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Alice Behind the Looking Glass
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A week before Thanksgiving, I came home from work--my kids were upset, my husband was blacked out, once again, and I packed and left. My children, 14 and 11, were glad to leave. My mother took us in, and I found a job within two weeks; a house within two months. Neither of us wanted to divorce, I just wanted to be in control of my own destiny and provide a stable environment for my children. He called us daily, and sent money. He was so sweet during those phone conversations. He missed us. I missed him. On the phone, there wasn't evidence of any problems, just his wonderful personality, the voice I loved. I had to remind myself he'd be drinking after he hung up. I let him visit the children, and since he was sending me all of his money and was broke, that provided an excuse for me to let him spend the night. He was finishing his BS in Computer Science, and getting therapy by grad students at the university. He said he wasn't drinking. Any idiot could tell me this made no difference, he was a chronic alcoholic, but I couldn't bear to be away from him.
My high school boyfriend had looked me up and we spent a lot of time together. I went to his house plenty of times (he's a guitarist, and I loved to hear him play), plus I was desperate for a connection with someone I'd known, since I was stuck back in my hometown--a wasteland of cow pastures. When he'd ask me out, I'd agree--but then when time came, I'd cancel. That happened about four times. So, I was sort of seeing my old boyfriend and my husband; my husband was rotating between me and a new girlfriend every other weekend.
I had never had sex as hungry and as wild as we did on those weekends. Actually, it had never been that good with anyone, any time. He asked me what he had to do to have us back. We agreed not to uproot the children again, and I said I'd have to control the finances, completely, and he must go to AA and continue therapy. I knew this wasn't reliable, but I hoped maybe he'd learned what it was like to lose his family, and maybe that was what he'd needed. My children loved their dad, but still said I was walking back into a disaster, and advised against it. My extended family practically staged an intervention to convince me to divorce him.
I thank God I did take him back. This period of our lives was the one we enjoyed, finally. I was in love with my husband. He was taking care of his family. We both had good jobs and enough money to enjoy each other and the children. He called me all day at work. I walked around with a smile on my face all the time. I don't know how anyone could stand being around me. I was excited every day to go home and get my kiss. We enjoyed going to our son's football games together. He had a hard time sitting on the bleachers, though. He had to get up alot and stretch. I thought he was getting early arthritis, but there were over the counter meds for that. Sometimes, my knees were stiff, too, so I didn't get overly concerned. I'd also noticed he had indigestion almost everyday. He was taking otc meds for that, as well. I didn't think this was anything other than getting older.
He began to have daily digestion problems, pain in his abdomen and joints, high blood pressure, and assorted maladies. He went from doctor to specialist to laboratory. He couldn't eat meat any longer. Some days, he'd have to go without eating anything. We were scared, but I still thought it was something easily taken care of. They knew something was wrong, but it took the longest time to get a diagnosis: Rheumatoid arthritis. That was a relief to me, compared to the frightening thoughts of cancer. Still, the more I found out about rheumatoid, the more scared I was. It can branch out into other serious ailments, and it can be fatal. They said he did have an aggressive case of RA, but there were several promising treatments.
When they called him in for more blood tests, I had a sense of foreboding. He hadn't wanted to scare me, but when I read back now, over the doctor's notes from this period, he had already experienced frightening spikes in blood pressure, he'd passed out at work twice, and his pain was worse than he'd let on to me. He'd been in the Army for a couple of years in the late seventies, and had two notable experiences: a blood transfusion, and a couple of heroin injections, when sharing needles wasn't regarded as dangerous. The first time I mourned him was when they called him and said he also had Hepatitis C, which seriously complicated treatment of RA.
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I can't seem to write much more. This part is very difficult. I don't want to add new threads, so I'm just going to add on bits as I can. Nothing I say can possibly describe what I'm trying to say.
