On Saturday, February 12, 2011, my husband of 19 years essentially broke up with me via text message. Kind of. It sounds cold and callous, so I like to say it that way at least.
The night before, a Friday, I returned from a week-long trip to Atlanta where I was in a class to learn how to perform sleep studies. I had been bouncing around from job to job the last 20 years and decided to make one last ditch effort for an actual career in something that I thought would be lucrative and interesting. My kids are growing up, the education was relatively quick, and the school relatively inexpensive, so I decided to go for it. I'm 40, after all, and I'd already set out to make as many changes as possible during the monumental year. But I digress...
My husband had to pick me up from the airport Friday night, and this was where I received my first indication things were really, really wrong. He knew my week had been stressful and that I was suffering from several different stress-related health issues, including feeling really weak from not sleeping as much as I should and what I guessed was some sort of electrolyte imbalance. My flight arrived around 8:50 p.m., and by the time my luggage finally came out of that stupid chute, it was probably about 9:30. I walked out of the terminal into the absolutely frigid air, which I hadn't felt for at leat 7 days and had obviously forgotten. I waited. And waited. I texted him where I was standing. Finally I spotted our car and him slowing down to pull over. Silly me, I thought he would put the car in park and come help me lift my 48 lb bag into the bag seat of the car, but he didn't and I had to do it myself in my weakened condition. It took a few tries and some inertia, but I finally shoved it in and slammed the door. When I got in, he just sort of looked at me in his robot-face way, and I leaned toward him a little, just as a test, and I got nothing. No hug, no greeting, no kiss, no peck on the cheek, no "how was your flight?" Nothing. So I maneuvered my seatbelt on and said, "hi." I think I got a half smile.
I jabbered incoherently for about 45 minutes, from confusing stories about things that I tried to learn at the school to the rash in my arm pits that I'd suffered for almost the whole week. I told him about a couple of the men I enjoyed joking with during the class (sometimes I can connect better initially with men than women--don't always trust women at first!), etc. I didn't get much out of him on the ride home, not that I ever did anyway, but it was less than usual. I figured it was because it was late at night and we'd both been up since 6 a.m. I decided I was hungry and had him stop so I could get something quick. In the drive thru I leaned over toward him and looked up expectantly, and he turned to give me a very hard-lipped, pursed kiss. It was cold and chicken peck like. Yuck. I fell asleep after that.
Fast forward a bit and I wake up in the middle of the night, maybe around 4 a.m., to realize he wasn't in bed and my bedroom door was closed. It occured to me that the closed door was a bit odd, but I'd been sleep deprived the last 8 days and didn't feel like investigating. The next time I woke up it was light out, and I was hearing the garage door closing. I thought it was strange, but that maybe he was on call, as usual, or maybe we were out of coffee or something, and he was going to the grocery store. I got up, did the usual morning rituals and tried to unpack a little. Around 10:00 I decided I would text him to see where he was.
Not giving the conversation verbatim, this is basically a condensed version of what was said.
MY INITIAL TEXT: Where are you?
HIS REPLY: I had to get away to think.
MY REPLY: What?
HIS REPLY: I need to clear my head. I didn't miss you while you were gone. I checked out of our marriage a long time ago and I need to figure out why.
MY REPLY: Because you stopped caring about me and everything else.
HIS REPLY: I know. I just need time to think.
MY REPLY: I'm sorry I'm so horrible to be with.
HIS REPLY: It's me.
MY REPLY: None.
HIS REPLY: I had to get away to think.
