This is a true story...it is written to give hope to you if you find yourself in a similar situation. But, it is also written to give understanding to issues that for many are difficult to understand. There are several pages that will help you understand specifically the issues of domestic abuse and alcoholism in the back. If you find yourself in similar situations as these related in this story contact your local pastor or counselor for help.
Mike Weber
Pastor of Cabinet Mountain Bible Church
The following pages were not written to point out all the right things I did or all the wrong things I did. I managed to do both and have excluded neither right nor wrong. What I primarily wanted to make known was the experiences I lived through and the feelings that were going on during those experiences. My hope is that if just one person can benefit from anything I've written on these pages then the hardships of the experiences were worth it and the hours spent putting the words on paper were worth it also. A special thankful appreciation goes to my husband who has not just done the proof reading for me, but has stood beside me through the last few months, helping me in any way he could to get through this project. If it hadn't been for his gentle urging, I doubt I would have taken on such a project. He is a true comrade who I am very proud to have as a part of my life. [author's name withheld]
Table of Contents
The Person I Fell in Love With
A Problem With Employment
To Spoil or Not to Spoil
The Other Side of the Person I Fell in Love With
Insecure
Fact or an Easy Out?
Heading Toward Our First Anniversary
Church
Two Years Gone By
The Wreck
The Silver Tongue
In Search of the Missing Husband
But We Didn't Do Anything Wrong
Dinner
My Fault
Okay for Him - Forbidden for Me
Holidays
Shut Up and Count Your Blessings
Who Did What and What Belongs to Who
Jekyl/Hyde
A Promise Broken
A Taste of His Own Medicine
Other Victims
Accepting Help
I Love You
A Miserable Birthday
I'd Had Enough/He Walked Out
The Devastation
Suicidal
Protecting Myself
Gossip Abounds
Aftershock
Friends
Lashing Out
Me? A Mother?
Looking for Someone Else to Blame
Music to Survive By
A Change of Scenery
Hoping for Someone Else
Betrayed
My First Holidays Alone
A Deadline
His New "Wife"
Our Sixth Anniversary
Ready to Call It Quits
Taking Action
One Last Chance
Hardened
Getting Closer to Divorce
The Final Battle
Trapped in the Past
The Biggest Scar
A Cruel Joke or a Valuable Gift
DOMESTIC ABUSE --- ALCOHOLISM
The Person I Fell in Love With
When I met John he was quiet and well mannered. He smoked and I didn't hesitate to let him know that any time he was around me with a cigarette, I had every intention of harassing him about it. He immediately quit smoking although shortly after that he started chewing. I didn't have as hard a time with that. If someone wanted to kill themselves with chewing - that was their business but I didn't feel they had a right to kill me as well with cigarette smoke. Knowing how hard it is for most people to get off the nicotine habit, I was impressed that John seemed to respect me enough to quit the cigarettes. While we were getting to know each other, John always seemed to be considerate of my feelings and treated me like a china doll. In fact, I started telling others that he was the most kind and considerate person I'd ever met. It seemed that we had so much in common, the same love for the same things. He would usually have a flower for me when he came to see me even if he picked it along the way. When we ate out we would usually have a glass of wine with our meal. That was the extent of his drinking I saw previous to marriage aside from a very occasional dash of whiskey in his coffee. I never saw John drunk or resemble anyone who might have a drinking problem according to my inexperienced and very limited knowledge of the way an alcoholic should look and act. What I did see was someone who had gone through a lot of pain in his past, someone I could mother and I found myself enjoying that role very much. Although I had never planned on marrying, I found myself falling deeply in love and decided I would be much more miserable without him than with him (as I would jokingly word it). I don't ever remember having an argument before marrying John and he was adamant that we should never raise our voices to one another. I also had two conditions in which, I wouldn't marry unless the future spouse was a Christian and didn't want children. He convinced me he was a Christian and he already had a daughter and said that would be enough. He always had the right answers. One of the things I admired about John was that he seemed to be one of the most honest people I'd ever known. Especially when someone was doing him wrong, he spoke up for himself and told the offenders why he thought they were being unfair to him. This was something I never had the courage to do and thanks to being around him, I also learned to be a little more assertive instead of letting people walk all over me quite as much when it wasn't right.
There also seemed to be a difference between John and the husbands of other women I listened to. It seems like no matter when or where, if two or more women are gathered together without their husbands, at least one of them will start complaining about all the little (or big) things that annoy them about their husbands; talking them down instead of lifting them up through their good points. That was a pet peeve of mine since I was a little girl. I made a vow to myself never to talk ill about John in front of others. If I had a problem with something he was or wasn't doing, I planned to confront him about it and not advertise his shortcomings to others. After we married, these conversations among women were just as hard to avoid and I never joined in. But, I did listen and it made my relationship seem so much better and special because in those early days John didn't show any of the faults these women were complaining about.
A Problem With Employment
John wasn't working when I met him which didn't seem to be anything strange. I was on unemployment myself at that time. His type of work was seasonal so it made sense to me when he said it was hard to get anyone to hire a seasonal worker when they know he'll be going back to his regular job. He often talked about how he hated sitting around, not working, or how he had checked here and there within a 150 mile radius on job prospects. He did get very temporary jobs but was always "laid off due to lack of work", or "that particular job was completed", or "the employer was just taking advantage of him..." Nothing ever seemed to be his fault except he would quit a job to be back to his seasonal job. John's ultimate goal was to turn that seasonal work into full time whether it meant moving or possibly going into business for himself. I believed all of this so before marrying, I had prepared myself for the possibility that we might be moving some day in order for him to fulfill his dream. And if he could work steady at it, there would be no problem in him supporting the both of us.
To Spoil or Not to Spoil
It was very flattering to hear John say at the beginning of our romance how he wanted to spoil me. One part of me laughed inside and said, "Yeah, sure." The other part of me fantasized about how I would be treated and the type of life I would have with my knight in shining armor by my side, protecting me and caring for me until death. But, while John was saying these things and acting like not working was a big concern to him, he was also accepting money from me without hesitation. When we ate out, visited his friends or went for a drive, I often paid the expenses. I had no problem with this because I prided myself on being independent and didn't expect anyone to pay my way. But, the closer we became, the more often I was spending my money. By the time we became engaged, I was working seven days a week for nearly minimum wage, at two jobs and had to take money out of my savings to make ends meet. It was finally starting to get to me and a few times I talked to John about my anxieties. He seemed concerned but didn't comment much. I thought it was because he agreed we had to stop spending money on unnecessary running around and because he had no answer on how to bring in more funds. After all, he did want to work but there was just no work out there...according to him. John did enjoy "spoiling" me when he did get a paycheck. After working in one town, he took me to a fancy restaurant with his last paycheck. After we were married, one of his first paychecks went to the bank and was used to help pay utilities and groceries. But after that, he would bring me unnecessary gifts such as jewelry that was far too expensive in my opinion, clothes I didn't need as bad as I needed help in paying the bills, and a few times he spent far more than I thought he needed to on specialty foods. I had a hard time complaining about this though because he was also the one who cooked the extravagant meals. It seemed to mean a lot to John to shower me with all of these things which to me were frivolous. On the one hand, I didn't want to hurt his feelings so I tried to be thankful for the spoils but I also tried to tell him that it wasn't necessary to get me those gifts...that it would be more helpful if he could use that money to help pay the bills. Two things were wrong. I wasn't being firm enough in expressing our problems and the other was that he probably wasn't paying attention anyway.
The Other Side of the Person I Fell in Love With
John did have things about him I found I didn't care for but, I thought much of it might be my own fault...that maybe I was the one who had messed up ideas about things that should and shouldn't take place in a marriage. But then I also noticed that these things I felt were problems in my marriage were never mentioned among the women who complained about their own husbands. That's when I started to realize that something was definitely wrong.
Before we were married, John spent as much time with me as he could. After we were married he started to spend more and more time away. As the months passed into years he was coming home later and later until it got to the point that a few times he didn't come home at all. Sometimes he'd call me late at night to let me know where he was, always with a seemingly valid excuse for being there. Other times I knew nothing of his where abouts until he showed up in the early morning hours or later the next day. But even then he had all of his alibis in tact. I had come to trust him totally without question by the time we were married so it took me years to start doubting his words. After John walked out it didn't take long for his looks to change. My girlfriend thought maybe I was just seeing him through different eyes now that some of my "blind love" had been wiped away. Not true. He was now sporting a skull earring and ring. He was letting his hair grow, his language had become more coarse and he just plain looked like death warmed over. On one particular day I saw him, he was wearing an unrefined biker shirt that had offensive dialect on it. Here was a part of John that he must have tried to keep hidden from me but now that I was no longer around to try to be his conscience, he was free to do what he thought was enjoyable and acceptable to the kind of company he was keeping. I had to ask myself, "What did I ever see in this guy?" But the problem was, this was not the guy I came to love with all my heart. Here was a stranger who's actions, language and attitude I didn't like. I hated what this person who was standing before me had done to me. But the fact remained that I still loved the person I thought I had married. I couldn't hate that person or even be angry at that person. I was still focused on my fantasy of days gone by.
Insecure
John craved attention from me when we were around his friends. I didn't notice it when our relationship was young but then I was blind in love, and probably giving him enough attention. But as time progressed and I met more of his friends, there weren't many of them I was truly comfortable around. It bothered John greatly that I wasn't participating in their conversations like he thought I should or that I at least wasn't pretending to enjoy the situation for John's sake. He desperately wanted me to show any of his friends we came in contact with, how much I loved and respected him by being by his side...I guess like a faithful dog who never questions his actions. (Maybe that's why it steadily became more apparent that he cared more for his dog than he did for me.) But I couldn't play that game. I didn't like most of these people and I didn't like the way John acted when he was around them. I was considered either stuck up or shy and wasn't coming across to these people as John being the apple of my eye. It was interesting that I had never met many of his friends until after we were married and in fact had never even known they existed. We had spent most of our time together by ourselves and the few friends I did meet were the ones I didn't mind, although they weren't necessarily my type. But after the marriage these other friends seemed to come crawling out of the woodwork from everywhere.
Fact or an Easy Out?
There were times that things were just a little too coincidental to be truly believable. John's daughter was staying with us for a few days. One day we took her fishing. After having caught enough for dinner, he suggested I stop off and play a game of pool with her on my brother's table. I thought it only proper that he be the one spending time with his daughter but he said he'd go to the house and get the fish taken care of. After we completed the game and arrived home, John said a friend had called asking him to help put a motor in. How convenient that John would be at the house by himself when this call came in. So his daughter was left with me until he arrived back late that evening. The first time I felt John lied to me was only a few weeks after we were married. I was driving him back to his job where he was staying - several miles away. He had told me he would like to get some herbs for the cooks. If he did, then they said they'd make him a special meal. It so happened while driving through a small town, John saw an acquaintance on the sidewalk and had me pull over so he could talk with him. John asked if I had any cash and I did. He then asked the man if he had any leaves. The man said he did and went to get some. Being way too isolated from the outside world, I asked what leaves were. Much to my discomfort I found out I was about to buy marijuana! The herbs he was talking about and these leaves he was about to have handed to him were nothing but pot. I didn't know what to do but I sure wasn't going to have anything to do with illegal drugs. So John motioned for the guy to forget it and we went on our way. I didn't know what to think. There was a combination of surprise, hurt and anger. John had told me before we were married that he didn't do drugs. How could he lie to me like that? I trusted him and now he was lying to me. But he was insistent that he never lied to me. The "herbs" were for the cooks - not for him. He eventually convinced me that he was telling the truth but it always remained in the back of my mind...if he doesn't have anything to do with drugs, why was he going to do that for someone else?
As far as me questioning anything John said or did, he had me convinced that I was always wrong. I just wasn't listening when he told me something and I'd heard him all wrong. I had too much trust in him because of the way that he treated me in the beginning that I knew there was no way that he would lie to me so I must have misunderstood him. In reality, John would tell me something and then in the future when something came up that contradicted his initial story, he claimed that the new story was what he had said all along. I just wasn't listening to him. I was the one who was wrong. For the first half of the marriage I believed that I wasn't listening to what John was saying...that I wasn't paying attention and was getting things turned around that he told me. After all, he loved me so there was no reason not to believe him...not to trust him. He would never make up something - never tell me a lie. But then it finally occurred to me that I wasn't always getting other stories mixed up. From school, through my career and every day life I was able to follow directions correctly. I understood what others told. I did make mistakes but they were generally from my own doing - not because I was unable to pay attention to what someone was telling me. I had a lot of responsibilities at work and if I was as incapable at following orders and keeping accurate records as I seemed to be at listening to what John said, then I shouldn't be able to function at my job. That's when I started thinking a little more highly of my capabilities as a person who is able to listen, follow directions and "get the story straight", and I started looking for flaws in John's stories. After I decided to start standing up for myself and not be so quick to believe everything John said was fact, I started to look for concrete proof to catch him in one of his lies. It took over a year but the moment finally came when I had a witness and the grocery receipt that showed he bought beer and got drunk while staying and working at an area away from home. Even though I had the evidence, he adamantly insisted that he did not drink all the time he was there. In fact, when he got home from that job, even though I had proof against him, he went to a party because he "hadn't taken a drink all the time he was gone and he deserved one now." There were other times since that incident that I caught him in a lie in which he couldn't prove me wrong however, he still denied ever lying to me. Also, in the last year we were together, John started openly lying to others in front of me. There was no reason for it either. The lies were of no benefit to him. I asked why he lied and he just said that it was nothing important, it doesn't matter what the person was told. That was beyond my comprehension. Why would John lie when he had nothing to gain or loose by it? I didn't realize at the time that many alcoholics are just plain proud of the fact that they lie so well and they become victims of their own games. Even when we went our separate ways - the times he claimed to be sorry for what he'd done to me - lying to me is one thing he never admitted doing. And as long as he remains an unrecovered alcoholic, I have no doubt that he will never admit to lying about anything concerning me. There were many incidences when John brought up a subject that I was unprepared for, didn't know why he mentioned it, and had no reason to doubt what he said. One day we were looking at photos and came across an earlier one of his baby daughter sitting on a beach with palm trees in the background. He said, "See, this proves I've been to Florida." I guess I was to assume he took the picture. I can only guess someone had doubted him about this at some other time. This was the first time he had mentioned it and when he did, I never gave it a second thought. But as the months went by and strange little comments like this arose, I started getting suspicious of what he was trying to prove or perhaps hide. Later, I got the opportunity to ask the mother of John's daughter if he had ever been to that state. Not to her knowledge and certainly not with their daughter. I was also told by her that there had been many times John didn't come home to her either. She claimed he would get money from her when her welfare check came and then leave for the weekend and she wouldn't know where he was. She assumed he had a job because he left in the morning and usually came home dirty at night. At this point I would have thought that dirty clothes were proof enough but evidently she had enough years away from him to now even doubt that was the case when they were together. In every relationship that John ever had with women (including his mother when he was a child) he claimed that they all used him or deserted him or had affairs behind his back. Up to this point I believed him. I didn't think anyone was capable of acting in pain and heartache that well. But here was a woman talking about many things that happened between her and John that were now happening between him and me. Again my trust in him was reduced. When I confronted him about these subjects we had discussed, he had an easy answer for that. She was a liar then, always has been and still is. However the Florida picture was again my fault for not listening to what he had actually said. According to him, he never told me he had been there but that his daughter had. This time thought I knew what I had heard and he wasn't going to convince me that the error was from my lack of listening. But not knowing what to do about it, the subject was dropped.
