I woke up this morning with a splitting headache.

Splitting.

The stress of my (alcoholic) marriage feels too much for me to bear.

Some would say I have it “easy.”  When it comes to the alcoholic marriage anyway.

My husband is home every night.

He is (uber!) responsible with our money and the bills.  Almost too much, I dare say as he doesn’t want to spend a dime on anything! If we could live without electricity, plumbing or any other modern day “luxury,” he gladly would in the name of “saving” money.

He’s usually not hostile and aggressive.  Usually not, that is. He goes in cycles.  He’ll erupt every three or four or maybe even six weeks and then go “dormant” for a period.

The dormancy is what is killing me.

When it comes to enduring life with an alcoholic husband, dormancy may sound good.  Dormancy may sound like the preferred.  Dormancy may be what other wives of alcoholics wish for.

But dormancy is not nothing.

It’s not innocuous.

And it’s certainly not harmless.

Every morning I wake up, my husband having gone to work around 5:30 am and I see his empty side of the bed and I think, “he didn’t kiss me good bye again.”

Now he hasn’t kissed me goodbye in the morning (or hello in the evening) FOR YEARS now and yet it still stings.

Every.

Single.

Morning.

It stings.

If my kids and I were drowing in a river, after my husband got the children to safety, I don’t know if he would come back and save me!

Now I know that sounds absurd.  And I suppose he would be OUTRAGED if he knew I felt that way and maybe that is the furthest thing from the truth but the point isn’t whether it’s true or not, the point is that is how I feel about my husband and about my marriage.

That is how he makes me feel.

And I know all the “no one can make you feel” feel-good talk but we’re human beings – other people do make us FEEL certain things.

And living in an empty, souless alcoholic marriage makes me feel like my husband wouldn’t even save me if I were drowning in a river.