The next four years were a huge struggle before I finally gave up. We still lived a semi-normal life on the outside. We both got out of the Air Force and found work in the IT industry. We bought a house and had another daughter, Ashlyn (I didn't want Lauren to grow up alone).
But things aren't always what they seem. C had completely withdrawn from me, his daughters, his family and his friends. He had panic attacks which resulted in huge fights when we made plans to leave the house - even simple ones to meet friends for dinner. He became completely obsessed with an online RPG and played it basically non-stop, except for work and a few months here and there, for 4 years. We ended up living together but not sleeping in the same bed for those same four years - at first because of his neck, then because I was pregnant, then because I was breast-feeding a newborn... but really it was because we had drifted so far apart, I didn't feel comfortable sleeping in the same bed with him anymore. We hardly talked at all. I shouldered all the responsibility for running the house, raising the girls, managing the finances, all while working full time with a long commute.
Every few months, I would give him an ultimatum - get help or I was leaving and taking the girls with me. He would break down and apologize and swear things would get better, and they would for a month... then things would go right back to where they were.
You see, C had completely lost his own sense of self because of three pivotal occurances: 1. The injury to his neck, 2. Separating from the Air Force, and 3. Losing his security clearance because he couldn't pass the polygraph. He had always thought of himself as a young, virile, athletic, career military guy. With the injury to his neck, he could barely swing his golf club without a lot of pain, much less play baseball or basketball. He separated from the Air Force at the end of his enlistment because he didn't want to go back to Korea, so he was lost in his career. And when he finally got settled in the IT field as a network engineer, his clearance got pulled because he felt guilty about smoking pot when he was 18 and had never told anyone the truth. He was drowning in feelings of shame and insecurity and couldn't see a way out, so he withdrew into a fantasy world where he was a hero and could conquer his demons with a sword instead facing his real-life demons. I knew this. I felt for him, I really did. But his problems were beyond my reach and he refused to get help for three years.
In the fourth year of his downward spiral, he finally agreed to see a therapist to help him work out his anxiety about the polygraph. In reality, his teenage pot-smoking was no big deal, even to the person administering the polygraph. The rule is that you can't have smoked pot in the last 5 years - he had smoked it over 12 years before. But his guilty feelings about lying had built up so much in his head, he was reacting to EVERY drug question as lying when he wasn't because he was so anxious and nervous. So he went to a therapist. They worked on his anxiety. They worked on anger management... I knew C was trying and I did see some small improvements, but then he stopped going. He was traveling alot for work and at first, he truly didn't have the time to go, but after a while, he just didn't want to go back.
It was now September of 2003. We had been married for almost 9 years. We had two beautiful daughters, good jobs, a nice house in a nice neighboorhood... and I was completely miserable. My husband was a stranger. My hopes for a fairytale romance with C had long since turned to dust.
C and I both always had the 'somewhere over the rainbow' disease - that if one specific goal was met, that things would be okay and we would be happy. These goals changed over the years... when we bought a house... when he got a new job... when I got a new job... when we made
x amount of money... then we would be happy. We achieved all of these things, but none of it made any difference.
The weekend of my 31st birthday, a hurricane blew thru town. We were all home. I was very scared because I've been thru bad hurricanes before and was worried about winds and losing electricity. I turned to C for comfort. For a quick hug and an "It'll be okay." He looked at me with contempt and told me I was overreacting, yelled at the kids for being to noisy, and walked away. I knew then that he would never be there for me like I desperately wanted and needed. It was that very moment that all my tenuous, jumbled up feelings of loyalty and friendship and love for him withered and died. All my hope for the future together snapped off like a light switch. I knew I would leave him, for good. No empty threats this time. I was gone.
I planned my escape for 2 months before I finally worked up the nerve to tell him. When I walked into his study with a carefuly written letter, he looked at me and said "I don't want to separate" before I even said a word. I told him that I had lost all hope and I just couldn't stay anymore. We decided to wait until after the holidays to tell the kids. I was moving out, but we would have joint custody of the kids - I didn't want to deny them their father. He had already denied them for long enough - I refused to add to that damage. My move-out date was January 31st, 2004.
The time between when I told him that I was leaving in mid-November and when I actually left at the end of January was one of the most difficult periods of my life. I agreed to go to marriage counseling, because I would have felt like a hypocrit after begging him to go to therapy for years and then refusing to go myself. We went and rehashed alot of old hurts, but even the therapist said that there is only so much one person can take, and he could tell I had already 'checked out' of the marriage. Homelife was no different. We spent most evenings talking out what had gone wrong, while C still made last ditch efforts to woo me back by doing things I had always wanted to do, but he had refused. It was very sad and surreal.
I moved out on January 31st, as planned. I moved in with an old friend who was divorced and shares joint custody of her daughter with her ex-husband, too. We went to dinner and saw a live band play and got drunk.
The next day, I went and picked up my kids and brought them over to stay with me. I needed to prove to Lauren that I had just moved
out, not
away, and that she would see me all the time, just like before. Ashlyn was just 2 1/2 years old and not really aware of what was going on, but Lauren was almost 7 and in the middle of first grade and thought she was losing her mom, even tho we had explained what joint custody was and that she would still see both of us all the time. She didn't really grasp the concept until it was put into practice, and her relief at not losing her parents was palpable. I regret putting Lauren thru the divorce. Ashlyn won't even remember C and I as married, but Lauren will.
My other regrets? I regret that I never loved C the way I should have loved my husband. I was never madly, passionately in love with him. When we met, I found him attractive and smart and funny, but those qualities don't make a marriage. I didn't know him well enough to know about his temper and his competitiveness, or his insecurities. He didn't know me well enough, either. I went from infatuation to disallusionment pretty quickly. I loved him in my own way after a fashion, but it was kindof a known-you-for-a-long-time, friendship kind of love... not romantic.
The next regret is that I stayed in the marriage alot longer than I should have. This may sound stupid and looking back, I think it was fear more than anything, but I didn't leave him earlier because I couldn't leave the area anyway because he and I were stationed in the same place in the same job. I thought it was pointless to leave him and not really be able to
leave. So I stayed and stayed and stayed.
I regret having an affair while I was married. I never flaunted it in front of anybody - none of our friends knew - but I still should have had the guts to leave C BEFORE I started a long-distance relationship with recycled boyfriend for love and support.
I regret that I got just as mean in saying nasty things as C did during our fights after a few months.
I regret that, after a while, I shut him out just as much as he shut me out.
C started taking Zoloft to help manage his moods and reactions shortly before I left him. He is a much happier person now and a great father.
So even tho I have painted him as the villian in these long long posts, I was far from perfect.
I still am.