Now, what you don't already know is that this isn't the first time we've had this sort of conversation. In 2003 it was me wondering if I loved him the way I should. (Editor's Note: There were a few incidents that came to light during this brief separation that I have chosen to refrain from discussing. I do believe it's important to note that I didn't just suddenly decide I wanted to leave all by myself. However, the realization that I SHOULD did happen suddenly while I was driving down the highway and passed a big yellow road sign that said, "Rough Crossing Ahead.") I scheduled myself a 3-week trip to England to think things through. While I was there I met a man I'd been talking to online, he was horrible, I became even more depressed and stressed than before, and I really started missing the comfort of home and a stable, caring relationship. I told the husband I wanted to come home and start over. We moved across the country, away from all of my family to the place where his live, where he promptly told me he didn't think he loved me anymore, and I found email exchanges with someone he worked with. Things were bad for a very long time. I can't remember exactly how long, but I lived on eggshells for months, feeling like I had to be on my best behavior at all times even though I was stressed out trying to make friends in a new place and deal with in laws I hadn't ever lived around before. He never actually left, but every now and then he would say that cliche line, "I just don't know what I think." Eventually I started seeing a counselor, which was painful but probably a good idea, and eventually we went into marriage counseling. Things felt a little better even though he never told me he loved me. I felt a little more stable when, for some stupid reason, we decided to buy a house out there. I faked my way through being extremely unhappy living there, trying to make a happy home for our kids even though the town scared the living daylights out of me and I missed my family immensely. I tried to get a job but I couldn't. Then I planted the seed about moving back to my home. It eventually worked out, and we did. We bought our current house. I got a part-time job. Things were fine for a while. Economic strains developed and my hours were cut to next to nothing. It didn't seem worth it to even have to get up and get dressed for a few hours of work every week, so I quit, thinking the two other women, whose husbands struggled with lay offs and slow work, could get a few more hours in their paychecks. I converted to Catholicism to make a more cohesive-feeling family. Then our house started to feel like it was falling apart around me. Everything seemed to be falling apart at once and there was no money for fixing it up, but it was more than that. I realized he was working more. A lot more. Home maintenance flew out the window. I started to feel like the house and the apathy surrounding it was a metaphor for ME. He just didn't want to put the effort in. We started to fight even more. I told him I wasn't getting any emotional support that I desperately needed. Then I signed up for the sleep study course, and on the day I had to book my flight I sat in this computer chair and cried uncontrollably. I'm not a fan of flying, I've rarely left my family and pets for a week by myself before, and I felt like every tiny decision from where to fly from, which airline to fly, which flight to take, which seat to choose, was all a life-or-death decision. He knew I was struggling and crying, and he never came over to me to put a hand on my shoulder and tell me it would all be fine. When I asked him why, he said it's because it was just something that had to be done, so there was no point in getting emotional over it. I finally booked the ticket, yelling, "Fine, I'll do it just because I know you want to get rid of me." I called it, didn't I?
Back to the texting. All of this took place in the morning. What he didn't know was that I was calling and texting several of my friends and family, telling them I was getting a divorce. One friend, who is in the middle of divorce proceedings, was actually in her car on her way down here. She had planned to contact me later to let me know she was coming down to see someone else and that she wanted to see me. I hadn't even talked to my husband yet to know anything for sure, but I knew there was no returning from this. This is the third time we've had this problem, and the last time, before we moved home, I told myself I would absolutely not ever go through that again. I was not going to put up with a flake out every 5 years, with months of trying to put things back together again, only to have it happen AGAIN. He finally texted me back that he wanted to talk in the afternoon. He walked in, said something I can't remember, and sat down. I stood up, started washing dishes or clearing away some clutter or something--I can't remember. All I remember is that intense need to NOT look at him, and I told him I couldn't. He sat there silent and sullen. Finally I sat down in my usual chair and looked over at his sad face and he said, "I just need time to think." I believe the next words out of my mouth knocked his socks off, or blew his mind, or kicked him in the gut...or probably just made him really, really happy. I said, "About what? I am DONE. I'm not doing this again. I want someone to love who loves me and wants to be with me. If that's not you, I can't make it BE you." And that was pretty much it. We decided to take the Band-Aid approach with the kids, just telling them immediately instead of pretending all was well for a while even though they would know it wasn't. He told our daughter and I told our son. It was a living, heaving, sobbing, soggy hell. But it was done. I got on facebook and unfriended his friends and family from my list, explaining to them it wasn't because I was getting rid of them, but because I didn't want anything to be uncomfortable. I didn't want to be silent and secretive and hushedly tell a few friends, "oh, we're having problems. We may get a divorce." No. We definitely are this time, and the more people I tell, the less likely I am to wimp out and take the easy way because I just don't want to be alone. But I've been alone and lonely a lot in the last few years of my marriage, so I'm finally ready to tell the truth, as quickly as possible.
So he's been staying with his friend, and I've been here at home in our falling-apart house, trying to hold up some semblence of normalcy for the kids. And you know what? I think I'm doing a damn good job. The first couple days I couldn't stop the tears, or the fear and the shaking, but as for now it's not as bad. I realize that could change any time, but I'm going to enjoy the fact that I feel a little stronger every day right now. I make sure to blast the Shawn Colvin song, "Sunny Came Home" and sing it at the top of my lungs at least 3 times each morning. It's silly, but it helps. So does my pre-travel mantra, "Strength, peace, and comfort." It's strangely soothing. I'm struggling with some other issues right now, ranging from feeling safe at night to what will I do when he wants to fly my kids across the country to visit his family without me, to how will I ever find someone to date when I live in such a small town, to how will I find someone to date that I won't be afraid of? But I'll save that entry for another day. Maybe tomorrow, or later, depending on when another need for a cathartic soul bearing shows up.
No comments:
Post a Comment