Heading Toward Our First Anniversary
It was going on our eleventh month of our first year of marriage that I started asking myself some serious questions about the relationship. A few weeks prior to that, John had stopped confiding in me. In fact, he had pretty much stopped talking to me at all. He didn't seem angry with me, he just ignored me. There were other things that were putting stress in the marriage but this is the thing that bothered me most at that time. One evening I finally just got up, put on my coat and headed for the car. That's when John finally spoke in question form, "Where are you going?" I just retorted back, "Why won't you talk to me anymore?" Then I got in the car and drove off without waiting to see if he'd respond with an answer. But I didn't drive off quite fast enough to have the broom that he grabbed off the porch and threw, miss the car. I drove to my property and stayed there until 3:00 a.m. before coming home. John was asleep, evidently not too worried about me. But then he had been out that late a couple of times also and I didn't know where to find him. I started thinking, "We've been married less than a year and I've got the rest of my life to look forward to this type of relationship. How am I going to do it? I can't end it. I don't want to end it. I can't let the world know that I've failed and it's only been a year." So I took a gamble. I put a note on the table when I left for work one morning. In essence it stated that I couldn't go on being ignored any more. If he wasn't willing to work with me, then I didn't want John there - permanently - when I got home from work. Needless to say my workday was spent in apprehension...afraid that he'd be there, afraid that he wouldn't. But all the guessing was answered when that afternoon I came within sight of the house just in time to see John leaving. My heart sank. On the one hand I got my freedom from the stress of him being there. On the other hand I was alone. What was I going to tell the world? And did our relationship mean that little to him? I went to bed tired and disbelieving that he left. It appeared that he planned on staying gone since he packed several of his clothes. My final prayer that night was that we'd somehow be able to work things out. After all, I was still very much in love with him and was blind to the fact that he resembled the qualities pertaining to a jerk. Some time in the middle of the night he came back. The first thing I said to John was how glad I was that he did come back. This was also when I discovered that John couldn't take a letter for what was written on it. He would read between the lines. The biggest problem with that is when I wrote something, I left no lines to read between. So because of the way John read the note, he didn't believe that I was glad he came back. I don't know if I ever did convince him of that truth. But he did stay and we talked until the wee hours of the morning. He ended up staying and I went back to sleep with a new energy and hope. At that time I still had no idea that John had a drinking problem. It never occurred to me that one of the reasons he had become distant was in order to make that problem easier to hide. The days that followed seemed to go smoother and John seemed to make an effort to participate more in communicating. When our first anniversary rolled around I was determined to keep working at the marriage. In reflecting on the past year I had come to the conclusion that whoever said two could live as cheaply as one had never been married. I also knew there would continue to be surprises around future corners. I had opened up totally to John before we were married but it was becoming apparent that he had held back some things from me. Something wasn't right but I couldn't pinpoint what that something was (or perhaps I didn't want to). I had been honest with anyone who asked me since the beginning of the marriage - that I was no happier than when I was single. The reason was that I very much enjoyed my single life. But I never admitted to anyone including myself that I was less happy either since getting married. Also by the end of that first year I was burned out sexually and wanting changes in that aspect of the marriage. Now that we'd made it through the first year I was determined to get through the fifth. After all, surveys showed that the first five years are the hardest. So the relationship continued...sometimes smoothly and I thought lovingly but always with stress in the background.
Church
John was going to church with me on a regular basis before we were married. There was no doubt in my mind that he had accepted Christ as his Savior when he was little, as he claimed. there was also no doubt that Christ was again a part of his life since we got together. He didn't deny that he did some straying in his early adulthood but he claimed that was all in the past. He had all the right answers and made all the right comments. This continued throughout the first part of our marriage. He would tell me of his talks with God and how his prayers were answered.
After we were married, John continued to go to church with me when he wasn't working. But as time progressed, his attendance got less. The excuse might be that he was too tired having just finished work or needed to get ahead on some sleep because he was about to start work, or he had something else pressing to do that just had to get done that day and he couldn't take off. Later, there were usually no excuses at all. He just wasn't going to go. Then one day I got another reason from him. There were some people in the church who were nothing but hypocrites. There was one person in particular who had told his kids in front of John that they should not get involved with motorcycles because they would become bad people like John. (Or something to that effect. I don't remember the exact words.) Of course, I believed John although I thought he was making too much of it. I wasn't comfortable being around the supposedly anti-motorcycle person because even though John drove like a maniac, I didn't believe all bikers were necessarily bad. As far as hypocrites, I told him the idea wasn't to go there to see who was playing hypocrite but to go there for his own well being and rejuvenation. I was talking to a wall. But all this time John wanted me to continue going. When I'd come home he'd have a smile on his face and ask me "How was church?" One day I told him "If you want to know so bad, go yourself and find out." That didn't go over real well. He continued to stay away but one time told me after I'd gotten back that he liked having me go because when I went he felt I was going for him too. That angered me. The only one I was going for was myself. I couldn't go for him or anyone else. I said nothing to him but stopped going to church with the idea that since I was no longer going for him then he would start going for himself. That ended up being about as logical thinking as setting across the ocean in a leaky raft. All it did was seem to make my personal life a little more tense and I'd feel guilty whenever I'd see someone from church. I stayed away for about a year until that last New Year's Eve John and I spent together when he said he wasn't so sure there was a God. That's when I woke up and finally realized my staying away was all in vain and I had only been hurting myself.
Two Years Gone By
Our second anniversary was spent more in celebrating than the first. The past year John had made out like a bandit. He worked off and on but not a dime had been contributed to the bills. I was also writing him a check almost daily for the average amount of $20. His reasons were usually that he was checking on work and it costs money to put gas in the pickup (the pickup I had bought for him). John was coming home many nights after I'd already gone to bed but at least now he was usually calling (after I'd done a lot of pleading) to tell me where he was and when he'd be getting home. All the time it never crossed my mind to think he could be doing anything and calling anywhere other than what he was telling me. Two people who loved each other just didn't do that and I knew he loved me. Even when John got a DUI - which was reduced to reckless driving, I stood up for him. I don't remember the details but according to John, he had somehow been framed. I have no idea why the fine was reduced but I remember paying for much of it. This was my first jolt into reality. I couldn't ignore that alcohol caused the incident but I couldn't believe that he had a drinking problem. So I thought I'd do my part by having a six pack in the house so he wouldn't have to go out and in turn, I wouldn't have to worry about where he was. This worked for another woman I'd talked with so maybe that was the answer to our dilemma. So the reason for the second anniversary celebration was that John was staying home a little more and most of all, I truly felt loved by him. With the exception of the bedroom, he treated me like a china doll. We had yet to ever raise our voices to each other. And I felt needed by being able to mother him. He was also very jealous of me around other men but that was actually flattering for those first couple years.
The Wreck
The order of events after the second anniversary are a blur but I do remember things started going downhill from there. One of the worst moments I recall was one night John hadn't come home yet and I had a gut feeling he was at a local bar. It made me angry enough that I went looking for him I didn't have to look far. He was at the first bar I came to. I walked in to see him staggering drunk. I had never seen him this way before. But then maybe that was a reason why he would sometimes stay out so late. Maybe he hadn't really had car trouble...or been waiting to see someone pertaining to work...or hadn't actually gotten engrossed in cards or a movie at his friends' homes. Maybe what I was seeing now was what he was trying to keep hidden from me. But surely that wasn't the case. He had no reason to hide anything from me. After all, we were husband and wife. We were supposed to be a team - to hold each other up and accept each other's shortcomings.
In seeing John there, I quietly walked over to him and probably told him he needed to come home rather than asked. I don't remember for sure. At any rate, he did leave the bar with me. I wanted him to leave the pickup there and I would drive home but he refused so I told him to follow me. As I headed out of town, he roared around me and was quickly out of sight. I didn't speed up and try to follow him but, as-a-matter-of-factly said aloud, "He's going to kill himself." Then on the last corner before home I came upon the wreck. The pickup was upside down along the side of the road and John was lying deathly still half out of the cab. My only thought was that he was dead. I jumped out of the car and ran to him, unable to catch my breath. Every muscle was tight. My gut was twisted in a knot. It was the same feeling as riding a giant roller coaster only there was no thrill in this. The person I still loved was dead. But when I got to John he started moving. I wanted to hold him. I was so happy when he slowly stood up. I reached for him and wanted to make sure he was okay. He only pushed me away. In his eyes, this was all my fault. This never would have happened if I hadn't gone to the bar looking for him. By then others were arriving who heard the crash. I had gone into mild shock. I was told I needed to call the police so I drove home and calmly did that. I became very quiet and very very drowsy and was told I was very pale. John came walking in shortly after I reported the accident. When he found out I had called the authorities he had rage in his eyes and shook his fist at me. I held my ground. Even though he could have easily flung me across the room, I wanted to say "Just try hitting me...I'll take you on!" I said nothing. John said I had no business calling the cops. I should have called one of his friends and they would have gotten the pickup out of the way and the authorities wouldn't have needed to know about it. I knew that was the wrong thing to do but if I had, at least John wouldn't be so hateful toward me...maybe. John walked back to the wreck and was taken to jail. The pickup was moved out of the way and I attempted to go to sleep. But as beat as I felt, sleep wouldn't come. Neither would tears. The only injury that occurred was sustained by the dog that was riding with him. It had been thrown from the pickup. I would have to take it to the vet as soon as they opened. A couple of hours after John was taken away, a dispatcher called to tell me they were bringing him home. I didn't want to see him but said nothing. Why couldn't they keep him there for the night or a week or a year or indefinitely? I wasn't afraid but deeply angry and hurt. He apologized to the dog before he left. All he wanted to do with me was hit me. When he got back, we didn't have anything to say to each other. He fell asleep on the floor next to the dog and I lay in bed unable to sleep and finally got up - still pale. I then took the dog to the vet, feeling almost separated from myself until I started telling them what happened. Finally I broke down crying. The dog ended up with a torn ligament and chip broken from the bone which never completely healed. John was always apologizing to the dog after that for what had happened to it but he never stopped holding me responsible for the entire incident. When John's name was listed in the local paper showing his citation I was embarrassed more for myself than for him. I wasn't able to separate myself from his actions. Somehow that paper was listing my name as much as it was listing his. I also felt that everyone would read that and wonder how I could be married to someone that irresponsible. So I hung my head in shame and tried to make restitution by paying his $500 fine. He also had his license suspended as well as spent 24 hours in jail. After he served that time, he informed me that, in no uncertain terms, would he ever go to jail for anyone again. It was as if he was making a great sacrifice for me - to go to jail - for me, but I was to never double cross him like that again. Feelings of guilt kept popping up but as bad as I felt, logic finally won and I knew it was the right thing to do...to turn him in. Perhaps this was a way to stop things before they got worse. Perhaps this would protect someone else's life, not just John's. For six months following, he had to attend alcohol rehabilitation meetings. I had stopped having any kind of alcohol in the house. I also faithfully drove him to those meetings and paid to have the pickup repaired. I finally realized that John had a problem primarily caused by a drug. What I didn't realize was that I had a problem too, which was called denial, and was trying to protect John when I shouldn't have been. John said the meetings did him no good. People were just there saying what the counselor wanted to hear. Everyone was a hypocrite...but John of course.
The Silver Tongue
John was able to talk very rational, reasonable and logical when he wanted something. He knew what I responded to in a positive manner and he knew which buttons to push on me that would put him in control. He knew what would make me feel like I was the one who was calling the final shots but all along it was really John who cleverly manipulated me into giving him what he wanted for his own benefit. He always had the ability to sound as sincere as Mother Teresa. When he came to me wanting some material object, he always had a logical reason for wanting it (more often for "needing" it) and made everything sound very believable and a good investment in the long run.
In one incident, John talked me into buying a rifle. Since it was my money, he said it would be mine. I didn't hunt but he needed something other than his pistol to hunt with so I bought it. Later, with my permission, John traded it for a different rifle. This one was supposed to be more valuable, the seller needed the money, if we traded him plus gave him a little money, we could turn around and sell this new rifle for a profit. The second rifle was also supposed to be mine but when John left he took it with him. "It would be much cheaper to take a motorcycle to work." I was talked into paying for the bike and other expenses that incurred. After all was said and done, I only remember John riding the motorcycle to work once. "It's too cold, or it's going to rain, or I don't have any place to carry everything I need." Oddly enough it didn't seem to be too cold for him to take off to parties at his friends homes and, on longer excursions he seemed to have all the room he needed for anything extra he wanted to take along. That motorcycle also seemed to turn him into a Hell's Angels wannabe and I should be his biker babe. According to John the Hell's Angels were all old doctors and lawyers now and were just misunderstood. In his mind I guess it was more macho to have a woman sitting behind him on that thing as he rode the highway breaking speed limits. I did try riding with him once but spent all my time wondering how I was going to work with two broken arms and a broken leg when, not if, we crashed. That initial ride ended any desire I may have ever had to go anywhere on a motorcycle. If he wanted to commit suicide on that thing, that was his problem but I didn't want anything to do with it after that. John and another man wanted to go into business together. This required buying some various items to get started. I helped them research this type of business and it looked like a worthwhile project to pursue. I borrowed the money to get the business off the ground. I ended up paying the loan off out of my own salary from my job. I was the only person in the partnership with good credit so the bank loaned the three of us the money based on my reputation. One thing I insisted on was taking care of the books. I also helped the two of them in the manual aspects of the business when I wasn't at my full time job. But this business didn't take long to go down the tubes. The biggest problem was that there were two alcoholics and one co-dependent. The two alcoholics started acting like spoiled little brats. Our partner wasn't able to keep his lies straight and John got the attitude that if the partner wasn't going to do his share of the work, then he wasn't going to do anything either. I was concerned about paying off the loan so I worked, exactly what they should have both been doing. John thought he had sacrificed as much as I had, if not more because he had to spend more time putting up with our partner. So when it came time to sell the business property, he felt it only right that he should get something out of it for all that he had to go through rather than hand all of the money from the sales over to the bank to help pay off the loan. I didn't hesitate to draw the line here though. This was the first time I ever owed money and Lord willing, it will be the last. John was just going to have to feel cheated out of things. All of that money was going to the bank as long as my name was anywhere on the loan.
In Search of the Missing Husband
John rarely went anywhere if he was still home when I got back from work. But often he would come to me during work asking for money. Usually the excuse was he'd heard of a job, or he had to get some part for the pickup, or a friend asked him to help him with something, or he was going to town with a friend. I usually tried to find out where he'd be and when he'd be home. He often couldn't give me a straight answer. Other times I just gave up, handed him the check and didn't ask anything. I rarely gave him cash so I would be able to find out where he would cash those checks. Too often it was at the bar. The other common practice was to leave about the same time I got off work. Too many times as I was coming within sight of the house, I saw John leaving - never with a note or any other means of letting me know where he was going or when he'd be back. I made a lot of phone calls to bars during many nights. Rarely would I catch up with him. Usually John wasn't there or, "He left about an hour ago." Sometimes I'd get in the car and go searching. I didn't catch up with him very often doing that. In one incident John told me he was going to a friend's to help work on a rig. As the hours went by, my gut feeling took over so I drove there. According to the woman of the house, he and the others left for the next town. Now that I was thoroughly mad I went on to the next town and stopped at a bar. Yes, he had been there but left with this other person who lives at such and such a place. I went there and found nothing. The barkeeper said he had also heard them talking about going to the next town. I gave up though, convincing myself I was wasting time and gas. Within an hour I was back home to spend the rest of the night by myself.
