Roller Coaster

Recently...okay, most of the summer honestly, I've been ready to give up on this roller coaster that is supposed to be a marriage.

I'm weary. I'm coming into the anniversary of when my world fell apart and too often its like he still just doesn't SEE me. If I get upset, he's still standing around not understanding why I'm upset. There's only so many times I can once again try to explain what I'm thinking and feeling without him hearing me. I'm so tired of him admitting he's clueless but not doing anything to change how he interacts with me.

A few weeks ago, he regressed. He went back to ordering me what to do or how to behave. That went over well for him. Actually, it resulted in my informing him he should just go somewhere and die.

I don't often wish him dead anymore. I tell him so even less frequently. However, ordering me how to behave or feel is a very deep trigger for me. I spent years being told what was acceptable behavior and how I would destroy his life if I behaved in an unacceptable manner. Do NOT subvert me ever again. It ends with me wishing you dead...again. Hey, at least I haven't reverted back to praying for his death, which is what I did for months after I found out what he had been doing.

Anyway, I really started visioning how to seperate, how to split this family and how to walk away. Its an exercise I haven't honestly permitted myself to have before now, for fear I would take that route and never give this a fighting chance to be restored.

I thought I was done by this weekend. I'm just tired. Tired of fighting for us. Tired of hurting. Tired of waiting for him to get better. Except I went back to reading about recovering from addiction, recovering from infidelity in a marriage. I'm not supposed to feel better at a year. Nope, it takes 2-5 years to get to a better place.

I don't WANT to take another 1-4 years. I want out of this nightmare NOW.

Yet, the way to walk away involves simply going somewhere different for Graduate School than where he goes. That involves at least one more year together.

If I'm stuck here for at least another year, and we really have set everything here up to be interconnected, then what have I lost by waiting until I start applying for Graduate programs to decide where I'm going? Nothing except a bit more of my sanity and self-worth. But hey, my husband slept with 40 other women and I didn't skin his hide to make a lampshade, so what self worth can I possibly have left now?

At the end of the day, I have to look eight children in the eye. I have to look at them and tell them that I didn't everything I could to keep their world safe. I need to be able to tell them that I gave everything I had to keeping their family intact, and their beloved father in their lives full-time. If the end is coming, and I'm not sure whether it is or not still, I need to know that I only walked away when staying was something I had not one more moment I could put towards that effort. I need to know I gave everything I had, and everything I didn't know I had to this effort.

So, my anniversary "gift" to myself is one more year on this roller coaster ride. For better or worse, I've made the committment that baring something significantly egregious (like cheating again), I am taking the idea of walking away off the table for one more year. If I get to the end of this next year and things are no better and I'm no less hurting and weary, then I have decided it will be time to walk away from this. Until then, I'm not going to live with one foot on each side of the door. I know I can walk out, but I'm going to commit to staying and giving this one LAST effort.

He is better. He hasn't cheated on me again. He gave up all addictive behaviors and never looked back. While he stumbled several times in his recovery, he IS in recovery for his addiction. He's in a 12 step group. He's made far more than due deligience to find a therapist without luck, and he's accessed all the help he can find through other sources to get through this. He's facing himself and his past, and he's starting to heal himself. He's just no closer to ME than when we started. Absolutely everything I've read about addiction recovery says the addict cannot work on relationships with others until they have worked on themselves, and getting to that point in their personal recovery usually takes about 2 years.