I’ve been thinking a lot lately about leaving my husband.

Not thinking about it in the way we all think about it – constantly but not seriously.

I’ve been thinking about it seriously.

Like I really am going to leave.

And when I truly allow myself to mentally experience the joy and elation and liberation of leaving, another emotion comes tagging along.

Though I guess it’s more like barging in.

Guilt.

Here’s what most people – people on the outside anyway – believe the alcoholic marriage-equation is

Alcoholic husband + Marriage = Leave him

Except the real equation is nothing that simple.

The real equation is like one of those math problems you see that covers an entire blackboard and super-genius human beings stand before it, pondering it for months, maybe even years, in search of the solution.

Why would any woman feel guilty about leaving a husband who is emotionally vacant.

Calls her horrific, debilitating names.

Takes alcohol as his mistress.

Causes tension and stress and anxiety in the home.

Because for all the chaos he causes in her…

For as much as it seems like he is the one in control…

And depsite how unstable he makes the rest of the family feel…

She knows.

She knows that the only (only, only, ONLY!) hope of stability for him is…

Her.

She is his foundation and he may be jackhammering the hell out of her but still…

She is his, albeit tenuous, tie to reality.

I’m not saying my husband would fall apart in an obvious way.

I don’t think he’d lose his job, become homeless and go live under a bridge.

But I do know.

I do know despite all his actions to the contrary, he needs me deeply.

I was a life guard in high school and college.

In the training they teach you how to release the panicked, death grip of a drowning victim.

If need be, if they are so panicked and out of control that they are a threat to your safety, you have to leave them.

Yes, to drown!

The thought of leaving my husband feels a little like this.

 

There is no such thing as a “regular” argument or disagreement in the alcoholic household.

Two of my children got into tonight.

Like siblings do.

It probably would have been ok but then my husband came upstairs as I was trying to sort the kids out.

“Don’t even come in here,” I told him.

But he did and it all went to hell in a handbasket as they say.

Next thing you know, he’s screaming about “fucking this” and “fucking that” and of course I am fucking crazy.

If you had told me on my wedding day, this was to be my life.

I would have called you a liar.

I don’t think I would have understood exactly why it is marriage to an alcoholic is so toxic if I hadn’t actually married an alcoholic myself.

I mean, I would have gotten that it sucks to be with someone who is drunk more times than not.

I would have understood if someone complained about bailing their husband out of jail.

Again.

I would have totally agreed that being married to someone who is losing his job every six months due to drinking absolutely stinks!

I think I would have been able to wrap my head around all the typical and stereotypical problems with an alcoholic husband.

But I doubt I would have understood how it could be that bad for someone like me who is married to an alcoholic but he…

Doesn’t get arrested.  Ever.

Is home every night.  Every. Night.

Pays all the bills.  On time.

Is not physically abusive.  To me or the kids.

And in general is just more checked out than in.

I suppose I wouldn’t have thought it was grand but I don’t think I would have understood how it was really corrosive and destructive.

So I’ll explain it to that me.

Years ago my husband and I took a family vacation to the beach.  The kids were young and all was relatively good.

For an alcoholic household.

Compared to now.

One morning my husband was making bacon and eggs for the family.  Like almost everyone does, I suppose, he made the bacon first and had it set aside while he made the eggs.  And like almost everyone does, I suppose again, I walked by and took a piece of bacon.

Let me be clear here:

I…

Took…

A piece…

Of bacon.

You know, to eat.

You would have thought I had cut off my husband’s arm to eat it.

He absolutely exploded!

Yelling about how I was ruining everything and he hates when I do that and now he won’t have “enough.”  (Yes, I did point out that he simply consider that I ate “my” piece “early.”)

Let me set the scene:

We’re at the beach.

The ocean is just outside our window.  Our rental house close enough for us to hear and smell and see its beauty from the living room.

Kids are playing all about us.

And I eat a piece of bacon!

I would say that was six or seven years ago.

Last night I was cooking dinner and my teenage son walks by and helps himself to some green pepper I was cutting up.

I don’t care.

It doesn’t bother me.

In fact, when you have teenage sons, anything that brings them back into close proximity with you is welcomed.

But when he did that, my mind flashed back to that morning at the beach.

I don’t want to hold this stuff in me.

I don’t walk around actively remembering these things.

But they are there.

Like the scar tissue of old wounds.

And these sorts of memories matter.

Even though they may not seem “that bad” at face value.

They are bad.

They affect you.

They change you.

They corrode the way you see life.

 

 

I’m feeling better than yesterday.

This is what life with the alcoholic does to us, isn’t it?

We never totally drown.

We just feel like it.

Often.

But this morning I was walking through Target (I mean that alone can perk a gal up…) when, as if the hand of God put it there herself, right in front of me was the book:

“You Are A Badass: How To Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living An Awesome Life.”  By Jen Sincero

If anyone is a “badass” it’s those of us married to alcoholics!

I mean Roman gladiators didn’t get knocked down and back up as often as we do.

(And frankly some days an areana full of wild beasts would seem an easier fight.)

There are women who this life does kill them.

Maybe not physically but mentally, emotionally, spiritually.

That’s not us.

If you’re here….

If you’re searching for information, support, help…

If you’re reading blogs or writing blogs or doing anything to counter the effects of life with a compulsive drinker…

If there are days when you get up and wrestle a tiny bit of your soul back from the Beast…

Or stay him off completely….

You’re the baddest badass there is.

 

 

 

For so long, I had hope and strength and a fire in my belly.

Some way, some how I was going to slay this dragon called alcoholism.

Specifically my husband’s alcoholism that is.

I wasn’t going to succumb to the “second hand” anger and fury that was building in me.

For so long I had that belief.

So long.

And yet it seems like overnight it has been lost.

Overnight I feel no more like I can.

Is this my life?

My destiny?

To forever live in the hostile shadows of an alcholic husband?

I don’t want it to be.

I hear myself saying “I hate…” a lot.

I hate those god damn electronics.

I hate these god damn dogs.

I hate this flippin garage door opener.

I hate…

I hate…

I hate…

I’m so angry.

I’m so angry and I’m so sad and I’m so over being married to an alcoholic.

I hate it.

My husband was nice this week end.

He took care of some things for me.

Did things that needed to be done, that I asked him to do.

Ran to the store for dog food.

You know all the kinds of things wives in healthy marriages don’t really notice.

If he read this, he would say “I can’t please you.”

And the truth is, he probably can’t.

Perhaps no one fails to understand to the degree the alcoholic fails to understand the long term effects of his behavior.

There is so much toxicity over such a long time that eventually nice gestures or pleasant evenings run off you like water trying to fill an already full bucket.

It’s like your emotional bucket is so full of crap, there’s no room for any warm or pleasant feelings.

Valerie Bertinelli was married to Eddie Van Halen for 20 years.

He was an alcoholic, she abused drugs, for the majority of their marriage.

She said in an interview she “waited” so long to have a child because she didn’t want to bring a child into that environment.

Do you know when they divorced?

After they both got clean and sober.

Alcoholism causes damage.

A lot.

That is rarely fixed simply by way of some nice gestures.

Or even clean living.