When I heard the diagnosis, I knew life was over. It may drift, but it would never be the same. I knew I would be here, as I am now: a widow in an empty house, my secrets, nuances, and passion gone from the earth. He had them, he knew them. Those things died with him. There's no getting any of it back. There's no replacing it. I went through several periods of mourning like that, each one harder than the one before, because we were closer to the end. I would fight back to hope each time, though. Practice from being a hopeful fool re alcohol, I guess... I couldn't understand how he was so steady. He rarely complained. I'd had insurance for me and the children, but he was uninsured. His parents had more than enough to get him good medical care. They suggested he get care through the VA system. They could have saved him had they wanted to. I can't really say much about this. He'd be with me now if they'd given a damn about him. Nothing I say here will be right. This is one of the things I haven't come to terms with. He died broken hearted because of his parent's indifference to the horrible quality of his life and his approaching death.
I keep noticing, when I proofread, that I write in terms of how his death affected me. Thinking about how it affected him is too painful to contemplate for more than a few seconds. I blur it out. That's probably why someone mentioned that I seem detached. I am.
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After the conversation about divorce, we stayed together for three uneventful years. I decided to focus on the kids, and that was enough for me at the time. I camped out with the Girl Scouts, and was the loudest cheerleader at my son's rec ball games, soccer, every season's sporting event. I made myself happy in them. And, I squirreled away a little cash here and there for the day the kids were old enough to choose the parent they wanted to live with. I was told a child of 14 could likely choose their custodial parent in a divorce, and my youngest was 8 when all this happened. However, my son was 10, and I really didn't think a judge would split them up, or award cusody of my little daughter to her father. Sometimes I wanted to kill him. I was devoted to them, I wasn't getting their lights cut off. I was violently pissed that I had to endure more of his bullshit, and I was becoming sick, worrying all the time about having stuff turned off, and what disaster lurked around each corner.
I did OK living like this for about three years, but I found out a woman (a person) needs love, acceptance, self-esteem. Something. Some reason to live. Children shouldn't be burdened with keeping their mother alive. It was a shitty way to live. I'd always had a moderate baseline of depression--but in about 1997, it was full throttle. I wanted to die. Consciously, there was no way I would leave my children--subconsciously, things were going badly. I didn't recognize myself in the mirror. I didn't even think about my appearance. People who have been really depressed know how you are just removed from life, even though you're still walking around in it.
I didn't even notice a new guy at work, except to think it was intrusive for him to try to start conversations with me. I was sitting in there, in the dark, relieving everyone of my presence and me, of theirs. I didn't want to meet new people. I didn't want to talk to the old ones. I didn't have enough money to buy lunch at work, and I didn't have an appetite, so for the hour lunch break, I sat in an unused room on the campus. I didn't think anything of it. I guess, though, it was the subject of conversation. I was so checked out, I didn't really see him--I couldn't tell you what he looked like at the time--I just knew he intruded on the time I tried to rest my head. It was a big room, set up for the patients to watch TV, but they rarely used that room, and never did during my lunch break, and he asked me if I minded him sitting in there and watching TV and eating his lunch.
Later, I found out friends had put him up to being friendly to me, to see if it would shake me out of my gloom. That was embarrassing. I had not thought of another man. The thought was foreign, as foreign as it is now.
The things that happen, happened. I used to think that cheaters were amoral, slitherers, who lasciviously sought people to screw for the sake of screwing. That sterling upbringing. I had no idea it could sneak up on you. Of course, everyone is still accountable for their decision. He had long fulfilled his favor to my friends. Weight dropped off of me; people remarked they didn't know I had colorful clothes in my closet. My appearance and my mood changed dramatically. In later years, I read one of those Cosmo articles with a check list of What To Look For When Your Spouse Is Cheating. I was a poster child for an extramarital affair. And, this was before we had sex. We talked for six months before seeing each other away from work. We went fishing on his boat, we went dancing, we "dated" for another three months. I thought I was in love with him. Of course, I was in love with the way he mad me feel. I had so desperately needed to feel something. I threw everything I believed out the window. I would divorce my husband and be this man's lover, and raise my children alone.
