After a year of courtship, a legal union dressed as
pirates, and 8 tumultuous years…my marriage is ending. The thing that was never
going to happen to me is happening. It was my call, but that doesn’t make it
painless. It doesn’t mean I don’t love him, either. It just means that living
conditions became unbearable for me and I had to make a change.
My husband is a wonderful person…and an alcoholic.
He gave me permission to share that. It’s been a very tough battle for him and
I hope he wins that fight. I really hope he does. He is renting a room in a dry
household with wonderful people whom I trust so Violet gets to spend half the
week there. A few people have stated that they didn’t want us to split up and
that with enough love it can be worked out. What they don’t understand is that
this isn’t about love or lack thereof. It’s about a partnership that crumbled
years ago. It’s about a promise I made.
When things got really bad between us while I was
going through cancer treatment, he reached the point where he was hiding
whiskey bottles under the bathroom sink and I found out. I haven’t always been
the perfect example and I have enabled him during times when I just didn’t have
the strength to fight against it but I have also shown him compassion in this
disease. As long as he was honest with me about it and didn’t hide it, we could
work through it. When he’d come home drunk and worried that I would hate him I
would say that I was frightened, hurt and sad but that we would start again
tomorrow…and then we’d start again. What I made clear however, was that if he
started hiding bottles again it would be the end of us because I can’t help him
fight what he keeps hidden.
So I ended it.
I’ve been living in a constantly moving storm so
long, I can’t remember what life was like before the chaos, before the
seemingly endless tragedies and battles. I think the biggest changes began with
the death of my brother almost 4 years ago. Since that universe-altering event,
it’s been almost unending. I was bullied by my boss to the point where I had to
leave my job and take on full-time student status. The following spring, I
discovered that I was pregnant. That’s when my husband first lost himself in a
bottle and I lost my ability to trust. When my beautiful daughter came into the
world things started to get better between us for a time. We even went to AA
meetings as a little family with baby Violet in tow. We were making good
friends and he was making progress. Then the next spring, for the second time
in my life, Cancer announced that it had come for me. It didn’t take my life
but it took my breasts, my ovaries…and my fear. The most important
metamorphosis of my life began at that point. While I embraced the gifts cancer
had to offer and began to become more whole than I’ve been in my life, he
started to crumble. A baby and a wife with cancer had to be a mind-boggling
Hell for him. It was an on-and-off the wagon sort of ride while I did what I
could to keep things together on my end. I didn’t always do a very good job but
in times like these…who does?
And then, about a week before my birthday I found a
bottle of vodka behind the bathroom garbage can. It was full and unopened, but
behind it was an empty one. My blood went cold and I began to shake. I knew
that this was the end.
So I broke his heart…and mine too. The family broke,
our way of life broke. Everything just seemed to shatter all around. The storm
that had been nipping at our heels for so many years finally hit and everything
changed.
Of course it still hurts. It hasn’t even been a
month yet. I wanted to keep the whole thing quiet until it was done and the
divorce was final but in his hurt, he let the cat out of the bag and questions
began to fly out at us both. So I made an official announcement and now
everyone knows. As this continues, I am becoming more and more certain that
this is the right thing. Even though I feel ripped apart, I also feel relief.
Even though I am almost completely without income and I’m scared, I have a new
sense of confidence and I am opening up to my potential. The wounds are all so
fresh but I accept these scars in my collection and I know that we can still be
good parents and even friends. It feels like my days are all about sweeping up
metaphorical shards of glass but it is needed in order to find that clean,
shiny surface. Healing often comes with pain and this healing is a tremendous undertaking.
Somewhere in the last month, I remember telling my
therapist that I have never had a self-esteem so healthy before and that for
the first time in my life, when I look in the mirror the ugly girl who always
lurked within was nowhere to be seen. She’s still gone and with the down of the
Ugly Duckling finally being shed completely, I can see the beginning growth
stages of my swan feathers.
No. These are not swan feathers. They are fire and I
am rising like the Phoenix…I hope he will do the same. He's a good dad, an amazing artist, and can run one hell of a D&D campaign. He deserves to give himself happiness. I want to see him happy and being together made us both miserable.
