September 13, 2012

• Taking Stock

  A little over a week ago, I left my home, and my partner of 30 years.

  It’s been a long painful road…and even though it had to happen, it still is painful to have done.

  I resent people who go on about how “some people give up too easily”.  Some of us DON’t.  We hang in…we struggle. We try.

  But in the end, you have to make a choice.

  I don’t hate the man…but I hate what my life had become. I hate the fact that I wandered online over a decade ago, because my husband didn’t like to talk to me. He preferred “companionable silence”. Now my concept of that is that you are hanging out together, reading, or whatever, because you are comfortable. It’s not supposed to be one person feeling stifled…desperate to say something, but afraid that if they say too much, the other person will be annoyed.

  He developed an uncomfortable habit more than two decades ago…correcting me in front of other people. It made me feel like a child…and when he started doing it over matters of opinion, rather than fact…or in areas where he had no background at all, it made me nuts. He got his silence. I stopped talking. I think I went online just to have a chance to SAY something—to anyone. It was oppressive.

  I asked him for a divorce twice in the past…once I took back because we had a family crisis. The second time was in March of 2005. We were in mediation when Katrina happened…the mediators dropped us because he had to spend weeks in Louisiana. In the mean time I’d had a SECOND car accident…and faced a second surgery. He suggested we stay together until after. I agreed…but we were not better. We were not fixed. After a while, the brittle truce just fell to pieces. We fought weekly…then daily. It was impossible to have any discussion without it turning into verbal abuse, and vitriol.

  The why behind it private…I don’t need to air the family issues.

  But we were broken, beyond repair. It still makes me cry…because once we were partners. I remember him talking the nurses at the hospital into letting him the recovery wing after our daughter was born via a C-section.  I remember fighting my way out of anesthesia, to hear his voice telling me that we had a beautiful little girl…and the first time I saw him cradle her in his arms. A hundred memories…a thousand before it was all beyond fixing…and each one just makes it harder to bear what we became.  You don’t spend 30 years with someone, and leave without it hurting.

   

  But when staying is more painful? When there is no peace, no warmth, no shared anything?

   

  Then it’s time to go…and pray that you both can find your way.

  I don’t hate him. I suspect before this is all settled, he will hate me…but he was on his way there anyway.

  I’m not looking for someone else. I’m not hoping for romance, or even company…I just need to heal…and find who I was, before I fractured to become someone’s wife…and that is the lesson of the day.

   

  • 3:56 pm
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