We had a very romantic, hot affair: it lasted four months, and a good deal of it was videotaped by my father-in-law's PI. The old guy told my husband in his dad's office that he should think hard about whether or not he wanted our marriage to survive. He said over half of the couples he investigated stayed together, if the accusing spouse didn't see the tapes. Not one couple who had seen the tapes stayed together. He didn't watch them.
I didn't know any of this when I admitted I'd been having the affair. The most bizarre thing...when I admitted it, the first thing he said was "Stay with me. This is as much my fault as it is yours. Let's start over." Not at all what I expected. But, as usual, it wasn't that simple.
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I try to see things as they are. I know we have a tendancy to see a skewed vision of events, so that we come out a little more innocent than we were, or arguably justified. I'll try to be as fair as I can telling this part of what happened. The rest is lost without the background.
My overbearing upbringing had done quite a job on me. If I have Psych 101 right, my id was completely pulverized, my ego was a wisp, running around the periphery of my mind, frantically trying to escape the crushing super ego that had my stomach in knots all the time.
So, like clockwork, when my son was born, my parent's standards crushed in on me--I immediately quit drinking, smoking, partying and anything remotely irresponsible. I transformed overnight. I was going to be a good mother. I lived sacrificially--I stopped short of beating myself with a cat of nine tails, but just short...
So, now I noticed how much he drank--that he became very tense and short-tempered if we weren't home at around 4 or 5 in the afternoon; later, understanding he'd needed a drink. Money was missing, bills were unpaid, he'd disappear and I can't count the nights I sat stupidly crying by the phone, imagining him dead in a ditch, rather than where he was--in a strip club, tipping my rent money to someone who hadn't given birth to his children. He branched out briefly from beer to liquor, and it made him abusive. By the third or fourth time he swaggered around in my direction, bellowing at me, I told him I'd kill him in his sleep if he drank liquor again. He hadn't hit me, but I could tell he was working up to it. He sneered at me, cornering me against walls, refusing to let me move. He was verbally abusive. I know it sounds red-necky--it is, really, but I'm not going to be hit or physically hurt in any way by anyone. Not twice, anyway. I'm so immature in that respect, I'd probably trade my freedom for the pleasure of seeing their last surprised expression. I can't stand being cornered.
Before, I'd maintained a degree of repect toward him as "the man" in the relationship. Seeing him so weak, and staggering around so often; I learned to despise the stupid, brainless look on his drunk face. I lost respect for him. I remember thinking, still an adherent of stereotypical, conservative roles, that if the house caught on fire (odd, I know), I couldn't rely on my husband to save me and his children. I'd have to save him. His stock plummeted.
He was a very gentle father. He never spanked either of our children. My son told me only recently, that the one time I asked my husband to discipline our son due to a clear violation, he went in the room and hit something with his belt, while my son produced an Oscar-worthy performance.
It was important to me to do the right things. I taught our son's Sunday School class, volunteered in my daughter's class twice a week, I tried hard to do everything I should. The nights crying by the phone came more frequently, the lies were more careless, the utilities were shut off much more often. He took my paycheck and I never saw any of it again. His refusal to discuss our finances and the drinking caused constant, vicious arguments. I didn't want to fail at marriage. But, when I was arrested because of a lie he told me, I shut down on him. I quit loving him that day. I felt it happen. I asked him for a divorce. There was nothing of any value to fight over. I just wanted to put together a peaceful life, in a house where I knew whether or not the light bill had been paid.
During the "good cycles", I'd had glimmers of hopefulness and sympathy. I knew he had evil parents, who had alternately bailed him out of financial messes, and actively sabotaged his progress. I knew he had deep issues there. And, true to cliche, he'd be contrite, kind, attentive...and cycle back through... But, how many times do you suspend disbelief. When I asked him for a divorce, I was amazed at how he'd already planned for such a contingency. I'd been depressed, and had taken anti-depressants--his father was a very high-powered atty, well connected--and he said if I left, I'd never see my children again. He said he'd say I was mentally ill, and the medication proved it. Saying it now, it sounds crazy that I'd believe he could do that..but I had nothing, and his father was a very powerful man locally. My children were everything to me, so I stayed put. I now hated him with a passion uncontested. I wished him dead.