As far as the outcome of these types of incidences - nothing was ever solved. I tried kindness, reasoning, threatening, anger, silence...everything but crying which wasn't my nature in those circumstances. There were a few weeks total time that John made an effort to let me know what he'd be doing and where he could be reached. He would also call and tell me where he was. These calls generally were between 10:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m. I would always ask if he had been drinking. If he said he had then I asked him to stay there rather than drive home. Sometimes he would stay and other times he'd eventually come home. I knew by then John had a drinking problem but didn't give as much thought to the fact that he was out drinking as to the fact that I was thinking he must still care for me to call and let me know what's going on. It almost made the drinking acceptable as long as he told me what was going on...and all the time I was believing that everything he said was the truth.
But We Didn't Do Anything Wrong
In one incident when John didn't come home my gut feeling took over in the middle of the night again. When morning broke I headed for the town where I suspected him to be. Sure enough, there was the pickup parked at a cafe. I walked in but he wasn't there but, who was sitting there was a person I had disliked since I was a child and my opinion of him had never gotten better because of his attitude and record of DUI's and drug dealing. This was a person who John knew I didn't like. When we were first getting to know each other, John called him only an acquaintance - not a friend. Sometime in the years to come during one of our arguments, John finally blurted out the truth, that this man was his best friend and I was causing problems between them. I would have a fit every time I found out they'd been together and his friend knew this and I was the one with the problem - according to John. After all, he didn't try to keep me from seeing my girlfriends and I should show him the same respect. Upon seeing this man but not seeing John, I walked out and took the keys from the pickup so they couldn't leave without talking to me. Finally John's friend came out and over to my car and told me that John was still at another person's house. Then I lit into him saying that he wasn't the total cause of our problems but it seemed that every time the two of them got together, I ended up getting hurt by it and John and I would get into a fight. Just like this time, I would have no idea where they were or what had happened and I was getting sick of being treated that way. This man's reply to all of this was (with the most big eyed innocent look I'd ever seen on anyone), "But we didn't do anything wrong!" My final statements consisted of the fact that if I ever saw him set foot near my home again, I'd come after him with the shotgun. Then I told him I had the keys to the pickup and he was just going to have to walk back to the house. I then drove to the house where John and the residents were all waking up with hangovers. The wife kept saying she knew they should have called me to let me know where he was. She was the only apologetic one. I focused my attention on John, made statements and asked questions but he just sat there saying nothing. In the end I walked out, after tossing him the pickup keys, and headed home. John still didn't have much to say when getting home that evening. There were no apologies from him but there was a comment about the shotgun. He thought I was being too hard on his friend. Evidently his friend took me seriously because I never saw him around after that. Of course the fact that I hadn't awakened to yet was that just because he'd be greeted with a shotgun here, didn't slow them down one iota from carousing around together elsewhere. As far as "We didn't do anything wrong!", that seemed to be the overall attitude of John and his type of people. It was always someone else's fault or they were justified in what they did. Another incident happened on John's birthday. His cousin was staying with us. As long as his cousin was here, they'd be home every night and generally not very late. Since it was John's birthday, I baked him an apple pie when I got home from work and then waited for them to arrive...and waited...and waited. Then I started making phone calls. No one had seen them. John's mother suspected that they'd gone to the city. This time I had no gut feeling to follow up on so it was another sleepless night. When they came back the next day he showed no remorse. The reply to my anger was, "But it was my birthday!", so I should have known that he'd be out all night. I got mad enough that I threw the pie out but let John know I had made it specially for him. That didn't phase him either. He just kind of smiled.
Dinner
Throughout at least the first half of our marriage John would sometimes have dinner ready for me when I got home from work. There was enough made to feed a dozen people and he'd heap my plate way too high but I didn't complain. He was an excellent cook. During these expressions of love for me he usually always had a warm bubble bath waiting for me too. He had one advantage over me though when it came to fixing meals. He always knew when I'd be arriving home.
The times when he was working, I always had dinner for him regardless of what time he actually got home. But after the first few times he didn't show up at a decent hour and I ended up putting everything away, I started losing heart in wanting to have any kind of meal prepared for him at all. So there were times if he wasn't home shortly after I got there, I didn't bother preparing anything for him. At other times I'd have things waiting for hours and he'd come home and not want anything anyway. Although John did prepare some of his own meals when he came home late (because I wasn't about to get out of bed and cook at that time of night) there were just as many times when he'd expect me to have something waiting on the stove for him. I ended up being the wrongdoer again. John said it was my duty to have a hot meal waiting for him regardless of the time. It also appeared to be regardless of whether he was going to eat it or not. He was able to send me on a guilt trip because I was supposed to be a wife submitting to my husband.
My Fault
I'm not totally blameless concerning the events that took place during our marriage. Where I was at fault most had to do with my lack of knowledge about the type of person I was dealing with. I was trying to solve problems the way one would with someone who is not wrapped up in their own self centeredness, one who's every aspect of life is not controlled by a drug, one who is not totally insecure. I also contradicted myself and backed down too easily. I didn't give John nearly as much financially as he would have taken, had I been more generous, yet all the time I was claiming to be broke, I was handing money over to him two to four times a week. Most people I'd been around would have started feeling guilty because I was sacrificing so much for someone else but too late I discovered that was a very worthless approach to someone of John's personality. Too late I realized that all he noticed was that he was getting money and that's the only thing that really mattered. There were times when he said I should buy some new clothes instead of wearing the same old ones that were turning into rags. He didn't believe me when I said I couldn't afford it and why should he? I was steadily giving him money when he asked. There were also times when I would tell John where we stood in the checking account. The money that he would put into it was gone within a matter of weeks, sometimes days. The question was always, "What had I done with his money?". He refused to believe me when I told him it had already been spent by him. He never would agree to allowing me to show him on the records where each penny went. I thought I was going to be clever one time. He put $1,000 into the account. I kept a record of everything spent out of it. This time I didn't go on about how some of it should be used to help pay bills...or that he was going through it too fast. I just gave him amounts from it as he requested. At the end of two weeks the entire amount was gone. Now I could say, "Look here on paper where everything went to." But after it was all said and done with the proof brought before him, John's reply was "What are you doing with the money?" Because of my lack of strength and understanding of what kind of person I was dealing with, he managed to turn everything around and I found myself on the defensive instead of standing up to him...telling him I had just shown him the facts and if he didn't want to believe them, then that was his problem. On one occasion I set $20 aside for myself to attend a meeting where I would be staying over night. That was okay with John but he said I had to give him some money also because he "wasn't going to sit at home if I was gone." Instead of telling him that he had two legs, he could walk and his entertainment would just have to be free for a day and a half, I again allowed myself to fall victim to his words. I was afraid of how I'd lose his "love" if I stood up to him. So as the morning wore on, I never gave him money but I never went to the meeting either. I finally just walked out the door while he sat in front of the TV. I didn't say where I was going (I didn't know where I was going), I just started taking a long walk to try to sort things out, crying a little, thinking a lot, starting to realize that John was getting worse and he was starting to take me down with him.
Okay for Him - Forbidden for Me
John's friends were of both genders. That was fine with me and at first I thought nothing of it. I was even blind enough to give him my okay to dance with other women because he liked to dance and I didn't. This meant I could stay away from the bars where the dances were held while he went. After all, he said he would never dance a slow dance with anyone and I knew nothing could happen out on the dance floor. I trusted him completely. There were a few curious times however, when I would see a woman on the street staring at John with no other way to describe it than with lust in her eye. In one way it almost made me proud that I could claim to myself, "He's mine and you can't have him...he loves me and isn't interested in anyone else." John never seemed to notice these women who would be staring at him. There were other women we'd meet and they'd smile an almost seductive smile and say "Hi" to John in passing and act as if I were invisible. John would do no more than say "Hi" back. I would ask, "Who is that ?" He replied only by giving a first name or else say she was a friend of someone he knew. Something didn't feel right inside me during these encounters but then it kept going through my mind that he couldn't possibly be seeing other women. He's so engrossed in sex at home, how could he possibly have a desire to want any outside our home? In my mind it just wasn't humanly possible.
There were a few times when out of the blue John would angrily say "I have never been with another woman." I thought at first it was because he was very jealous and suspicious of any man I came in contact with. It took over four years before I started wondering if he might be making such a statement because he had something to hide. John's jealousy had a diverse affect on me as time went by. At first it was easy for me to treat other men the same way I treated women. I could carry on a conversation with them comfortably but because of John's suspicions and accusations toward me, this became increasingly harder to do. It got to the point that I'd do little more than acknowledge his friends (even the ones I liked) for fear that he would see anything else as flirting or even more. I was more comfortable around my fellow workers unless he stopped by and then I felt I needed to pretend that I didn't even like them. There was no one particular worker he thought I was involved with...he was jealous of them all. I don't know what made John so suspicious of Worker #1 who I considered a friend of mine. But some time between our 4th and 5th wedding anniversary, he accused me of having an affair with this man. (I would jokingly call him the obnoxious little brother I never had.) But John wasn't buying my exclamation that his accusations were the most ludicrous things I'd ever heard and he sure wasn't buying the fact that I looked at Worker #1 as a brother. One day when John came in to ask for some money, we were all sitting at the table for lunch. I happened to be sitting on the same bench as Worker #2 - about three to four feet away from him. Another time during lunch we were all sitting outside. I was a few yards away from my fellow male workers when they invited me to come join in the conversation so I moved within about 2 yards of them. Directly following that move, John drove up to ask for some money. I don't remember the reason, but I was already mad at him so was in no hurry to get off the ground and see what he wanted. He remained in the pickup. Later John confronted me on "What's going on between you and Worker #2?" I was at a loss of why he was thinking anything was going on but immediately put myself on the defensive instead of having enough self pride and confidence to tell him something to the effect that he was in desperate need of some psychological help. According to him, every time he showed up at work I was always sitting real close to this guy and being too chummy. (He mentioned the two lunch encounters.) Of course when I tried to explain that nothing was going on between us and in fact Worker #2 had just recently been telling me how much his fiance' meant to him, John believed none of it. I ended up feeling that if it had a masculine voice and I was within 100 yards of it, then I was probably having an affair with it by his reasoning. Even over a year after our separation, John was still trying to give me a guilt complex and make me feel like the bad one. Despite the fact that he had been living with another woman and also claimed to be sleeping with others, he accused me of having boyfriends who were more than just friends. I assured him I "do have friends who are men and friends is exactly all they are. They respect me and treat me as someone worthwhile. I refuse to have anything to do with anyone who might give the slightest hint that they want to get physically or romantically involved." John's retort to that was if I'm sleeping around then I'm being called easy. If I'm being friendly but not giving them anything, then I'm a tease. There was a time these words would have bothered me and put me on the defensive but now the statement wasn't even worth wasting my breath on. Regardless of the fact that he was going to believe what he wanted as well as continue to try to manipulate me, it didn't work this time. Now I could laugh at such an immature, ridiculous remark and it was no stress on my conscience to allow John to believe what he wanted. His opinion didn't make an ounce of difference toward what was truly going on in my life. There were other effects caused by John's suspicions though that weren't so easy to overcome. After 1 1/2 years of separation, I had come back from a trip which I used as part of my own healing process. But I felt very reluctant and guilty to tell my future husband about everything I had done. (At that time I refused to consider ever marrying again. My future husband was no more than a friend...he had no hold on me. The closest he ever dared get to me physically was a few hugs. But he treated me better than I treated myself and I cared enough about his feelings that I didn't want to hurt him.) On this trip I met a man who showed me some of the local sights. There was no romance involved, we did absolutely nothing wrong or immoral but still I felt guilty for having spent any kind of time with this man. It was months later before I was able to tell my future husband about the sights this man and I saw together. That's when I was able to realize that not all men are like John. My future husband actually trusted me without question. He had no intention of wanting to make me feel guilty of things I didn't do. In fact, he said that he was glad I was finally able to open up and express the fun time I had on my trip. Just because the person who showed me around happened to be a male, that didn't make me a bad person.
There came a couple of times when I got cleaned up to go to town, whether it was for groceries or to take in a movie with my girlfriend. For no reason John would get very suspicious. "Why are you getting all cleaned up? You don't dress that nice around the house. Who are you really going to see?" Instead of turning the tables and getting on the offensive, I allowed myself to be on the defensive. I would try to convince him where I was going and with who but I don't think he ever truly believed me. I was blinded to the fact that with those kind of accusations I should have been suspicious as to why he was questioning me like that. Perhaps he was attempting to cover up his own guilt.
Holidays
Our first couple of Christmases were nothing special other than the fact that I thought we loved each other, we had each other, although each other is about all we had...but that was enough. We had our problems also but they seemed to ease up this time of year. The second Christmas John had the house and tree decorated when I got home from work. He was like an excited child showing off his work. I remember appreciating it but made the comment that he did something different than what I was accustomed to. I don't remember complaining about it but that was the last time he ever helped me in any of the decorating. I didn't realize there was a problem until the next year when he said I didn't like the way he decorated the year before so he wasn't going to touch it any more since all I did was criticize. So what started out as mutual participation ended up being entirely my job. This mutual participation in many other aspects of our marriage was to end up as just another one of my jobs - increasingly as time would progress. Initially, Christmas was kind of a mixed up time for John...and for me it became an increasingly depressing time. If John was telling the truth, he never really had much of a Christmas growing up. His mother wasn't around and his dad just gave him money to go pick out school clothes. I accepted this as truth because of his actions at that time of season along with tidbits I'd been told by his family members. On our first Christmas, John was excited but didn't seem to know how to handle it. Like so many others, the ritual of gift giving seemed to be more important than the birth of Christ. A couple of winters I suggested that we not buy gifts for each other because of finances being so tight. John didn't really comment. Once he went along with it but another time he bought a new color TV as my gift. Of course, this made me feel guilty because I didn't buy anything for him. On the other hand I didn't believe that the new TV was for me anyway. Rather he bought it for himself because he had been after me for months that we needed a new one. He had a little one but that wasn't good enough. he "needed" one with a bigger picture and better reception. I, on the other hand, thought his little one was fine...it was only costing electricity. Our last holiday season together was the beginning of the end. That Christmas eve the snow was falling fast and heavily. With the bosses gone for the holidays, I attempted to load a flat bed truck that came in after dark, while another remaining employee was trying to keep ahead of the snow, plowing paths. The lift truck was helpless without chains. Aside from fighting with slippery units that didn't want to sit stationary, I was also fighting with a lift truck that could not do much more than slide around. I called John and had him bring chains to fit on the lift truck. After putting those on, he left with no offer to help in loading the truck or plowing the snow even though he was experienced at both of them. I didn't feel there was any point in asking for his help either. Before the other employee left, he gave me instructions on how to operate the snow plow. It had been years since I had driven a tractor and I had never made an attempt at plowing snow. I came home from work that Christmas Eve and John was gone. His being gone wasn't unusual but being Christmas Eve I expected him to be back fairly early. Then my mind started going through the same routine it had gone through countless times before. "Maybe he's at this town buying a gift. If that's the case, he'll be back at such and such a time if he doesn't leave until the stores close. Or if he's at that other town it will be this other time..." all the while denying the obvious - that he's somewhere getting drunk. But, sometime around midnight reality started to push its way into all the excuses and I (settled down?) for who knows how many hours of frustration, fear and anger. John came home in the wee hours of the morning. I didn't bother saying anything to him and he didn't bother making excuses. I was up early Christmas morning and left the house without waking John. I went to my parents house where I had to check on the pets anyway, since my parents were away for the holidays. Not wanting to go back home very bad and with the snow continually coming down, I was going to teach myself how to plow snow. Instead I spent a couple of hours fighting to get a dead battery removed from the tractor and hooked up to the charger. Between the night before and this current trial, my nerves were wearing down.
