If someone had said to me on my wedding day that nearly 16 years later I would be asking my husband to move out, I would have denied it. I would have objected and thought they had no idea what they were talking about it.
Yet, today, that’s exactly what I did. I asked my -aholic husband to give me some space. I don’t want a divorce. But I can’t live like this either. Counting pills in prescription bottles to see if he’s stolen any. Looking in trash cans for hidden whiskey bottles.
It was less than 2 years ago that I thought our life was back on track. I thought rehab was our fresh start. I went to the spouse sessions. I sought help at our church to connect him to a sponsor. I didn’t say anything when in those first clean months he was gone to AA meetings sometimes eight times a week.
Never did it occur to me that we would be starting over now. For the third time. Somewhere deep down I love him. But mostly today, I feel anger and resentment. I feel stupid for being duped.
Yet, I feel like I want this to work. I want to find a way to climb over this anger. To put this resentment behind me. And to do that, I can’t have him staring me in the face everyday, telling me how sorry he is. How much he wants to be a better husband, a better father. Because to look at him right now makes me want to puke. To watch his pathetic, pitiful, cowering shell of his former self makes me want to kick him in the gut. To hear his words that, no matter how full of his truth they are, sound painfully empty to me, makes me furious.
So to save our marriage, to save myself from the bitter shell I’ve become, he has to go, at least for a while.
Tags: alcoholism, anger, drug addiction, marriage, separation