I also started an affair. It was 1998, a month after our 18th anniversary. I didn't consciously have an affair to get back at him, but what he'd done to me all those years was nothing compared to the hell he went through over those six months.
That affair saved my life. All those horrible years had beaten me down to an unrecognizable creature. I was ugly, sad and fat. The reason he had his father hire the PI, was that I lost weight, started caring how I looked, and sang in the kitchen again.
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When we met at college, everybody drank heavily and constantly. We were on our way to get beer, on our way to throw up so we could drink more beer, or sneaking beer in the dorm. I had just escaped from (what I thought was) a miserable childhood and was meticulously perfecting the art of satisfying my every indulgence. I was pretty, had a great body, and got away with murder on a consistant basis in every venue (except with my mother). My first (and only) semester in college, I talked myself out of six traffic tickets. I didn't have a clue about anything.
He was not my type. I'd never been interested in a guy I didn't consider goodlooking. I actually thought my husband was ugly when I first saw him, but his personality attracted me over time. He would scope me out at parties every night, and I'd be so entranced in his conversation, opinions, just "him"... I was at ease around him. I'd get pulled here, or I'd mingle, but I always gravitated back to him. So, after a night of drinking, clubbing with the chicks, I didn't want to go to the freaking dorm. It was a cave of dread. I missed my bed at home, but I knew home really wouldn't be home again. I was homeless and bedless. The bed dorm represented failure every night, or a sign of impending doom, or just my state of not fitting anywhere....faux bed. I went to his house. He lived in a lean-to with five smelly, incoherent boys, who didn't lock the door, so I walked in, walked to his bed, and crawled in with him. This was a surprise to both of us. The alcohol saw it coming, I'm sure.
We woke up spooning, snuggley. I'll never forget how he just gazed at me, half disbelieving, for the longest time. I couldn't read his face. I asked him if he minded. Men's fantasies about just such a thing aside, I had just walked in to his house and gotten in his bed with him, and spent the night. He could have been less than receptive. He said he liked it--he didn't like sleeping alone. His demeanor was the same as if we were sitting on somebody's couch at a party. No sexual overtone, he didn't touch me. He told me later he'd needed to feel close to somebody. His life at home made me ashamed I'd complained about mine. He did need somebody. So did I. We saw each other randomly at parties, acted as though nothing was different to those around us, and to each other, but for the next three nights, I crawled in his bed between 2 and 3, or 4AM, and slept. The fourth night, I slid on top of him.
Since they didn't have a major in alcohol consumption, I was invited to stay home next quarter by the University.
We couldn't tolerate sleeping alone, I guess. A couple of weeks after I left, he asked me to marry him. Three months later, we were married. If I'd spent any appreciable time sober, I'd have noticed signs of a serious problem.
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pertinent phrase: walking through water
mood: stupid
Appropriate Sarah McLachlan lyrics:
The winter here’s cold, and bitter
It’s chilled us to the bone
We haven’t seen the sun for weeks
To long too far from home
I feel just like I’m sinking
And I claw for solid ground
I’m pulled down by the undertow
I never thought I could feel so low
Oh darkness I feel like letting go
If all of the strength and all of the courage
Come and lift me from this place
I know I could love you much better than this
Full of grace
Full of grace
My love
So it’s better this way, I said
Having seen this place before
Where everything we said and did
Hurts us all the more
Its just that we stayed, too long
In the same old sickly skin
I’m pulled down by the undertow
I never thought I could feel so low
Oh darkness I feel like letting go
If all of the strength
And all of the courage
Come and lift me from this place
I know I could love you much better than this
Full of grace
Full of grace
My love
My husband and I were wild--me moreso than him. We lived in a smallish college town and found a keg party every night. I was reckless and flirtatious, and he was outwardly gregarious, easygoing, but taking notes. Everyone loved him: there was always a crowd gathered around him. In retrospect, I was annoying. A little loud, a little too energetic, a little too friendly with the boyfriends... He was my pass, and I traded heavily.