I walked back home sometime in the afternoon. John was almost done cooking Christmas dinner which was somewhat of a nice surprise to me but I said nothing. After eating in silence, I finally started opening presents in silence also. John usually enjoyed opening the gifts to the pets but this time he just sat in front of the TV watching me do it...not seeming to care about anything. I felt drained of all life. After opening presents I washed dishes, soaked in the tub and went to bed...in silence. The following week progressed with nothing being said about Christmas Eve. With everyone else having the week off, I spent every day at work by myself and eventually got the tractor running long enough to make my first attempt at plowing snow. At home I was civil to John but nothing more. He acted as if he had done nothing wrong. Then New Year's Eve came. Several more inches of snow dropped and once again I couldn't get the tractor started so I went through the entire ritual again of, taking out the battery, charging it and putting it back in. With the help of a neighbor who had heard of my dilemma and came over that afternoon, my tractor was again running and along with his, we plowed snow until dark. Then he said he'd come over New Year's day and help me finish. When I got home that evening John wasn't there which was no surprise but I went ahead and started dinner for him anyway. He soon showed up drunk with one of his friends. He was acting overly affectionate (as he had a habit of doing in his drunken states) and wanted me to go with them to a dance at a local bar. I said no, I didn't like bars, we couldn't afford it, the job situation looked very gloomy and we had to start saving every penny because I didn't know how much longer I'd be working. (I kept all of the bills paid on time but we were always broke.) We got into an argument and John had a fit that I was talking about any of these problems in front of his friend. It's easier to carry on a serious conversation with a mule than someone who's drunk and this was the case with John. After all was said and done, John still insisted on going to the dance with or without me. If he was going without me though, he wanted me to write him a check. I wouldn't do it. He finally grabbed the checkbook and started writing one out himself. But the real bomb was dropped that night when the subject of Christmas Eve was brought up by him, with the most sincere of voices, John didn't apologize but gave the excuse that he'd forgotten it was Christmas Eve. I lashed back, raving about how could he treat Jesus with that kind of disrespect! After more words passed between us he said, "I'm not so sure there is a God!" I felt something inside of me die. I don't know what it was but, possibly comparable to a dog that had been beaten all its life and had no spirit left. I ended up driving them to the dance and sitting there with John through closing time. I was in a state similar to what one might be on tranquilizers, but totally sober, sipping on a pop and feeling lost, defeated and helpless. If I had to be there, I was most content to sit back in the corner, hidden from the crowd. But there were a few times I had to dance with him in a way that embarrassed me and hurt. He had a habit when drunk and wanting to dance, of holding me so tight around the waist that I would be bent backwards into a contorted state, still being held tight against his groin. I went to bed that New Year's morning probably the most depressed I'd been in our marriage up to that time and John went to bed passed out I suppose. I had to get up in five hours and fight with the tractor not wanting to start again. But by the time the neighbor arrived to help plow, the stubborn tractor decided to run. So, between fighting back tears and teaching myself how to plow snow, I made a decision that I had to start living more for me. I had to face the fact that John had lied to me about his belief and faith in Christ, that evidently he wasn't a Christian after all, which was an absolute I had insisted on if I ever married. Divorce was out of the question for me. We'd live in the same house, he'd do his thing, I'd do mine. I no longer had the desire to fight for the way I felt things should be but, I wasn't willing to conform totally to his ways either. So, I came to the conclusion that I'd resort to living out the rest of my life the way I'd seen so many other wives do with their drunken husbands. I wasn't sure how they did it but it seemed as though they survived just fine with husbands who had drinking problems so I should be able to also. Sometime later the subject of Christmas Eve was brought up again. John totally denied having made such a statement about God. Once again I was made to look like the one who wasn't listening to what was being said, the one who let her imagination run away with herself.
Shut Up and Count Your Blessings
My attitude started changing from "Why do wives have to complain about their husbands to everyone else?" to "These wives should be grateful if the only problems they have in their marriage are the ones they're complaining about. If they want real problems they should experience a husband who you don't know where he is many times; a husband who has stopped discussing many important issues with you; a husband who won't give you a break sexually; a husband who doesn't seem concerned about how much money is spent regardless of how little there is to spend; a husband who is spending increasingly more time at the bars." I wanted to tell them to wake up and take a look at what the real world was like instead of complaining about the dirty socks hubby wouldn't pick up or the dishes he wouldn't help wash or the meals he wouldn't help fix. These were all legitimate concerns in their own right but for me, all I could think was that they don't know how good they've got it. Still, I kept my vow not to talk down my husband to others.
Who Did What and What Belongs to Who?
For a long time it didn't bother me that John would take credit for things he didn't do. Actually, for a long time I didn't realize that was going on. But, as time progressed, the incidences became more frequent and out in the open as far as him taking credit for things he had no business taking credit for. John wasn't lazy all of the time. In fact, when he did get ambitious, he went at things like a man possessed and I couldn't begin to keep up with him. But the problem was that the ambition was short lived. If getting the winter wood in couldn't be finished in a day, I usually ended up finishing what he started. The same thing happened with building a fence around the house. That lasted a weekend then I ragged on him until he got a neighbor to help him and then after some more ragging, the fence was finally completed by him and me. Any future repairs were done by me though. It didn't seem hard for John to take credit for jobs I'd done. One incident was after I'd been on him for several days to get the boat cleaned up. I finally gave up and did it myself. I happened to be there when a neighbor commented on how good it looked and John replied that he'd just finished working on it. I couldn't keep quiet. I let everyone know that I was the one who did the entire thing. John just laughed it off which appeared to make it amusing to the person who made the comment in the first place. Time after time, I allowed John to get away with taking credit for things he shouldn't have. This also included legal ownership of my property. The only thing that he called mine was my car and my horse. Everything else was in both our names except for the land I owned before ever meeting him. All of these things, he called his except the property which he called ours - when I was in earshot. He abused the pickups bad enough that I didn't want to lay claim to them anyway. As far as the property, I had no problem with him calling it ours because after all, we were married and I felt figuratively speaking, what was mine was his and what was his was mine. Legally speaking, my gut feelings from the very beginning told me to keep everything that was already in my name - strictly in my name...although I had no idea why at the time. It didn't hit home to what extent John was labeling things his until one of his friends asked a question in front of me that, from John's reaction, I wasn't supposed to have ever heard. John asked me if I'd attend a wedding with him (a couple of people I'd never heard of) and I agreed to it. I couldn't have asked for someone more loving to sit next to me. He seemed to be so proud to sit beside me. After the wedding he introduced me to the brother of the groom. "I didn't know you were married!" this person exclaimed. We had been married for nearly five years and he didn't appear to be joking. John made no reply but I was quietly smoldering, wondering for the first time if he was playing the part of a single drunk while at the bars with this group of drunks standing here. But the slap of reality didn't end there. Another man asked if it was still on to have his birthday kegger at John's property. I asked "What property?" John almost sheepishly said the property at such and such a location. That was MY property! Those around seemed to sense that something was drastically wrong as I stood there with one of my if-looks-could-kill glares. The subject was quickly dropped by all. I wanted so bad to tell everyone that the property was mine and no way was I going to allow a bunch of drunks to desecrate it. If anyone set foot on that land, I would have the cops after them. But I was unable to muster up the nerve at that point to say what should have been said. (As it was, there ended up being no party there after all.) Then the wedding reception was to be at the bar. John wanted me to go with him - I wanted him to stay away from the bar scene. Neither of us gave in so he went with his friends and I went home angry, hurt and depressed.
Jekyl/Hyde
As time progressed I found myself dealing more and more with two separate people in John. I termed it his Jekyl/Hyde syndrome. The more pronounced his drinking became, the more these two personalities showed up...the worst primarily when he was drinking. There was a violent side that he managed to keep hidden from me for a long time. But it started showing up more toward the end. John had told me that he got into fights while growing up which I accepted as the way he said his father raised him but I thought that was all in his past. John started coming home now and then a little sore because he "had to defend himself" from some guy looking for trouble at the bar or the guy just plain "asked for it." That's something I never did blindly accept. I always replied that if he'd stay away from the bars he wouldn't have to go through that. But, according to John, these kind of people weren't just at the bar. My reply to that was "What's wrong with just ignoring them? Did they put a gun to your head and force you to fight?" I was trying to talk reason to a type of person who was in a condition where reason was non-existent.
I was fortunate to rarely see John's violent side. One incident was when he came home late and I was in bed. It was customary for me to lock the outside door when retiring. But that night when John came home to a locked door, he blew up. He walked around the house to the bedroom and kicked the wall then walked back to the door and kicked it. I jumped up and unlocked it. He informed me that I was never to lock the door on him again and if he did come home with it locked - that wasn't going to keep him out. He'd bust it down next time. I tried to explain that I wasn't locking him out, not yet understanding that I was wasting my breath trying to talk to a drunk. I did go a few weeks not locking the door when John was still out but didn't feel as secure. I finally talked to him when he was sober, telling him I was going to start locking the door again and why. It wasn't to keep him out. There was a time when John would have insisted on the house being locked while he was gone and even a firearm in the bedroom. He had no objections to me locking the door again but I also gave no other options. I wasn't going to give up that added security for anyone. Not only was I dealing more and more with what seemed to be a split personality, I began to feel increasingly like a single mother trying to raise a two year old - or sometimes a rebellious seventeen year old. Another incident when John showed a part of his more violent side was when he again came home drunk and after midnight. He walked into the bedroom because I hadn't gotten up to talk with him. He picked up one side of the mattress to get my attention. I ignored him. Then he went on about how he'd nearly lost his life that day at work and I didn't even care what happened to him. In reality, by now I knew it was no use trying to carry on a conversation with a drunk. But this new line aroused my curiosity. If John was telling the truth, there had been a malfunction in the equipment he was operating which could have been disastrous and did become dangerous by anyone's definition. But if he was so upset by what happened, I had to ask why didn't he come right home after work for the support and comfort I could have given him? His answer was that he had to settle his nerves by stopping at the bar. Also, he had friends there who cared about what happened whereas he said I didn't care. This was also the point where John came up with his own interpretation of the Bible. According to him, God allowed the incident to happen so he would see that life is too short and so he should live it to the fullest. This meant to the fullest of how John wanted to live. It had nothing to do with how God wanted him to live. According to John, he was living how God wanted him to - any way that he could get the most fun out of life for himself. John went through three different pickups while we were together. It didn't take much talking on his part to convince me that he needed them. Here again were two totally different people behind the wheel. He either drove 5 to 10 mph below the speed limit, being very conscientious of what was going on around him, or he drove like a dangerous maniac only hitting the speed limit when he was starting and stopping. I often complained to him about the abusive way he treated the pickups but to no avail. I thought at least if he had a pickup, my car was safe. I paid for most of the insurance and repair expenses on them. His third pickup was in both of our names. I paid for it while he was with me and completed payment after he walked out. John's violent side also came out during his fits of jealousy. He wasn't calm when he asked me about my relationship with fellow workers. In one instance when he was sitting at the dinner table he stabbed his fork into the table and said, "I want to know what's going on between you two!" In another case when he was yelling the same sentence, he threw an open but not empty beer can across the room. He couldn't accept the fact that he had no grounds for suspicion.
A Promise Broken
It was between three and four years into our marriage that we got into our first yelling argument. Before that time, John was very clear on the point that we should never yell at each other. I agreed. I don't remember what the argument was about or who started yelling first. What I do remember is when he called me a bitch. By this time I had sunk so low in my self-esteem that I agreed with him. I didn't actually say this to him but within myself agreed that I was acting the part. It hurt to hear the words but I approved of what I considered to be his honesty. I also decided that I needed to try harder not to be getting on his case so much about things. Again, he knew just what buttons to push to make me feel like everything was my fault and he was the victim.
A Taste of His Own Medicine
Nearly five years into our marriage, I decided to give John a "taste of his own medicine." The pickup wasn't working and I didn't think John had any money on him, so I knew when I left for church that morning with him sitting in the chair staring at the TV, that's where he'd remain unless someone came and got him. As far as he knew, I'd be back right after church as always. This time I went to visit a friend instead. I brought her up to date on what was going on and told her what I was doing now. I was welcome to stay there for the night but decided I didn't have that much nerve as well as have to get up earlier and drive the extra distance to work. We went to a movie so I didn't get home until around 11:00 p.m. There was John in the same chair, watching TV. He asked me where I had been. I just looked him straight in the eye and said "It feels real good, doesn't it." (Referring to the fact that he was stuck there with all the worry and questions just like I went through so many nights.) I said nothing more...just went to bed. He continued to watch TV for some time.
The next day I told John I had been with my girlfriend. He replied "I knew where you were but the cat was worried about you. She kept coming in and out of the bedroom, looking at me, wondering where you were." I said nothing. Here he was again, trying to turn things around and send me on another guilt trip. All I could think was here sits a jerk who doesn't even have the intestinal fortitude to stand up to a single one of his shortcomings, to admit he'd been doing me wrong, even though I could see very clearly in his eyes and actions how my being gone affected him. At the same time I did have a twinge of guilt. My cat had become my closest friend in that house, giving me the love and attention my husband wouldn't. My cat had more discipline than my husband. She was also always there for me and by her actions I knew she could tell what kind of moods I was in. More than once she actually seemed to show concern for me. I did feel a little bad about leaving the one living being in the house I knew really cared about me but, she was an animal living for the moment, whereas John and I were supposed to be living the rest of our lives together, working things out. I had no regrets about staying gone all that day without John knowing where I was, even though it was pretty much in vain. He did make a temporary effort after that to let me know of his where abouts and when he'd be home and even came home when he said he would. But alcohol was his ruler and as long as that remained a fact and he remained in denial about it, not wanting to do anything about it, he'd never be able to continue a life-style that resembled that of a normal healthy marriage.
Other Victims
John's actions not only affected our two lives, but other innocent bystanders as well. One afternoon the girlfriend of one of John's friends called me in tears. She used to be close to her boyfriend before he met John. But when John came into their lives, her boyfriend didn't have nearly as much time for her. She was put on the back burner while he started to drink more. There were also times when her boyfriend would come home too tired to do anything but then John would show up and all of a sudden he had all kinds of energy and out the door the two of them would go. This phone conversation took place about three months before John left me. So by then I had started seeking answers for myself and my situation, was starting to learn about the mind of the alcoholic, and although I felt it was too late for me to correct all of my past grievances caused by John, I felt this girl may have a better chance by confronting her boyfriend about his actions immediately. I told her the longer she allowed him to get away with these things that were hurting her, the harder it would be for her to get any results. Previously she had talked to him a little about their problems but generally through tears or anger and he usually had been drinking at the time. I was listening to the same thing I did...all those reactions got her nowhere. I certainly didn't have all the answers but had learned enough by then that I told her not to bother wasting her breath if he was drinking. Wait until he's sober, he seems to be in a receptive mood, and she has her self-control in tact where she can present him with facts calmly and correctly. I suggested making a list of what she wants to talk about and have it with her or at least memorize it. She did try these things and we did keep in touch. Nothing big happened over night. In fact there still continued to be some steps back. In one instance I don't remember who called who but we knew John and her boyfriend were at a bar together and between the two of us calling around, we found out which bar. So we came up with the plan that we'd go strolling into the bar together, sit down at a table, order a pop and ignore the two characters who were supposed to be a part of our lives. Kind of a fight fire with fire mentality. This girl was meeting me at my house and then I'd drive us on to the destination. But by the time she got ready to leave, John and her boyfriend showed up at her place. In one way I was relieved that we didn't actually go through with it. The idea in the first place was just grasping at straws. I knew of another wife who had started meeting her husband at the bar after he finished work. For him, that wasn't as much fun as when she wasn't there so he started coming straight home after work instead of stopping off with the boys. But in our case, I believe John and her boyfriend would have been glad to have us a part of the bar scene with them. After John left me I didn't have too much contact with this girl. But about a year later I was tickled to talk with her and hear that things were going better with her and her boyfriend who was now her husband. They had a baby and she told me, "We're mommies and daddies now. We've grown up and taken responsibility for ourselves and our baby. We don't run around with that crowd anymore or go drinking or do drugs." "That crowd" was referring to John and the company he kept.
