There. I said it. I am going to file for divorce. 20 years of fighting and struggling and clutching and squeezing and I am finally relaxing my grip and letting go. It's over. I have fought the good fight and lost.
Huh. I lost. I lost. It's over.
I am sad, but I am relieved as well. I think I have been fighting so hard to save this alcoholic marriage (so-called marriage) for so many years and have bought into so much of Mr. M's crap that I feel like I am the bad guy for "giving up" or "walking away". I am having to tell myself that HE was the one who left... he was the one who walked away. This divorce was his making. My brother said (and I think this was so true and kind of "Duh!") that I am not actively giving up... I am simply surrendering, to what he has been trying to do for 20 years... I am just waving the white flag and saying "OK, I give in... you can have what you want."
I have two pictures in my head.
One is of CPR. Like you see in the movies, I am
agonizingly pumping on Mr. M's (or my marriage's - pick the analogy you like best) chest. I am breathing at intervals... I am pounding on him "COME ON. BREATHE DAMMIT!" The paramedics or Docs are gently speaking to me, and lovingly trying to pull me from him. "Ma'am, he's gone. Let him go. you have done all you can." But no, I am going to go on fighting and pounding and breathing for 20 years.
No more.
I am finally just accepting the fact that I have been breathing into a corpse's mouth and trying to pump a dead heart for 2 decades.
The second picture I have is a rowboat. I am trying to paddle and get us to a destination while Mr. M bores holes into the bottom and sides of the boat. I am frantically bailing and begging him to stop. Our whole family is sinking! He acts concerned and says loving and caring things about how he
SEES my pain and HEARS my hurt... he even tells me that he deeply wants to get over to the other shore too and that he doesn't want the ship to sink. Meanwhile he continues to puncture big, gaping holes into the boat.
There is insanity in how I bail and row and cry and moan about our plight and yet I continue to let him stay in the boat and believe all his words and murmurings even though they contradict all the evidence (he is actively SINKING our little boat!). Who is more insane? Him or me?
I can so relate! It's like walking around with a ball & chain around your ankle or trying to rescue a drowning man who is dragging you down with him. I look back on the last 12 years and can hardly remember much happiness - just so much a feeling of 'weight' on my shoulders bearing down on me.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeleteI do not know WHY I am only just now seeing your comment 4+ years later. I am sorry :(
Are you still with your alcoholic?
I am still with mine.
Still giving CPR to a clinically dead marriage.
Still bailing out and rowing a sinking boat of a marriage that the one who is SUPPOSED to be my co-rower and c-bailer is instead the one blasting holes in it.
He's got a year sober now. (Again.)
Things are ok today. Pretty good but still real life, you know?
I live in terror every day that he will drink though... and that is what I chose when I chose to stay.
xo