July 21, 2014, 6:10 am

I’ve been awake for almost two hours already – my boy got up shortly after I did, walked hesitantly into the living room looking for me and said, “Mommy.  It’s still the middle of the night.  You need to go back to bed.”

I coaxed him onto the couch, covered him up with a snuggly blanket, homemade by Meme, and there he lies, peacefully slumbering.

I’m not even mad that I woke up so early on a day that I didn’t have to be anywhere but home.  For the past several years, these early dawn hours have been the only ones that were truly mine.  Well, not altogether mine.  There always loomed the risk of my husband storming into the living room spewing forth some diatribe or another, usually to do with all that was wrong with the way I was doing things or why did I have enough energy to get up at 4:30 and not enough to spend quality time with him?  I literally believe that I developed some slight version of PTSD related to hearing certain doors opening in our home, simply because I knew that it was about to begin.  There were many days when no such confrontation occurred, but I was always confident that his suppressing the overwhelming urge for them created as much or more anxiety within than his actually proceeding with letting me have it.  When I look back on all of that time (and it was a long time), I am tempted to criticize myself and accept far more responsibility for all that went wrong than I should.  Blameless?  Me?  Nope.  I could have used sex as a weapon throughout and wielded it without conscience.  But years ago, I made a vow to myself and to God not to be that woman.  I wanted to be more evolved.  More evolved than the woman whose only currency is sex.  Perhaps there is a middle ground – I know there is – but I was so wounded by all of my husband’s successful attempts at isolating and berating me that it became a battle of the wills.  I am completely aware of the lack of godliness that betrays in me in those situations, and I pray fervently for that degree of pride to dissipate in me.  But I also know that it wasn’t always that way between us.

I became acutely aware, over time, that I had the power to create a monster.

I could have chosen to placate the monster, giving him exactly what he wanted when those episodes would occur.   But thank God I had sense enough to know, beyond question, that if I would have set that pattern, those episodes would only increase in frequency, intensity and duration.  That is what I know.  When there is a negative behavior that needs to be extinguished, the least recommended strategy is to reinforce it.  If I had not known this to be true, it would have looked like this.  Again.  And again.  And again.

Him:  You know, if you have enough energy to get up and (work in the garden, drink coffee, write, play with the dog, do the laundry, make breakfast), then I don’t want to hear about how tired you are anymore when you could be (making out with me, sleeping with me, helping me with my business, cleaning up all this clutter).  You are so (selfish, prideful, hypocritical, all about you, much more into your job than your husband) . . .

 

Me:  You’re right.  I don’t know why I didn’t see things your way.  Let’s have sex.

 

Him:  Yes.

 

Repeat cycle  for the next 50 years.

None of my friends or family really knew what my life was like.  Some had an inkling.  When you get married, especially if you are living somewhere away from your lifelong friends — The ones who really know you.  The ones who have been there through all the seasons you have lived through thus far.  The ones who know that there is more to you than someone could observe in just one day —  away from those friends, there is a kind of automatic isolation that begins to occur.  At the beginning, it’s self-imposed.  You’re newly married.  You need to establish yourselves as a couple.  To learn each other.  To bond.  To reassure your partner that he or she your priority.  For me, this looked like giving up my home in the town I worked in, moving to a truly urban environment far away from my family and friends, and limiting my life to just work, graduate school and home.  We never made any couple friends.  I didn’t know it from the start, but I was it for him.  He supposedly had friends before we met, but I only ever met two of them – one was a near-50-year old single male who apparently smokes a bale of weed a day and the other was an ex-girlfriend of his (and his brother’s) with whom he worked.  Eventually, I would meet one other, who, along with her husband and slightly imbalanced twenty-something daughter, spent New Year’s Eve at our home the first year we were married.  The twenty-something who revealed to me before she did to her parents that she was fairly certain she was pregnant.  As a result of a rape.  By a person who gave her drugs.  At a psychiatric hospital.  I did not make it to midnight that year.  He knew that I was allergic to smoke.  A problem which was exacerbated by my pregnancy.  So, in addition to binge drinking and smoking half the night, he congregated with our guests outside, building and reminiscing around a bonfire, while I lay inside, pregnant, alone on the couch.  Eventually, I gave up the ghost and went to bed.  With ear plugs.  And an eye mask.  He slept on the couch that night – given the multiple smoke factors, I appreciated that.  I got up early New Year’s Day and made homemade biscuits and gravy with coffee for our guests.  Once we were almost done with breakfast, he drug up to the table and joined us.   Only to inform me that he didn’t really like biscuits and gravy.