Accepting Help
I finally hit my point of desperation a few weeks before John walked out. I couldn't ignore or handle it any longer. John was steadily getting worse. He was going down but I wasn't going to let him take me with him. I spoke with a couple who were getting help for their past and wondered if I could be helped. This man was a recovering alcoholic and she had been badly abused in a previous marriage. They were happy to have me come to their next "get together". It wasn't just for alcoholics and addicts, it wasn't just for co-dependents. It was for anyone with a problem. The only people who were not welcome were those looking for a story to gossip about. The Friday before I was to meet with this group, John was gone when I got home from work. He still hadn't shown up when I left for church that Sunday. I had no idea where he was. I went to church very, very depressed. I had made my mind up to ask the pastor after the service to pray for him. I didn't realize at that time that counseling was available through the church. I hadn't even considered the idea of someone being there who could help me. But when I told the pastor I would like prayer for John, he knew I needed more. I broke down and remember between the sobs telling how long John had been gone, that I didn't know where he was or if something happened to him and that I thought he was a Christian but he lied to me. The pastor didn't ask if I'd like some counseling, he told me he was going to start me in sessions. That was the best thing he could have done. I couldn't think straight for myself in that state of mind and needed someone to lead me along while my emotions were in a state of mass confusion. I was very nervous about both of my first sessions. Although several quotes were taken from the Bible in the first group, the majority did not profess to be Christians. So I refer to it as my secular session. I went there with big dreams that I was going to get answers that would change John and we'd live happily ever after. I spoke a little of my dilemma and then a recovered alcoholic spoke to me, opening my eyes to the cold hard facts of alcoholism. I was nothing short of shocked at the things I heard. The biggest shock from that initial visit was being told there was absolutely no hope for John until he came to the conclusion that he had a problem...until he stopped wallowing in his denial and made a decision to change for himself. It was not my place to try to change him. If that's what I was here for then these meetings would do me no good. What I had to do was change my own attitude first and stop trying to cover up or solve all of John's problems for him. I had to stop playing the part of a co-dependent. The second biggest shock was this man, along with some others at the meeting called themselves alcoholics. Some hadn't taken a drink in years. I hadn't realized that just because they had stopped drinking didn't mean they were no longer an alcoholic. That was something they'd be for the rest of their lives. But the difference between these people and the ones I had always considered alcoholics (the obvious drunks I saw on the street for example) was that these people had a totally different attitude. They had an almost addictive love for life. There were still some struggling at times but the common bond was they were all working on changing their attitude. They had chosen to take responsibility for their own actions. What was also kind of depressing to hear was that the alcoholics were all agreeing that they felt the co-dependents had it a lot worse than they ever did. Many of the things they did, they don't even remember. But the sober person involved is the one who suffers in some matters for the rest of his/her life because their memory remains in tact. As disheartening as that was to hear, it was also encouraging to realize that these people who survived the abuse weren't dwelling on that past in anger and hatred but were working to get their attitudes and lives together and be a positive example to the outside world. That to me was a goal worth shooting for. Other than stating the facts about events that took place, we were not allowed to talk down about anyone else. We were there to work out our own problems and strengthen ourselves, not "knock down the people who had caused us pain". I went to these meetings for several weeks. Here I was able to be amongst people who I could relate with and who could truly understand what I was going through. What I gained through them was knowledge from first hand experience. Something that can't be imbedded as deeply and personally into a person in the classroom as opposed to actually living it. Also, in talking with other alcoholics it didn't take long to see that although the incidences may slightly vary, they had all had the same reactions. They had all been walking time bombs before overcoming their addictions. By them confiding in how they were, I was able to predict, usually with a fair amount of accuracy, what John's next move was going to be as time went by. In this way I was able to protect myself a little better but in no way did it make me invincible.
My church sessions were just as helpful. Here I had the teachings of the Bible to fall back on as well as fellow Christians. Here I got my strength and power through Christ. At the church sessions also, we weren't there to rake John over the coals. We were there to help me get a better understanding of what had been going on in my life and stop playing the part of a co-dependent. One thing contradictory from the secular session was that I was told there was always hope. I liked hearing that better than what I was told at the other meeting. But every case is a little different and in my case, looking back on the word "hope" I have to agree with the man at the secular session. It was pointless for me to hope that things would turn around for John. When I was hoping for that, I was expending too much energy on something I had absolutely no control over. But there was hope for myself and I can continue to pray for John with the hope that some day he will get his life together. But I had to turn that over to God. It will not be for me to decide, but something that will be between God and John. As soon as I started both sessions, John started becoming even more distant, almost acting hateful toward what I was doing. He just knew that I was telling everyone how terrible he was. No amount of talking would convince him that I was there to help myself, not to put him down. I asked him to come along a few times but he wasn't going to go to something where everyone just sat around telling lies - saying what the counselor wanted to hear and then walking out going right back to their same ol' hypocritical ways. After starting these sessions, things just didn't start turning right around. The initial idea in my mind was that I'd start doing all the right things, stop "enabling" John, start feeling better about myself and the ideal outcome would be that he would get help and we could go on with our lives together. I was willing to work at it for the rest of my life. Divorce was out of the question. I was starting to feel a little stronger in terms of "if John was going down, he wasn't taking me with him." I was starting to do the right things in accordance with how I should treat myself and the alcoholic I lived with. At the same time I started to try to respond more to him sexually because according to the "experts" in the books, if I was more co-operative with his desires, he'd eventually become more loving toward me. And in my mind if he became more loving toward me, he'd also become more enthused about getting help for his drinking. Wrong. He did take advantage of my cooperativeness but a drunk isn't going to get help for himself as long as he denies that he even has a problem. The reality is when an addiction is involved, love doesn't have a whole lot of control over the actions of the addict. There are a few it will make a difference in. There are many more that it won't change a thing. There are people who have died from their additions regardless of how much someone has loved them or how much they have loved others. As I gained more knowledge through sessions, books, anything or anyone who could give me more of an understanding of where John was coming from, I very slowly started to gain a little more inner strength and be a little more prepared for what I didn't realize was waiting for me ahead. I stopped getting on John's case to quit drinking. There were still nights when he didn't come home until very late, or not at all, or if he did come home, he was obviously drunk. The difference was that I stopped trying to carry on any kind of conversation with him as long as he was drunk, and I no longer let it show that I was upset when he did come home that way. This really seemed to bother him. If he couldn't get a reaction out of me, then he wasn't as sure of his having control over me. If he didn't have control over me, then life may not be quite as easy for him as it had been in the past. Just because I started doing things outwardly didn't mean things were always easier inside. I remember the first time I made progress within myself. One thing the sessions stressed was not to worry about the situation but turn it over to God which, for me, was a whole lot easier said than done. But one night John came home late and drunk, I was asleep. He awoke me, complaining about something. I let him know I'd discuss it with him when he sobered up. He got mad, said in that case he'd just leave, and he actually did get back in the pickup and drive off. I stayed in bed, didn't try to stop him but said a prayer for him as well as asked God to take my worries from me. To my delight and amazement I slipped right back into a peaceful sleep. That was a tremendous victory for myself. It was within an hour also that John came back, quietly walked into the house and fell asleep on the couch. Of course, there were occasions following that night when once again worry outweighed sleep while he was gone but that one little step that night showed me that I would be able to gradually become stronger.
The next step for John was when he started claiming he wasn't drinking anymore. I believed that as far as I could throw him though. On one occasion he had come home from being at work for the week. He wanted to go to a 4th of July party with his friends that weekend and he wanted me to go along. I asked if there was going to be drinking and he said yes. I asked if he was going to be drinking and he said yes. I said I didn't want any part of it if alcohol was involved. I also told him that I had planned on participating in the work/play day at the church and asked him to come to that instead but he would have no part of it. He replied that he was going to the party because he hadn't had a drink in two weeks and he deserved to get drunk. This was a lie because I had the grocery ticket to his purchases for his time away and beer was one of the items. I also had affirmation from another person who had seen him and a friend very drunk at the work place. He then got mad and took off on his motorcycle. I then called the pastor and between sobs told him the story and what I had said to John. He told me he didn't think I'd made the wrong decision but it would make matters worse if I backed down from the stand I had made. This turned out to be excellent advice. John did come back for just a moment. I told him I wouldn't go to the party but maybe we could do something by ourselves like go fishing or go for a walk or drive then watch the fireworks. No, he was going to that party and I was invited too. Some friends of his would be along shortly to pick us up. I kept my composure but took off on a walk all the while hoping he'd end up saying no to his friends. But I saw the rig go in, and shortly after, go out with him in it. I had lost that bout from a drunk's point of view and it was very difficult and painful to stand my ground. But even though I was suffering tremendously at the moment from the outcome, it was a stepping stone in gaining a little more self-discipline and self-respect. John now knew that I meant business when I said something. No more manipulating me into backing down and changing to satisfy his wants. I did go to the church event, wasn't able to enjoy myself but at least was able to keep my mind a little less concentrated on the events of that morning. John came home in a couple of days. Nothing more was discussed about the weekend. By then I had gotten enough composure together that he wasn't going to see he'd knocked me back a notch temporarily. Had I shown that, I would have been thrown right back to square one in his eyes and in my own self-esteem. After a total of about six to seven months, I discontinued the counseling sessions. I saw that some people allowed those sessions to become a crutch for them and become more and more dependent on those sessions guiding their lives. My goal was to become independent from any kind of crutch. I also figured if I had to go to sessions for the rest of my life than they hadn't done anything to really help me. Baby robins eventually have to leave their nest if they want to survive.
I Love You
There was a time when "I Love You" was in the daily vocabulary between John and me and it was said with that look of love in our eyes. There were often times I would do something for John and he would express his appreciation with an "I love you too!" But, at least for me, the meaning of those words started dying away as time passed. Particularly after not making love, in my mind, but having sex, "I love you" wouldn't cross John's lips until after he got what he wanted, whether I had wanted anything to do with it or not. It was after the act was over and he became satisfied enough to say "I love you." There were also many times he would say those three words when there wasn't a hidden reason behind it. But, I was getting to the point that I wasn't responding with any words. Instead, when he'd say it, my thoughts were, "No you don't". I did feel guilty about that when John and I got into a particular argument. (If memory serves me correctly, I believe it was the same argument in which he called me a bitch.) One of his statements was, "You never say I love you, never give me a gift..." Again he had managed to come out looking like the victim and I was the culprit. He was right. I hadn't been saying back to him that I loved him. I hadn't been buying gifts for Christmas or birthdays. The fact that I said we couldn't afford to buy gifts for each other somehow ended up not being an issue. I was bad and wrong because I wasn't buying John gifts. (The key word is buying.) I was bad and wrong because I stopped replying back to him "I love you." I had never told him "No you don't" out loud but that didn't matter. I made him feel unloved anyway. It didn't matter that he made me feel unloved, I just felt bad because of the way he was expressing how I made him feel. After I started looking for help from others, one person suggested I probably couldn't go wrong by letting John know that I still love him. That hit me pretty hard. Maybe that was part of the problem. Maybe if I started telling him again even when I didn't feel very loving toward him...maybe that would start changing things back to the way it was when we were starting out. So I started telling him daily again. This time the tables turned and he was the one who wasn't replying many times. The interesting thing is that after he left, we were both telling each other we loved the other. This continued with John even after the divorce. I had stopped saying it before then. The words had no meaning anymore concerning the person I came to know. I was still in love with the person I thought I had married but to say it now would be abuse and misuse of the statement. And to hear it from him had no meaning either. I didn't care if I was never loved again. Love hurt. Love was a lie. I wanted respect. If I couldn't have respect then I wanted nothing to do with any kind of relationship - be it business or acquaintance.
A Miserable Birthday
My last birthday I had when John was still around was a painful experience. I always remembered my first birthday with him. Sometime before I had awakened he had sneaked over to my house and left a big bouquet of lilacs on the porch. A bouquet of lilacs became a special tradition over the following couple of years. After those first years though I never expected anything for my birthday or for that matter I stopped expecting anything special on any holidays either. They had all become "Just another day." But I was in a reminiscent mood that year and told John I would like a bouquet of lilacs for my birthday. Fairly early on that birthday morning John left on his motorcycle to see one of his friends. But before he left we made a date to go fishing later in the day. Later in the day never came. John came back in the afternoon with his friend riding behind, holding a bottle of beer. I was witnessing all of this a distance from the house while working on a fence. Within moments they left but came back again, this time with what appeared to be lilacs. I was near the house but John never called for me or even looked around for me that I could tell and having a stubborn streak myself and seeing what looked like two drunk people on a motorcycle, I wasn't going to call to him first. Again, they were at the house for just a moment and then left. Some time later I finished that particular fence work and came back to the house for the evening. There on the table lay lilacs. They weren't in a vase, they weren't placed neatly on the table, they had just sort of been tossed down and ignored for me to come along and arrange them. I felt very unloved, like it was some afterthought that John thought he should do. It sure didn't look like something he wanted to do. John came back that evening in what appeared to be a semi-drunken state. He wanted to take me out to dinner then a dance at the local bar. I didn't want to. I could go for dinner even though I was the one who ended up paying for it. But I had no desire to drag myself to a dance knowing how John was going to be acting. I was emotionally tired, my barriers were down and I was tired of fighting it. I finally agreed to go. He claimed he wanted to show me off and give me a good time. I knew it was all a lie. I knew all he wanted was to get more drunk and he was using my birthday as an excuse. We went to the dance. I quickly found a table in the back corner, drank my pop and danced only when I felt I had to. (Note: I hadn't always been against drinking. When John and I were together, and for awhile after our marriage, when we would go out to dinner we'd often both have a glass of wine. I had nothing against drinking although I was severely frightened by any drunk until I was seventeen. What cured me of ever wanting to drink alcohol again was when John rolled his pickup the night I found him staggering drunk at the bar.) John was having a good time regardless of whether I was or not. It was also apparent that the rules that applied to him weren't the same ones that applied to me. At one time when I was at the table and he was at the bar, he was laughing with a woman we both know - one I didn't like very well. Suddenly they gave each other a big hug. The thought rushed through my head, "If I had done that with another male, John would have had sixteen fits and then some!" I also ended up being put on display for a moment as we were walking off the dance floor. The band sang "Happy Birthday" to me. The room was crowded and I didn't know very many there but I embarrassingly glanced around and seemed to be getting some looks that were saying, "So that's the name of the girl who acts like she's little Miss Prissy." I couldn't get John to leave before closing. That's when several people were invited to another person's house for a "late night movie". In my mind it was probably more accurate to say late night drinking and drugs. I wanted no part of it but John talked me into dropping him off there. He said he'd see me a little later and we renewed our fishing date for that next day. Later never came the rest of the night. I kept expecting him to come along at anytime the next day because I thought we had both been enthused about fishing. If he needed a ride, I thought he'd call. Actually it wasn't that far to walk from that person's house to ours. Maybe he was going to do that. As morning dragged on I decided to work on the fence on my property. (This was also something John was supposed to be helping me with but after the first day found excuses not to.) I kept watching the road because I'd be able to see him if he went by. Nothing. Later that afternoon my dad stopped by. I was pounding posts. He asked no questions, just helped me finish pounding the last few in. When he came by I was fighting hard to keep the tears back. I was embarrassed that I was found doing this by myself when my husband should have been by my side helping me. I kept my outside emotions in tact while Dad was there, thanked him for his help and told him I could get the wire myself.
