a thousand peices

I got an email tonight from one of my husbands old flames. I knew some of the story about them- his version which I'm pretty sure is skewed beyond recognition of the truth. Without giving too much away- there were a few things said that absolutely shook me to my very core...

He's the main reason I left the state...

...loving him was going to kill me...

...disbelief that he did this, again and this time it is so much worse...

...care about someone and have it just eat at you till it rots you to the core...

Part of me just wants to scream. Why? Why tell me this? Why now? Hello wound, have some salt!! But I know this person meant no malice. None at all.

So here I am. Overwrought with guilt over the decision I made to put him out. Thinking back on 10, 11, 13 years of this- for what? It was all a lie. I thought it was when I got pregnant with my youngest that really sent him over the edge. He was a drinker before- and a bad one- but he was getting better. Define "better" -I know. But when you are on the edge, better is better. Drunk 2 nights a week is better than 3 and much better than 7- right? So yes it was better for about 9 months. When I got pregnant with Danny- he sunk. I remember him sitting down in the middle of the living room like his legs had been taken out from under him when I told him I was pregnant. Things were never the same, and I carried with me a torch of guilt about that. I got pregnant and it pushed him over the edge. It only got worse, and while there were moments of 'less bad' it never got 'good'- or even 'better'. Moments of clarity, patience and better than average parenting skills of a sometimes functional addict still don't make it better.

I took on so much guilt. When he went of 'the deep end' before Danny was born, I even considered adoption for him. Thinking I could not take care of a new baby on my own- and well, I was quite suicidal anyway. I have lived with a lot of guilt for 'pushing more on him than he could handle'. I wanted what I wanted- I refused an abortion even though I considered it.

I have spent the last 10 plus years trying to figure out how I could do it all. How I could make it better. One of the first things I learned in Al-Anon was that there was no amount of caring, enabling, or screaming I could do to make him get better. I couldn't even make him WANT to get better. There was no amount of love I could give him to make him better. I knew this.

Didn't I?

The truth is- I didn't. I said I did. I knew it- but yet I thought that if I helped this one last time. If I was indifferent. If I was loving. If we had dates. If we had a good holiday. If we had more money. If I gave him what he wanted. If if if. I thought I could love him enough. I thought I could help him and that my love and our family, and the children were enough to make him WANT to take the help. It was enough to make him WANT to get better. All he really needed was the DESIRE to get better. The desire strong enough to try. He never wanted it, he never tried.

I have no idea if he is trying now. I fear that he isn't.

Now, I have this letter. This letter could not have come at a worse or a better time really. This letter tells me that my life was a lie. That my marriage was dishonest from the beginning. That his drinking problem did not PROGRESS- it was ALWAYS bad. He just hid it- and made it look like it was 'getting bad'. Looking back, what I see as 'the start' of it- was just when I started paying attention. The spiral was a good excuse to blame me for it all. I never stood a chance.

Never. He was long gone before I showed up.

What a spectacular lie. What an amazing waste of 13 years of my life. I have been fighting a losing battle. I have told so many lies. So many secrets. I have held on to so much shame. So much resentment. So much self-doubt, guilt, blame.

I thought he was my soul mate. I thought he was the other half of my heart. I was wrong. I was so wrong, because how can you love someone who isn't real? You can't truly love someone who you don't even know. I realize now, that while I knew things about him- I never knew him. This saddens me- because well, he knows me. Of course he does, how else would he have manipulated me for so long?

I am very much like the sender of this letter only decades later. Every day I think about leaving the state. Moving far away from him. I think about hiding. I think about dying. I think that I have to escape because I find myself in this trap. It's MY addiction- and while I'm much better at staying away from it, well... for example, alcoholics are told to "walk in dry places." Anywhere that he isn't- is my 'dry place', and I am not sure that this city, county, state or this side of the coast is big enough for the two of us. If I leave where he can't get to me- I'll be free. It may be the only way.

As I come to the end of this post, I must say that this changes nothing. My decision to leave has been sealed. I have moved on. There is no hope for this relationship, but I have to admit that it breaks my heart into a thousand pieces to know that it never stood a chance.