As I reflect on the whole crazy thing, I’m reminded that one of the reasons that I became and remained so isolated was that I kept referring to that old adage, “If you can’t say something nice about someone, then say nothing at all.”  And to that all-too-familiar “God hates divorce” that I was told repeatedly.  I wondered how much I was expected to endure.  What I was doing wrong.  Why it wasn’t getting any better.  Only worse, in fact.  I winced at the irony of my having insisted on including “I will not divorce you” in our self-penned wedding vows and, subsequently, at the echoes of the laughter that followed from the congregation.  I got married to stay married.  I listened to people who loved me reiterate that fact.  I stayed married because that’s how God designed marriage.  But God did not design marriage to be what I had.  All I could think when men of experience and stature were encouraging me to stick it out and slog through the “hard times” was, “How long would you want your little girl to endure this kind of abuse?”  But I never had the courage to confront them with that question.  I was being submissive, even though I was reminded several times a week for almost all of the 2,109 days that we lived together how I was controlling and rebellious and cold and hateful and heartless and heretical and sociopathic and . . . well, you get the gist.  I will be honest.  I did not want to fail.  Certainly not at marriage.  I had waited until I was 40 years old to even come close to it.

He depended on me for anything and everything to do with social engagements.  We were instructed by one marriage counselor to have one date night per week.  No more than $20 to be spent.  Without our baby tagging along.  I plan one week.  He plans the other.  How many times did we do it?  Two.  Both planned by me.

Neither one of us had our oxygen masks on, and we were losing cabin pressure at an alarming rate.

I shared tiny tidbits of what was going on with various people, but not with the ones who knew me best.  Why did I do that?  I don’t know if it was even a conscious choice.  Pride, perhaps?  I hated that the choice that I had made was resulting in such demoralizing decay.  Decay of a once vibrant and adventuresome life.  The kind of rot that occurs over time, decomposing patiently, disguising the putrid smell.   Fear of being perceived as a failure?  Lack of confidence?  Who knows.

When I decided, finally, to file for divorce in December 2013, I did it because I knew it was time.  I was being held hostage at the dinner table, yet again, and I opened a birthday card from my Dad and Teresa.

Here’s what it said:

I see a young lady, out in the world

Following her dreams, doing good

And making a difference.

Then, I think, ‘Hey, that’s my kid.’

That’s my pride and joy.

Happy birthday to a daughter

Who’s so inspiring and loved.

In that moment, as I was listening to my husband repeatedly tell me how unskilled I was at photo editing and how he was hurt that I had not asked him to show me what he knows about Photoshop, asking why I had not just turned the photography job I’d been hired to do over to him, I realized, “I have to end this because I’m on the verge of believing that all this card says about me could never be true.”

Past, present or future.

That card and its message saved my life.  My sanity.  Although most days now, with all the pressure and the burden of what my single, homeowner mom life presents me, I may or may not question the “sanity” part.  😉

Why write about it now?  Because I need to.  Write about it.  Among many of the other integral parts of who I am that were absorbed into and diminished by the darkness of the past six years — listening to music in my home, entertaining friends in my home, serving in the church, traveling, hanging out with friends outside of work — writing is one of the parts that I miss the most.  Granted, I was in graduate school and doing academic writing — and much of that was self-exploration — but just sharing my thoughts about life had gone away altogether.  There are choppy, inconsistent entries on my blog, which had previously been a regular, therapeutic part of my life, at least weekly . . . daily during some eras.

One of the most powerful experiences I had during this time was the six months I participated in a Celebrate Recovery Step Study.  At first, I was not certain how much I would enjoy it, but it evolved to be one of the most important experiences of my life.  I wish every person on planet Earth would commit to participating in one, a well-organized and well-executed one like mine was.  There was interpersonal accountability, a vivid lack of being judgmental among our members, a sense of accomplishment, and a profound sense of the presence of the Holy Spirit.  The work was not easy, but it was necessary, and it was blessed.  There were all kinds of writing involved in the CR Step Study, and of course, I loved it.  I found myself becoming more and more real with my group members not long after we began.  It was trying for me, as a counselor, to observe the “no cross-talk” guideline at times, but I completely understand the need for that boundary.  And I grew to respect it.  And welcome it.

I’m rambling.  But it’s now nearly two full days since I began this post.  It may be time to publish.

In closing, pay attention to your friends and family members . . . extend your hand in support . . . ask them when they are not acting like the person you have always known . . . help them to see their need for God, for accountability.  Show them empathy.  Listen to them without judgment or always trying to offer a solution.  Don’t always speak to them in bumper stickers.  Share your experience.  Be honest.  Offer them a soft place to fall.  Sometimes, the most intelligent, accomplished, strong person can be dying on the inside and not feel confident enough to let you know.

Pay attention.  Dig deeper.  Make sure you know you are there for them.  Whenever they need you.  Whatever they need.  You never know when you will save someone.