It wasn't until late evening when John showed up in a car loaded with people and music blasting out the windows. I came out of the bedroom after he got into the house, looked at him and said, "Nice fishing trip, huh." He replied very sarcastically, "Sure was, wasn't it." Then he proceeded to play the part of the innocent again. He had been invited to do something with someone at the party but told them no, he was going fishing with his wife. He waited all day for me to come pick him up, sitting there watching movies. Why did I just leave him there? I didn't make excuses for myself. I told him I understood he had a ride home and if he didn't, then why didn't he call? Nothing was ever resolved. In some cases I was getting a little better at standing my ground but John was so much better at it and so experienced at manipulation and deception that he wasn't backing down either. The outcome was I never wanted to be bothered with anyone acknowledging my birthday again. Just like Valentine's Day, Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, New Year's and all other days the government takes off. Why all the hoopla? They are all just another day. (Christmas and Easter were exceptions because they involved my Savior.)
I'd Had Enough/He Walked Out
One Saturday I was busy working on the house we were going to be moving in to. Initially I wanted to stay where we were but John wanted to move because of additional room in this other house. It needed a tremendous amount of work done to it before we could even consider moving in but I finally agreed to it. Up to this point John had helped with it only two afternoons. I was working on it every day. He had some pressing reason he had to go talk with a friend that Saturday morning but came back a little later, just to sit down in front of the TV. A few minutes following, his friend showed up at the house I was working on, looking for John who had told this friend that he was going home to work on his house. That irritated me to no end. It wasn't his house and he never set foot in it that day. I directed the friend to the house we were still living in. A few minutes later I saw him and John leave, never stopping to tell me he was leaving or where he was going. I got another one of those gut feelings after a few minutes that told me to go looking for them. I gathered myself together and headed straight for the nearest bar which is where I found the pickup parked. I casually walked into the bar, saw John standing there, walked up to him and told him from now on I wasn't fixing him any meals unless he was home and he was going to have to be home before 6:00 p.m. Of course, he again was the innocent victim. They had gone cutting posts and poles. His friend got tired and thirsty and wanted a beer. It wasn't John's idea, he was just along for the ride. His friend bought the beer, not John. But I wasn't backing down this time. The bottom line was he took off without telling me, he was at the bar with a drink in his hand. Then I told him that I was also no longer going to give him any money. That's the camel that broke his straw back. He got an irritated look in his eye, to put it mildly, and I turned and walked out. John returned that evening saying that he had to go somewhere for some reason I don't remember. I asked if he'd like me to come along. No. The night before was to be the last night he stayed in the house we had spent five years together in. He gave me no warning but had no intention of coming back. There was no discussion, no goodbye. In less than a week John stopped by to pick up some things and he made it a special point to tell me that he called his mom telling her he was calling from a girlfriend's house. So if his mom called me wondering what was going on I could tell her that it wasn't his girlfriend but a friend who was a girl. Needless to say, my suspicions skyrocketed. I asked if he was sleeping with another woman. His reply was "No". He wasn't claiming to have walked out either. He found a job and was staying in town. He wouldn't say which town or with whom. He didn't have time to talk. He'd come back later. I spent the next couple days driving around trying to find his rig parked somewhere. I never did. Another few days went by when John showed up again but not to stay. I had some questions written down that I insisted on getting answers to so he finally begrudgingly agreed to answer them. I don't remember all the questions but one pertained to church attendance. He wasn't going anymore because the pastor was acting more like he was on stage, giving a performance, instead of just preaching. Another question was why he was staying away. "Well, you made that pretty clear!" John said. It wasn't so much that I wouldn't fix him any more meals if he was late but that I wouldn't give him any more money. Since I said that, I was actually telling him I didn't want him around. (Figuring a drunk's reasoning has got to be one of the great mysteries of the universe.) What he was actually saying is "You've cut off my free ticket. Why should I stay around?"
I asked him again about exactly where he was staying and with who. He named off about three different people this time. I wasn't familiar with any of the names but I couldn't get the woman's (Ann) out of my mind. I don't remember the question behind the answer but John also said that I wasn't satisfying him sexually. By this time I hated anything to do with sex but John was a fanatic. Even though I hated it, he had convinced me ages ago that I was the one with the problem, that I wasn't normal. Therefore I did feel responsible for this problem in our marriage. However, I felt that we had both done a lot of compromising in this category. According to John, he was the one who had done all the compromising. I asked him if he was sleeping with Ann. His reply was "Not yet". At least John had answered my questions and we'd talked quietly with each other. At that point I wasn't yet able to (or just didn't want to) see that he was just "playing games" with me. (This was one of his favorite sayings.) He wouldn't put up with anyone playing games with him when actually all along he had been the one playing the games. I hugged and kissed him before he left and told him I loved him. He wasn't very responsive. Within a few more days John stopped by again. This time it was just to see me. But this time he had a different look. One that I wasn't familiar with. He kept looking at me not with love but more like intense regret. He acted like he wanted to say something but couldn't get it out. He acted and looked very apologetic but wasn't saying the words. He couldn't seem to hug me and hold me enough. I finally asked him, "Did you sleep with her?" "Yes." "Did you enjoy it?" "I was satisfied but it was you who was all over me." I gave no outward reactions and although it hurt me inside, I don't think it sunk in right then what he had said. What I heard above all else was "you were all over me." I later told my girlfriend what he had said and like a couple of brain dead romantics, we were actually going on about what a sweet thing to say...he still loves me. I was grasping at straws and she was oblivious to the type of mind that could tell a person what they wanted to hear, whether it was the truth or not, as easily as they could breathe. We were both giving him the benefit of the doubt...everyone is entitled to one mistake. The trouble was, that wasn't one mistake. It was an intentional thought over violation of his adherence to the marriage vows.
The Devastation
Although I remained calm on the outside each time I saw John those first few times after he walked out, my emotions were doing harsh things to me on the inside. I wasn't able to sleep for more that a few minutes at a time throughout the nights. I would turn on the radio softly at night with the hopes that it would help lull me to sleep as well as be something there talking to me when I would wake up. I lost my appetite. That first week I ate very little, not paying attention yet to what it was doing to me. But after that first week I found I had lost five pounds. That shocked me into trying to make a little more of a conscious effort on how much I was eating and so my weight leveled off for the time being. There was nothing I could do that John wasn't on my mind. It seemed like there wasn't even one solitary minute that my mind was able to focus totally on something else. Regardless of what I was doing, thoughts of John were always in the background. I became obsessed with finding out who Ann was, where she lived and just how much of a part she was playing in John's life. None of the feedback was good. She had a reputation of sleeping with everything., dealing drugs, was mentally unstable, an annoyance to her neighbors with her loud parties and unattractive in both personality and looks. To hear all these things did nothing for my own self-esteem. Couldn't she have been more like Miss America? I could understand a little better if John left me for someone with brains, looks and charisma but someone like this? What kind of a terrible person did that make me? You're supposed to leave something for something better but John left me for this. I didn't understand. I was devastated. I was sewage. I was continuing with the counseling sessions. Through the church I was able to work on keeping my strength up through God. The two verses I focused on were "I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." and "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." I didn't understand what was going on. It wasn't supposed to happen this way. When I put my foot down John was supposed to back off and eventually start getting a grip on his life. He wasn't supposed to walk out on me. What I had done, worked for countless others. Why did it backfire on me??? And then for him to run to the arms of a woman like Ann. I must be total scum...but I tried to allow these verses to be my guide rather than my constricted thoughts. That wasn't easy. In fact, it was nothing short of a lot of work! I could get it through my head, but it wasn't easily going to my heart.
Through the secular sessions I was able to relate with people who had been through the same thing and understood first hand what I was going through. The alcoholics were able to give me an idea of what was going on in Johns mind and the victims were able to say "I've been there...this is what helped me get through it." I had my very supportive friends through the church and was grateful for that but none of them understood what I was going through. That's the part I needed from the other group. Divorce hadn't entered my mind yet. John was no longer wearing his wedding ring and that bothered me but didn't deter me from wanting to try to persuade him that we should get back together. The next big blow came about three weeks after John walked out. He stopped by for a few minutes - I'm not sure why. It wasn't to pick up anything specific. I allowed myself to become encouraged that he was thinking about coming back but he couldn't stick around. His job was taking him to Seattle the next day. He was going to get someone to take him over there. I volunteered to do it but he said no. Then I suggested we do something together that evening because it was his birthday. He was hesitant then said he was going to a party that night. I gave him his birthday present anyway which was a tent he had been wanting for years. I had drummed up enough money about a month earlier to get it. There was no "Thank you" from him. No nothing. But then John rarely did say thank you for gifts he received. After he left I wished I had never given it to him. He knew what it was because I didn't get it wrapped. Again I couldn't overcome my urge to go out and do some checking around. I hit the jackpot the first place I stopped. John and his girlfriend had dropped off her seventeen year old son there, evidently before John showed up at my house and asked them to baby-sit - a seventeen year old?! - while they went to Seattle that weekend. John's statement from earlier implying that I was still the only one he really cared about didn't sound so sweet anymore. It still hadn't occurred to me that they could be living together but I did finally wake up to the fact that he was just pushing my buttons again. At least he admitted to sleeping with her which I preferred over lying about it but that didn't make him any less of a jerk. About this time is when I also started having dreams about John and his girlfriend. The dreams always had to do with me being helpless and angry and them laughing at me. I would wake up sick to my stomach. I would force myself to eat a half of a piece of dry toast. (The idea of anything on that toast made me feel even more nauseous.) It was like my saliva glands had stopped working. It seemed like I'd have to take about three swallows of water for every bite of food I took. Brushing my teeth was also an ordeal. It was very hard to put a toothbrush in my mouth without coughing and gagging every morning. As the day progressed it was a little easier to do these things but still a struggle. Within the next week I had dropped another five pounds. It was never my intention to lose weight so this had me concerned along with being apprehensive about sleeping if all I had to look forward to was the dreams. I started pushing myself to the limit every day at work and then worked on fixing up the other house in the evenings. On the one hand I couldn't sleep but when I was able to, the dreams would haunt me. I tried daily to stay busy enough to not think about what was going on with John and also hoping that I'd be tired enough each night that I could get some sleep, and sleep deeply enough that the dreams wouldn't come. None of those theories worked. Six weeks after John walked out I went to visit his mom and step dad for the weekend. I felt good that they hadn't put the blame on me. John's step dad had a long talk with me about his own alcoholism. It had placed him the state pen for seven years but he said in one way that was the best seven years of his life because he was forced to dry out and once that happened he was able to admit his problem, get help and change his life around. Again, here was another alcoholic saying that the situation with John was hopeless until he decides he has a problem and truly wants to solve it...not for anyone else's sake but for his own. While I was there, John called his mom. She told him I was there so he also talked with me...for about an hour. John was always very convincing over the phone and I was in a state of taking the slightest little thing that may detect an ounce of hope, instead of weighing the entire conversation. Overall, I was naively encouraged about the things that had been said. I asked him if he loved Ann. He said he didn't know - but he loved me. Instead of having a red flag come up on the "I don't know", I was engrossed with his claim that he loved me. I told him I knew it was Ann who took him to Seattle. His reply to that was not one of guilt or shame but he was blaming the people who told me. They shouldn't have done that to me. It should have remained a secret. Of course, the bottom line was that he wasn't actually trying to protect my feelings the way he was claiming. He just wanted to pull off the little excursion without getting caught. I told him I still loved him. I couldn't understand how when these things happen to other people, they end up hating each other. (I told this to John and he agreed with me.) I had to wonder if they ever loved the person to begin with. I wasn't able to hate John. All I was able to think about was the love and hurt. All of my hatred and anger was instead focused on his girlfriend. As we continued to talk, John sounded like he wanted to get together and try to work things out. He said he'd be coming back that Sunday night so he'd see me then. All right! He was coming home! Everything can be forgiven and we can start over!
After I arrived back home that Sunday night, my gut feelings took over again. (I was beginning to wish that I had no guts to get feelings!) I had yet to ever see Ann or talk to her but I called her and asked if John was there. No, he called a couple of hours earlier and said he'd be there within the hour. Her voice raked across my eardrum like a thousand fingernails on a blackboard. She sounded so haughty when her as-a-matter-of-fact voice told me he was staying there. I hung up the phone and with difficulty breathing and very shaky hands, as quickly as I could I gathered up everything of his that I could fit into my car, along with the dog, took them to Ann's house, dumped John's belongings on the lawn and put the dog in John's pickup. It was well after midnight by now. There was a woman still up but not Ann. Evidently she didn't have the nerve to come out and see what was going on. After I was done I went to the door and told her I wanted to talk to John. She asked who I was, I said "His wife!" She got a look like she was about to witness World War III and promptly went to get him. John's excuse for not coming home that night was that he was just too tired to make it that far. "You mean you couldn't drive just a few more minutes? And how did you know about four hours ago that you were going to be awake enough to drive to the slut's house but not just a few more minutes to home?" Then his story changed from when he talked to me on the phone. He never said he was going to come back to me. He only said he might see me when he got back. I told him not to bother. If he doesn't give a rip about our relationship and has the hots so much for the slut then he could just pay the consequences and stay there and I wasn't going to take care of his dog for him either. If his girlfriend wanted to play with fire too, then she deserves him and the dog. I had a kind of contradictory speech going on because I also said (loud enough hoping Ann would hear) to John that she had no business sticking her genitalia into our marriage. I also again told him that I still loved him. After getting back home, surprisingly I slept fairly well but for only about four hours, then came THE DREAM. Ann had come up to me from out of nowhere to let me know that she was high and mighty and I had lost everything. I grabbed her so she couldn't get away and started pulling her hair and slugging her in the face. It seemed the angrier I got, the more she laughed. I was yelling and hitting and pulling hair and she was laughing at me. Then I awoke. I can't accurately put into words the way I felt that morning. I felt as though someone had taken a part of my body and ripped it off of me. I had never felt so lost and confused. I couldn't sit, I couldn't stand, I paced around in circles, looking outside, looking at nothing. I cried harder than I cried all the other times put together in my life. I would find myself gasping for air while sobbing and have to make myself stop long enough to catch a breath. Then that would make me laugh, seeing myself in such a predicament that I couldn't even breathe. But the laughter didn't last long. My mind was going a thousand miles an hour. What was I going to do? What was I not going to do? How could John do this to me? What had I done wrong? What had I done right? Why couldn't I just die? After the tears subsided in the next hour, no problems had been solved but it felt so good to be able to let loose like that. So many things had built up inside me and I was finally able to release them. The weight wasn't quite so heavy on my shoulders now. This was the beginning of my third bout with weight loss. I was feeling the same things only intensified with additional feelings: I begged God every night before going to bed that He take me Home. Suicide was out of the question because if I failed, the embarrassment would be unbearable. But if God would only take my life then that would end the torture and it would be no big loss. I was of no value to anyone anyway. I was getting worried about my weight. I was trying to force myself to eat but it wasn't working well. I considered going to a doctor but kept backing off on that, thinking that I'd just be given drugs and worried that in my state I'd end up abusing them and become addicted. I now weighed 16 pounds less than I had two and a half months ago. In my own eyes my body didn't look so terrible but my eyes had become hollow, my face gaunt and looked at least ten years older than my actual age. I felt what it must be like to be at least forty years older than my actual age. But at the same time I didn't think anyone else was noticing. I found out at a later time that everyone noticed and could see I looked worse than what the mirror was revealing to me.
