed, and I'd fruitlessly try to read over his shoulder; what was unintelligible to me was clear information to him.  Absolutely incredible.

Because of his proven brilliance, I usually trusted his opinion of all things.  The man has a steel-trap memory and incredible analytical recall; he is a walking encyclopedia.  Countless times I would try to disagree with him about a word spelling or historical fact or other such data, and 99% of the time our Google searches would prove him right.  It was impressive and, occasionally, irritating.  But what else should I expect from marrying the smartest man I've ever met?

Basically, I trusted him; I trusted him to be right.

And his brilliance and my trust led to a lot of pain on my part in the downward slope of our relationship. 

And let me be very clear: he is not evil nor malicious, and our relationship was not all bad - especially in the beginning, there were so many good days and memories, sweet moments of kindness and affection.  Even now, he's still a thoughtful, polite and very responsible man with strengths I still respect ... but still, I left.  Because after many years I finally realized in the end that, even though he's a rocket scientist and the smartest man I'd ever met, he was wrong about me.

As the years of our marriage progressed, cold comments - made with increasing frequency - began to pile up on my heart.  When he would make comments about my increased weight and how much it diminished his attraction to me, I would think, "He's pretty much always right - I must actually be unattractive right now."  Or when I would try to assert myself in an argument and he remembered  things differently, I would think, "Well, he's got a better memory than me - I'm probably wrong."  And, over time, I saw myself as he did: not enough.  Not thin enough, not smart enough, not tidy enough, not pretty enough.

It was my friends that kept me afloat, confused but somehow believing in myself.  He would tell me that I'm the most difficult person for him to have fun with, but my closest friends would tell me how fun I am; and they're the kind of friends who would tell me if I really was as difficult as he said (I even asked them multiple times if I was).  But continually, they would contradict every negative thing he said: they repeated to me that I am funny, I'm easy to talk to, I'm smart, I'm attractive.

Does this mean that my brilliant almost-always-right husband might be ... wrong?

It wasn't until after I left in September that I finally realized my error.

Yes, he's brilliant - but he's a brilliant scientist.  In a room of engineers, he's the one who's right most often ... and he's used to being the right one in the room.  But a relationship is not a rocket, a wife is not an engineering coworker, and a lab disagreement is very different from a marital argument.  And, even though he and I were both used to assuming he was the correct one, his evaluation of me was completely inaccurate in the real world.

I got so used to trusting his brilliance and analysis of the world that I forgot the limitation of his specialty.

And boy, was I mightily surprised once I walked away from him and into that real world.

When I left, I carried his perception of me out of our apartment with my clothes and books.  I assumed that other men viewed me as he did - not desirable, not enough.  So I was satisfied with the idea of being alone; I had no intentions of instantly seeking a romantic relationship because I assumed that other men wouldn't want to have one with me.  After all, one of the smartest people I'd ever met said I wasn't that attractive any more - surely he was right about that, like most other things.

I was so sure of my undesirable state that it was barely a notation on my mental calendar; I had plans and expectations of when I would try and move out of my mother's spare bedroom, or how much money I wanted to save up, things like that.  Only vaguely on that mental calendar was a scribbled note, "Don't think about dating for a year."  And I was fine with that.

So I was stunned when men showed up.  Immediately. Men attracted to and interested in me. And I was totally unprepared for it.  Because it wasn't just classless guys cat-calling me in public - it was good men, handsome and funny and sweet and smart.  It was flattering, affirming, and flabbergasting.  How could my genius ex-husband be so wrong about me?

Honestly, I still don't fully understand what happened between us, and perhaps I never will.  All I know is that ... sometimes, even rocket scientists are wrong.  He may be the smartest guy in the lab and the most brilliant man I've ever met, but he was wrong about me.  I am sweet, funny, beautiful and desirable.

And it feels good to feel and believe those (true) things about myself again.