NINE

Begin Again

My dogs and I have a new house.  Life has started over again!  We've been here four months and it's magical.

EIGHT

It's Done

...and nine days later the decree came in the mail.  I'm officially divorced and my name is changed back to MY name (and I'm never changing it again).

I sat at the Social Security office in the hour-long line waiting for my number to be called and I started to cry.  The tears came and came, quietly down my cheeks.  I was surprised that I had that much emotion left, but of course I did.  I thought it would just be a relief (which it was!), but I didn't expect the tears.  The only other time I'd been there waiting in that exact waiting room was when I changed my name to my new hyphenated last name after I got married.  Three and a half years later I was changing it back.

The tears kept coming quietly all day long, and the next day I was fine.

My ex is being calm and peaceful now, like he was subconsciously waiting for the limbo to end.  Of course I expect his calm to go away sooner or later--that is his alcoholic pattern--but for now it's enjoyable to get and give a nice little hug when we exchange the dogs.


A House

Now I'm looking for a house to buy.  Starting over has begun!  Just my pets and me and our soon-to-be-new house, starting our old life back over again.

SEVEN

Is it Done?

He signed the papers today and one huge weight is lifted from my shoulders.  Now I just wait for the court's approval.

I survived.  Is it done?

He ran me through the ringer yesterday, he was so drunk and belligerent.  He said he wanted to punish me for all the bad women in the world.  All day, drunk email after drunk email.  And then last night he asked me to forgive him for his behavior.  And today after he signed, he said he's ready to accept help.

I hope for him it sticks.  He's in the care of his father now for a while.  I hope he gets help, but AT LAST I can free myself of this burden of his.  It is not my burden anymore.  A weight has been lifted and I feel free.

SIX

So Close

So close to being done, yet I can't breathe, I'm holding my breath.  I'm waiting for this latest agreement to explode. 

His father took over negotiating for him and NOW we're finally getting somewhere.  Now I'm negotiating with someone who isn't stuck in the hell of his son's life and actually understands what we're talking about.  I am relieved, yet it's not done so I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.  The other shoe ALWAYS drops.

So close, but not done yet.  Deep breath.

FIVE

In Limbo

I am a stressball and I just want to give up and cry.  I am tired of holding it together.  I want this done so we can move on and so my life isn't in limbo. 

I've been in limbo for six months and I just want a home.  I'm tired of the uncertainty.   I'm tired of holding it together.   I'm tired of the drinking and abusive texting rollercoaster.  I'm tired of wondering if he's ok and not noticing that I'm not ok.  I miss my dogs.  I miss leaning on him and our love when things were good, but I don't have that now.  I have a rollercoaster and I just want some solid ground and a peaceful place of my own so I can recover. 

There, that's where I am emotionally right now.  Falling apart inside.

 

 

FOUR

Verbal Text-Abuse

It's been a week and a half since the last string of verbally abusive texts have come in and it's always when he's drinking.  He wasn't ever verbally abusive in our relationship until the drinking ramped up and I left, and now it's pretty much clockwork--if I start getting abusive texts, that means he's drunk, and when he sobers up, he apologizes.

A Happy Drunk

He had always been a mostly happy drunk.  Usually he'd get manically excited and outgoing, sometimes, though, he'd get depressed.  One time I had to follow him down the road in the middle of the night because he was drunk and wanted to go die alone in the woods.  In the end now it's mostly been angry.

His grandfather was an alcoholic and apparently a pretty mean one, until he quit drinking cold turkey and never touched it again.  I didn't know that until the end of our marriage because he'd always put his grandfather up on a pedestal.  I knew his grandfather was alcoholic, just not that he was a "mean drunk".

My husband inherited his house we were living in from Grampa, and Grampa was everywhere there.  My husband liked to put up pictures on the wall of growing up, and he'd put them on the wall in the same spot in the house where the picture was taken.  If we needed a tool, we got one out of Grampa's Workshop downstairs.  The basement furniture was Grampa's end table and Grampa's bedroom set.  It was neat.  Grampa took care of Grandma when she was old and frail, and I envisioned my husband taking care of me when I was old and frail.  It made me feel connected to this man I never knew to have so many of his things so close at hand.  It doesn't change it that Grampa was a mean drunk, it just creates a more realistic image of the man my husband had been idolizing.  People are black and white; good and bad; happy and mean; drunk and sober.  My husband is all of that.

Hope. 

I have a bracelet and necklace I wear with interchangeable charms, and on them they say "hope", "faith", leap of faith", and "let it go".  I have hope for my new future where I can go back to the calm and peace I need in my life.  I have faith in the goodness of the world and the path I am following.  I am taking a big ol' leap of faith in starting over.  I feel like maybe I'm giving up on my marriage too soon, but I know I can't be happy in the rollercoaster life an alcoholic provides and I don't have faith that the drinking will stop and he'll get the mental health help he needs.  I've been let down too many times.  I need to let go of the control I tried to have over his health and happiness and the control I lost over my own life during that time.

THREE