Suicidal
There were several times during our estrangement, up until just a few months before the divorce that John would either call me up or come by, seeming suicidal. More than anything, I think I got off on playing "shrink" in these instances. I also enjoyed using these times to preach to him about how Jesus could change his life around. But he had no use for that. He seemed to be blaming God for many of his problems.
I had always been told that one should always take these kinds of encounters seriously. A few of them, I figured he was just trying to get me to feel sorry for him. A couple seemed more serious. One, I felt was very serious. John called me about 4:00 a.m. asking if he could come by. He needed to talk to me real bad. I allowed him to come. He was drunk and started in about how worthless his life was and I started in about how he could have so much to live for he'd just get right with God. Then he pulled out his pistol that had been hidden from my sight. My first thought was not "Oh no, he's going to kill us." Instead it was "Oh no, He's going to get blood all over the new carpet and how will it ever get cleaned out of the couch!" I sat totally still when he pulled it out, wondering if he planned on using it on me or himself or both of us. Then he went on to say, "There are five bullets in this chamber." Then as he spun it he continued, "When this stops I can put it to my head (and he pointed it toward his head at that moment), I can pull the trigger and either I'm dead or nothing happens. That's how God is with life and death. It doesn't mean anything." I don't remember if I had a reply to that or not. He then laid his head on the arm of the couch and within a matter of seconds started snoring. That's when I took the pistol out of his hand and put it out of sight. I had no answers as to what to do at that point other than just call the pastor and ask for prayer. After John had slept off the drunkenness, the suicidal actions disappeared, I gave him back his pistol and he left.
Protecting Myself
I had to start acting out everything I was learning at my counseling sessions. I had to work on my attitude. The first thing I did within the next few days after dumping off John's stuff was to take care of any kind of accounts that had both our names on them. I took his name off and changed everything to my maiden name. The thought of being identified with John's last name disgusted and belittled me, especially if his girlfriend was also using it. I wanted no part of ever again being mistakenly identified as her. I went to stores where we had credit and told them not to allow him to buy anything on credit again because my name no longer had anything to do with his. They all thanked me for letting them know. Going through all these actions from business to business wasn't easy. I felt a little like I was throwing a part of my life away. But at the same time, with each action I made, I also felt a little bit of burden lift and a little more freedom come upon me. Then after I accomplished all the transactions I gave myself a treat. By not financially supporting John over the last several weeks I found that I was gaining some extra cash. Knowing I had to try to do something about my eating problem I went to the store and bought a basket full of what I call single-people-food. Those expensive little goodies that many families can't afford. Meals that are fairly instant instead of slaving over a stove. Seafood, thick steaks and fancy entree's. I would have bought myself a bouquet of flowers to top things off but they didn't have any. (The one non food item I felt was very necessary to buy was a different lock for the door.) The food idea worked. The eating problem wasn't instantly resolved but these treats helped me through it and within a few weeks I had put five pounds back on.
Gossip Abounds
Within a week after dropping off John's belongings, a fellow church goer, making innocent conversation, said he heard I was working at a particular place now. I only said no, I was working at the same place. It doesn't take long for stories to spread and get totally out of focus. In reality, Ann was working at that place and now using John's last name as her own so I suppose it would have been easy to confuse the doings of the fake Mrs. John with the real Mrs. John. Also within that week a friend who I hadn't seen in a few years stopped by for a visit after hearing that I was divorced. These things were getting hard to handle. Less than a week since I got John's belongings out of the house and I'm supposed to be divorced and he is supposed to be married to Ann. My friend knew Ann because he had worked around her but even he couldn't tell me what I was itching to know. What does she look like? I wanted desperately to know in case I ever ran into her. (I'm not sure if it would be to give her a piece of my mind or to be able to avoid her.) But like the others, he couldn't remember any details. Like the others he could only say "She's not pretty." My emotions were so mixed up. My friend had met John earlier without realizing that he was my husband. It was at a company barbecue where they met and he had an immediate dislike for John. That statement didn't have any affect on me. Then he went on to explain that he threw Ann into the water after she wouldn't stop spraying him with water. The part that was painful to hear came next when he said that John must have decided he needed to be protective. I'm the one he was supposed to be protective of, not some other woman who had no business being in his life. I suddenly felt very jealous. Then my friend went on to say that after that incident John was strutting around acting contemptuous so to put him in his place, my friend and another man threw him into the water also. That made me feel good. In fact I thanked my friend and told him if he ever got the chance he was certainly welcome to do the same thing again as far as I was concerned.
The biggest blow came when I asked if he knew how long John and Ann had been running around together. After some calculating he said about three months. That was confirmation enough for my suspicions. As much as I had hoped I was wrong all this time, I now had to face up to the fact that John walked out on our marriage even before he actually moved out. As painful as this was though, now I could face up to the realization that he had already divorced me mentally and physically which put me in a position where I was going to have to move forward with my life or give up on life all together. I chose to try to move forward. On one hand I knew there were many people who had gone through worse than I had. That didn't make my problem any less serious. There were also people who were going through less than I had and handled it worse. I was somewhere in the middle, able to handle what some couldn't but not able to handle what others could. Perhaps God knew that this was the most I could handle at this time so this was the most He was going to allow to happen at this time. And it became obvious that he wasn't going to allow me to die just yet so I was going to have to stop feeling quite so sorry for myself and fight to get back on my feet. If others could do it then so could I.
Aftershock
Particularly over the next couple of months after John walked out, I became ultra sensitive to what those around me said. In one incident I was with some people who somehow got on the subject of another woman who was going through some problems in her relationship. One of them made the comment, "She's a real trooper." I said nothing but felt totally devastated by those four words. In my messed up state I felt they were praising her because she was still sticking it out with her spouse. But in my mind, there I was getting no praise because I wasn't able to hang on to my husband. My ideas of being a failure as a wife suddenly became amplified. I would never be considered a real trooper. In my crazy state I figured I was considered the gal who gave up. I wanted to say, "But it wasn't my fault that he left!" On the other hand I kept kicking myself thinking, why can't I be like this "real trooper"? I was also strongly affected by couples who argued or when one gave the other a bad time even if it was in fun. I wanted to shout at them all, "You jerk! Can't you see all that he/she does for you? Can't you appreciate him/her? You have no right to talk down to your spouse like that especially in front of other people!" What couples were looking at as a little bit of fun loving picking, I was looking at as abuse. I would cling to every word of a sermon until the pastor would say something that I would focus on. If it could pertain to something that John was doing than I would sit there contemplating on how I could get the word to him. Sometimes though I'd hear something and apply it to myself. Instead of applying the entire sermon, I'd take one little phrase, coming to the conclusion that I was a bad person, that I was messing up, that all of my problems were because I wasn't right with God. I also started thinking it would be so much easier if John would just die. I couldn't die so my problems would be a whole lot less if he was non-existent. I wasn't ready to consider divorce yet and even if I did, it would still be easier for me to be called a widow instead of a divorcee. Shame and embarrassment was connected to divorce for me. Only pity was connected to widowhood for me. That seemed the lesser of the two to deal with. After all, death is inevitable. So what harm would it do if John died before old age set in? I felt his death would be easier to get over than his walking out. I wanted no part in actually having him killed, I just thought it would solve some problems if he was dead. I became obsessed with all the information I could get on alcoholism/addiction. At about the time I got John's personal belongings out of the house, I discovered a weekly program on TV dealing with alcoholism/addiction and all aspects of it. It gave statistics, research data, all the symptoms and treatments concerning the abuser as well as solutions for the co-dependent. This program lasted for eight months. Between this and other books, I was becoming a walking dictionary on the subject. The problem was, I was letting all the facts take over my life. For awhile, getting my own life and attitude on track was taking the back burner to all the data I was storing. There was nothing wrong with learning all of this. I'm glad I did although I've forgotten some of it. But it couldn't have been healthful becoming so obsessed by it. I eventually eased up and got back to working more on myself than finding everything about why, when, where and how the alcoholic does and becomes what he/she is.
Friends
The times when I felt worst usually came at night, especially right after John left. There were people who told me I could call them any time I wanted but I just didn't have the nerve to between midnight and morning so I would suffer through the night.
One neighbor friend was especially receptive to my feelings. At one time I didn't want to stay in the house at night. I went over to visit her, with the intention of asking if I could stay there for the night. As we talked, I hadn't yet mentioned that idea. But she could see my pain and told me I was very welcome to stay. I finally turned the invitation down though, feeling guilty that John's dog was at the house alone. During decent hours I took full advantage of my closest friend. She would welcome me into her home every time, she'd listen to me and ask questions to get a better understanding of the situation and what I was feeling. She never made me feel like she was being just nosey. The best thing about visiting her was I knew every time I went there, she'd be able to say something that would make me laugh. That was always a great boost for me. No problems were ever totally solved but I always left, feeling a little more at ease. The other thing, she didn't condemn John. Her focus was on me. When I needed to be put straight about something John was doing, she told me because she was looking through reality whereas I was still blind with love. But she never raved on about what a miserable low life he was...the way so many others would have. I appreciated her honesty and her ability to keep that honesty in tact. Even though he was hurting me severely, to be talking constantly bad about him would be talking bad about me also, because I had not yet separated him from me. I'm very grateful to have a friend like her through times like that.
Lashing Out
After about a month from when I knew John was officially with his girlfriend, I couldn't remain silent any longer. All of my anger was focused on her. There were some things I couldn't get off my mind so I wrote her a letter. In it I told of my hatred for her but more than that, of my pity for her because she was thinking she was something special to John. They were both using each other. I wrote how terrible a parent she was by sleeping with a married man and having three children living there. I wrote that if she chooses to continue to live the life of a whore the way her nickname implied, then she deserves the person she's living with now because it won't last and she'll end up paying for all her immoral acts. I wrote that if I die of AIDS because of her and John at least I'll have the satisfaction of them suffering from the same thing. The letter ended up being two typed single spaced pages. I mailed it with no regrets or inhibitions. Of course it didn't change anything in their relationship at that point but I did have an arrogant air of "I told you so" about me when I found out they did eventually break up.
Me? A Mother?
During the last few months we were still living together, John started looking into adopting. I guess he conveniently forgot what he'd said before we'd gotten married...about wanting no more children. I wasn't real concerned about him trying to pursue this idea. If someone came to talk to us about adoption, I had every intention of saying I'd have nothing to do with it. He came up with the idea that he wanted a son to teach to fish and hunt. I wasn't impressed with his reasons and ignored the entire thing. As adamant as I had been my entire life about not wanting children, the first several weeks when John started playing daddy to his girlfriend's youngest boy, I was very hurt and upset. I was almost angry that I couldn't have children. I felt I was being punished by his going to someone who had a little boy that he could help raise - even if he was a terrible example for a parent. I came to my senses again before too long but reflected on the fact that if I could have, I might very well have ended up pregnant for no other purpose than to try to give John a son, just to get him back, which would have been one of the most insane acts of all human history. It would have been impossible for such an act to make anything better but no doubt it would have complicated everything and made all matters in every aspect by far worse.
Looking For Someone Else to Blame
During the first autumn of our separation, John and his girlfriend, along with another man stopped by a neighbor's house, and in turn, their conversation got back to me. They were all drinking heavily with loaded guns in the pickup. Ann commented that if she had known hunting could be this fun, she'd have done it earlier. I had walked around hunting with John before and it was never anything like that. Until then, I'd always thought that was the one time when he wouldn't have alcohol around. He had always been very serious about the entire ritual when I was with him. All I could picture was this floozy sitting close to my husband, probably with her hand on his knee and who knows where else and they were having a gay old time in each other's company. Again, I felt very hurt by John. How could he go hunting with some other woman? My anger was stemmed toward her. How dare she influence him into drinking while carrying a gun. Obviously during those first months of intensely high emotions, I had intensely high illogic to go along with them.
Music to Survive By
When I wasn't at my job, I was working on the house. Most of the time I had the radio on a Christian station. When the more operatic songs played, I'd only last through a couple of them and then look for a different station. The country station was okay as long as they stayed away from the cheating songs. When that happened I'd give rock and roll a try but that never seemed to work. I always managed to catch it when they were singing something about sex. True love didn't seem to be in their vocabulary. So back to the Christian station. Generally by this time the high falootin music had passed anyway. There were a couple of songs that helped me through the rough times. Although the singer was probably referring to a girl, I saw one song as a haven from all the bad things going on in my life. For me, it was putting to music the feelings I had toward Jesus. That without Him I couldn't be getting through this with any positive results. Without Him I had no place to run. With Him I could take refuge from the world and feel at rest.
In the shelter of your eyes I have finally learned my song It took so long to realize I just can't make it all alone
Words are only what they say But this feeling isn't wrong I'm so glad I found my way It's good to be where I belong
And I'm gonna stay right here cause I'm In rhythm with your mind Tune out the world and rest my head Neath the shelter of your eyes
The other song I focused on was created from Bible passages. Although some times I didn't always feel very comforted, I knew God was always there to help me. Even when I was feeling that I was getting everything I deserved because I wasn't being good enough for God or paying enough attention to what he was trying to tell me, I always knew without question that He loved me.
Great is Your love toward me And You have delivered my soul For You, O Lord have helped me and comforted me And great is Your love toward me
I will praise You O Lord, my God With all my heart I will glorify Your name For great is Your love toward me.
A Change of Scenery?
I thought I was starting to get myself together a little better by the time John and I had our first discussion about getting back together. He claimed he was no longer living with his girlfriend but it was best I meet him in front of her house "because I'd never be able to find where he was living now." So I obliged, then he came out of the house and we went to a restaurant to talk. It was easy talking to him. I kept it light, even cracking a few jokes. He had the same look of love on his face and in his eyes as when we were having better times together. Then John asked if I would go to the Midwest with him where he had a job prospect waiting. He claimed that there he could support me and we could start over. It was painful on one hand but at the same time I had no problem telling him no. He was going to have to prove to me that he had changed before I left a secure job and took my chances with him drinking and running with other women. He said nothing like that would be the case because we would be away from all the pressures that surrounded us here when we broke up. I wasn't falling for that though. A change in location with John was a nice thing to fantasize about where we'd live happily ever after but I knew in my heart that the only change would be the scenery. Of course, then he implied that it was my fault because I didn't want to try to make the relationship work. I also asked John that if I didn't go would he be taking his girlfriend. "I don't know" was his reply. Just earlier at that table he said he loved me but yet it wasn't out of the question to set up house with another woman in another state. He also asked if I'd at least go with him to meet this prospective employer who was supposed to be in the area shortly. I agreed to that. I heard no more about it after that night.