He was an incredible lover, worried about pleasing me. Weird, that just sort of typed out. I haven't thought about him in those terms in a couple of years. He was too sick, and things were too serious. I miss him now. His smell, his warm skin, his mouth on my body.
I had been raised in a conservative, Christian fundamentalist household, where I never once did anything right. My mother had criticised everything I'd ever done, and later I had to face the fact that I'd married for a ticket out of that house.
He was already killing himself. I don't know if something happened to him that he never told me, or if he just couldn't handle some of the things he had told me. But, I do know he was killing himself. I know it now. Back then, I was so wild, what he was doing didn't seem so excessive. I hadn't even thought about this, until a couple of weeks before he finally died--he said to me, "You saved my life."
I prolonged it, but I didn't save him.
He said he'd planned never to get married. But, he married me and took me away from my mother. He was running hard from something, too. Something darker and worse. In the 25 years we spent together, we loved one another intensely, though mostly at different times, and I wished him dead for a few years. I finally met him for the first time in 1999. Clean and sober. I hadn't hated him--I'd hated what he was doing to himself, and me. I fell deeply in love with him. All the years of lies and palpable pain from a miserable marriage vanished--like the pain of childbirth...the moment you see what you've been fighting for, the pain evaporates. I was in love with him. I followed him around the house, making out with him everytime he slowed down enough. We had lunch dates, dinner dates, I seduced him against the frozen foods display doors in WalMart. I fondled him for the surveillance cameras.
The four of us were impossibly happy.
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Status: denial.
Mood: Stupidly serene.
Pertinent word: fey
metaphoric image: an unnecessarily violent mugging.
Disclaimer: This will be sort of a long, self-pitying word association, with no grammatical or expressive structure. I appreciate this spot, on which to write things down and look at them later to note my progress, or lack thereof.
I have survived. I'm doing surprising well, and I feel very guilty about that. I have been able, for the most part, to repress images and unpleasant memories of what happened to my husband. When I speak of him to the children, we are all smiling, I'm sure, grasping psychotically to the tiny frozen images of happiness in the middle of all the unspeakable, tarry morass we're blocking out.
I was having a very bad time a few weeks ago--images of him were getting through, and I actually had to get up out of my chair and stalk through the house...I felt like something was on me-- and walking would get me away from it. It took me a while to figure out why I couldn't stay still. "Monkey on your back" has renewed meaning to me.
I watched my husband die three months and six days ago. No one has asked me about his last day. Not his last words. Not his comfort. Not one soul. There is no testament that he lived, no friend to talk to, no one to remember him but his son, his daughter and I. I'm going to say it all here. When I can. Just because I need to. I need to describe that day, and how I felt, and the stupid things I said, and the godless things I found out. When I can.
It's weird, my life. I'm 44. I'm a widow. My youngest child, 18, became engaged tonight. I will go from being an active mother of two, and partner in a 25 year marriage--to living alone. Seems abrupt, to me, but by the time he died, I'd already mourned him five or six times. I'd almost killed us in a wreck after one doctor's appointment--I'd started having panic attacks as the bad news started getting worse. I thought, at first, I might die, but maybe not. This denial thing is working well for now. I realize it can't last, but right now, it's keeping me sane....or at least operating within a reasonable facsimile of sanity.
I have other things to track. I'm a semester or two from transferring to a four year school. I'm doing well academically. I am living on the edge, financially. How I make it month to month is a miracle. And, I'm thinking of moving off to Athens (UGA) and starting over--a la Mary Tyler Moore. [cue soundtrack]
"How will you make it on your own....?
This world is awfully big, girl this time you're all alone
But it's time you started living
It's time you let someone else do some giving
Love is all around, no need to waste it
You can have a town, why don't you take it
You might just make it after all
You might just make it after all
Thanks to asylum for the spot to write.
Anyway. I'm somebody else now.
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