Hoping for Someone Else
As much as I hated John living with another woman at first, I was also contradicting myself. My anger was focused on one person - the wrong person. After all, I had no ideas what he had told her. She may have been more of an innocent victim than I was ever willing to believe. John was the one I needed to get angry at and then get on with my life. But over the first nine months of our separation, when we talked, I would almost always ask him if he was seeing another women besides the one he was living with. Sometimes he'd say yes and I'd feel no jealousy at all. Instead, I'd tell him that I was glad to hear that because he could do so much better than what he was with now. It also pleased me to know that the woman he had left me for, was paying with the same thing he'd done to me. It tickled me even more when I had written in a letter to her that it would happen to her. In my state of mind, I didn't care so much about what's right or wrong or who's getting hurt as much as wanting justice for myself and it's not real important at who else's expense. Also in the back of my mind I was thinking to myself - If he could just find someone worthwhile, then he'd fall in love and he'd go through the expense of a divorce and I wouldn't have to. I'd get to be the innocent victim of circumstance, not the one enforcing that seven letter word that I hated so much. Biblically I believed that he had already divorced me both physically and mentally the first time he was with another woman and I often told him that, especially when he still wanted to call me his wife. But technically, there was still that piece of paper that said we were and would continue to be married to each other until something legal was done about it. I had no husband, yet I did.
Betrayed
It had been about three months since I had taken all of John's belongings out of the house and put them in his girlfriend's yard...about three months since I made the decision that he wasn't living with me until he got his act together...about three months since I told his girlfriend that if she insists on having an affair with a married man then she deserves him. I still hadn't said anything to my parents about what had happened between me and John. Now, three months after I made the decision to not allow John back, my mother said to me, "You're just going to get mad but John is living with another woman and if you don't believe me you can just go see for yourself!" The look on her face and her tone was abrasive and cruel. She could just as well have been saying, "I told you so, you've failed, you're worthless." I felt as though I had been slapped across the face with a rawhide whip. I was very hurt that she could talk that harshly to her own daughter who was already hurting. I felt angry that she had relied on gossip to get a story instead of having enough compassion to say, "I see you're hurting. What can I do to help and what's the real story if you're able to tell it?" Instead she used her bit of information to prove to me the kind of dead beat I had gotten tangled up with. It was as though she had been searching for some dirt to throw on him...something that she finally had some proof on so I couldn't defend him. But her method was also throwing dirt on me. That put a halt to me saying anything about my personal life to my parents. I especially became very distant toward Mom. It also caused me to want badly to move to a different area, rent an apartment near a big town, get a waitress job if that was all I could find. The two main things wrong with that picture is that I hate living in towns whether small or large and I hate waitressing. I did make myself wait for a few weeks before attempting to pursue such a move, realizing that logical decisions are rarely made when the emotions are in an uproar. By then I decided that running away wasn't the answer. I also looked into trying to stay in the area but changing jobs. Nothing sounded as attractive though as my current job which had its downfalls but was more secure than anything else I could come up with.
My First Holidays Alone
Since breaking up, any time I had talked to John I always brought Jesus into the conversation and that he needed to start reading the Bible again. (John always talked about how miserable he was so I assumed that as an opportune time for me to carry on about what he could do to get his life straightened out.) I was unable to resist buying him a Bible for a Christmas present that first December we were separated. I wrapped it, took it to his girlfriend's home, set it in his pickup and left. It helped my mood a little but not enough for me to want to bother putting up a Christmas tree or do any decorating in the house. I also allowed myself to be disturbed over the fact that if John's girlfriend found the package first, he would never see it and if he did, chances were good that he'd never look at it anyway...but still I felt the need to try. My brother was visiting our parents over Christmas that first year John and I were apart. There were some things he wasn't able to confide in with our parents just as I didn't feel I could, but he confided in me and together we were able to talk about some of our problems and offer different ideas for each others' solutions. It was nice that although I'm sure he didn't think very highly of John and I wasn't real impressed with his spouse, that we kept those opinions to ourselves and focused on each other and communicated feelings and ideas to each other. It was nice to have someone in my family who was willing to listen and not criticize. It was nice to have someone in the family who trusted in my confidentiality enough to open up. Now it was Christmas Eve. I was in surprisingly fairly good spirits for a change. I decided to ask my brother if he wanted to go to the Christmas Eve service with me. He said he'd let me know a little later. I knew his answer was going to be "no" so that came as no surprise. But after he told me and I was again alone, the tears suddenly came. I went to the service by myself and the tears continued throughout it. It was frustrating not being able to figure out why the crying had started especially when I had been in fairly good spirits. Perhaps something inside me took the "no" answer as another form of rejection. Perhaps the knowledge that I was spending this holiday alone while the person I was still in love with was spending his with another woman and her children were looking to him as their current father figure. Perhaps I was just wallowing in self pity. I didn't really try to hide the fact that I was miserable when I walked into the church, and one of the ladies left her own family to sit beside me and comfort me throughout the service. It didn't stop the tears but it did help me not to feel so much like a discarded piece of garbage. After the service I was invited to another home for conversation and a bite to eat. I accepted although I wasn't much of an asset to the conversation. At least I could get myself together a little better before leaving to spend the night in an empty house.
I was doing better throughout the next week until New Year's Eve came and then it suddenly hit me that evening like a bolt of lightning. It was inevitable in my mind that John would be out celebrating. The foreboding thought that I couldn't escape was "Who would he kill tonight?" And I cried...not so much for him but for the victims who would fall prey to his and others' abuse of alcohol...for all the families who would see their loved ones alive for the last time that night because of all the drunk drivers who used the excuse of the end of a year to overindulge in alcohol. After all, in my mind it was just going to be another day, the only difference would be a change in numbers but then every day there was a change in numbers. So how could people justify getting out on the roads and murdering innocent victims simply because a new number came up in the year? I wanted to somehow reprimand every establishment that sold or made alcohol as well as every person who was participating in the drinking ritual that night. But again I felt helpless. I didn't feel worthy to stand up to anyone about anything. I could only cry and then go to bed. Tomorrow was just another day.
A Deadline
We had been separated for about nine months. I finally made the decision that I was going to give John a deadline. (Actually the deadline was just as much for me as him because I still wasn't ready to let go and get a divorce.) I told him all I wanted was for him to stop seeing other women by our sixth anniversary. If he would do that, then we could see about getting our lives back together. If he wouldn't then I was filing for divorce. I chose for him to quit the women over quitting drinking, believing that would be easier for him. About three weeks later John called me at 1:30 in the morning and asked if I would come and pick up him and his dogs. I didn't ask any details, just if he didn't have any transportation of his own. He said he didn't so I agreed to pick him up at a phone booth in a nearby town where he said he would be. I headed out and just outside of town I met his girlfriend's car coming my direction. I didn't know who was driving. I thought possibly they had a fight and she was taking him to meet me. After going by the car, it turned around and tailgated me for several yards then roared around and cut in front of me then raced farther down the road and stopped. I was irritated by the reckless driving but wasn't really thinking that much about it. As I drove by the parked car, it again tailgated me to the point where I was to pick up John. I pulled in, no John, just Ann's car parked directly behind me in the street. I wasn't going to make any effort to find out what was going on. If John was in there, he was going to have to come out. I certainly wasn't going to do any asking. After several moments Ann pulled up beside me and said that John changed his mind and went back "home". For some reason this didn't bother me at all. I said nothing to her, just pulled out and proceeded to drive out of town and on home. If they had made up, that was their problem. No sweat off my back. As I left town, she continued to follow me but not so close. Then I saw down the road John and the two dogs come up over the bank. Fortunately I had slowed down to a crawl, about to stop. Just then she came around me and stopped crosswise in front of me. I slammed on the breaks, stopping with less than an inch between the two cars. Immediately I was irate. It was one thing for other women to be messing with my husband (I had grown used to that). But no one better mess with my car. I jumped out of my car as she was getting out of hers and I yelled at her "What do you think you're doing!?!" "I have to talk to John",she spoke rather quietly as she tried to get by me. But I stepped in front of her. "Do you see how close you came to hitting my car?!?" I yelled again. "I had to stop you some way", she said. (Now that was certainly the classic answer of a drunk, considering I was stopping anyway and why would she want me to stop when obviously she wanted him to stay with her?) Hearing her outrageous statement, I went berserk. I experienced this strange feeling once before when I was little on a runaway horse - going into a state of shock - a dream state. Only this time there was no shock. There was just plain rage. All of my hatred and anger that I had been carrying for all those months exploded. It was as if everything turned into slow motion. I felt nothing. Suddenly that dream I had so many months ago was coming to life. It was as if I wasn't physically there but watching the whole thing on a big screen. I grabbed her by the coat. Words were exchanged but I don't know what, other than the name I called her. She wanted to get away but I just held on to her coat with one hand and grabbed her hair with the other. The adrenalin must have been surging. She was struggling but yet it felt like she was just standing there. I continued to hold on to her coat and then hit her in the face a couple of times with my fist. I was trying to hit as fast and as hard as I could but it was all in slow motion and felt absolutely nothing when I made the connections. After a second swing she got loose and fled to her car saying "I'm calling the cops!" then roared off into the night while under my breath I growled "Go for it." About that time is when reality came back to me and I realized what I had done. But I was too perturbed about my car almost getting struck on purpose to really give much thought to anything else. John came home with me. I ranted and raved all the way about "Did you see what she almost did to my car?!?" He thought the whole thing was rather funny.
When morning came I concluded that I must have hit Ann fairly hard to have bruised a knuckle. Although I felt she deserved it, I wasn't proud of myself for stooping to that level. To satisfy my own conscience I even sent her a note apologizing for hitting her although she provoked me and had it coming. I told her I was ashamed of myself though for stooping to her level of violence (I had heard she had a violent side herself) and that for everyone's sake, it would be best if we avoided each other. I told only my girlfriend what I had done. She thought the aggressive part was great but disagreed with my apology. But word traveled quickly around the type of people John and Ann associated with. Over the next several weeks there were a couple of people I knew and many I'd never heard of before - all congratulating me for hitting Ann. This really didn't make me feel any better but I kept wondering why did John get tangled up with a woman who most of his friends can't stand. But it did finally sink through that John didn't leave me for something better. He left me to find something at his own level which was far below my standards. Maybe I wasn't such a loser after all. Maybe it wasn't so much my looks or brain that John didn't want to live with as it was my values that he couldn't live with. And my values were something I wasn't going to change for anyone - including John. It wasn't too late in the morning after I had picked John up when Ann started calling my house, wanting to talk to him and I wouldn't let her. She came up with lie after lie at each phone call. In one case her son was suddenly sick because John had left so he needed to go and talk to the boy. Another call was from "Detective Brady" who had to talk to John about his pickup. And then there was the cleverest call from the man who was in reality supposed to be contacting John about a particular job. The flaw was that I recognized the voice as being her oldest son rather than an unfamiliar voice. Phone calls from Ann didn't just happen in this instance. It was a common occurrence prior to this and afterwards that whenever she and John would fight (which seemed to be frequently) or she didn't know where he was, my phone would ring. Most of the time she'd just hang up when I answered. If she did have something to say it was just another lie. Often the phone would ring in the middle of the night just once or twice. It was easy to see she didn't like me a bit more than I liked her. I let John stay the next day but told him he'd have to find somewhere else to live. I wouldn't have him living with me again until he could prove to me that he was able to show me respect and that he was truly serious about turning his life around. I allowed him to keep some of his belongings here but refused to take care of his dogs for him. He showed some signs of making an effort to do as I insisted. He stayed with a family I was familiar with. He didn't keep close contact with me but enough that I wanted to believe that he had broken up with his girlfriend. On the other hand he was having her take care of the dogs because "everyone else he knew had dogs and they'd fight and I wouldn't keep them with me so he had no choice." So my suspicions rose. John agreed to go on a weekend getaway with me a couple of weeks after he moved in with this other family. My idea was to get him somewhere away from all other distractions and he'd be trapped in the car miles away from anything where he would have to talk to me about what his intentions really were. I'll admit we had a lot of fun that weekend with the sights we took in. I had also determined that I wouldn't show any frustration or anger toward things he might do during that time. My goal was to get the truth from him and I felt I'd have a better chance by being totally happy all weekend if it killed me. The annoying times were when he would have to stop for a drink or he'd over react negatively about some occurrence along the way. We shared some laughter and as when I was first getting to know John, he was pleasant to be with...as long as his irritable moods stayed in tact. It was the last couple of hundred miles coming home that I finally got into the serious discussion that I had been trying to find the right time for all weekend. But even now I couldn't get much out of John. I asked if he was going to continue to see other women. He didn't see why he shouldn't because he said I didn't want him around. If he was going to give up other women he should be able to come back to me at that moment. Instead, I wanted us to back up to a dating period where he'd have to prove himself. He didn't have to prove himself to anyone. I was his wife. I asked him if he loved me. With an irritated tone he said, "What do you think?" In tears I replied, "No." He didn't respond. Despite the moments of good times we had during that weekend I kept thinking to myself, "Do I really want to get back together with this guy? Are the few good times really worth all of the bad? I still love the person I fell in love with but should I really put myself through trials that are bound to occur if we did attempt to get back together?" One thing for certain, I was still determined to start divorce proceedings if nothing changed by our sixth anniversary, although part of me didn't want to.
When I got home the phone was ringing. When I answered it I heard Ann's sigh on the other end and then she hung up. I immediately called the residence of where John was staying to tell him to tell her to leave me alone, only to be told by the person answering the phone that he had just left to go over to her house. That showed me that nothing had changed. Anything he would tell me, I shouldn't believe. Suddenly I was ready to file for that divorce but I chose to wait until our anniversary simply because that's the time I had allotted him. The second reason was that it irritated me severely that I was the one who would have to pay for it. I knew that John wasn't going to have the money, morals or ambition to file but I was hoping that his girlfriend would have talked him into it and ideally, she would have paid for it. That of course, was totally naive on my part if not down right blind.
His New "Wife"
A week after John and I went on our getaway, I received a letter from his girlfriend. She thought it only fair to let me know that she and John said vows to each other and now consider themselves husband and wife. He had moved in with her only because he had nowhere else to go when I didn't want him. Then in the weeks that followed they couldn't help but fall in love. He is the most kind and considerate person she's ever known and if I had only been paying attention to my marriage I would have seen it coming. John wouldn't have had to leave me to find the satisfaction he deserved. All he wanted was someone who would show him love in front of his friends and participate in their goings on. Finally she wished for me that I would find true love in the future as she and John had...Signed, Mrs. John. I already knew she was using his last name because it was listed that way in the phone book so that wasn't a surprise. I also had to feel sorry for this woman. I'm not so sure that she wasn't caught up in John's web at least as bad as I had been. And evidently he was playing the same games with her. I remember saying those exact same words - "He's the most kind and considerate person I've ever known." Of course I still hated her but I had to be honest and admit that we had a common bond which was to be made total fools out of by a very smooth operator. But what really hurt was her saying that if I had only paid attention to my marriage...That's the problem! I had paid attention and he chose to walk out because of it! Even though I knew I had done right and this was nearly a year later, those few words still cut at me and made me feel lowly and insecure. I knew she didn't know what she was talking about but the pain still penetrated deep. My first step was to call a friend of John's who I was certain would be honest enough to confirm the letter. He said the entire thing sounded ludicrous to him. He didn't know of any such goings on. Then I called Ann and asked her what they planned on doing about getting his belongings out of my house. She wasn't sure what to do about that. Then I asked if they're married, isn't it proper to get a divorce first? Well, yes but she asked him to but he won't do it. (I thought to myself - this woman really does have a problem.) After asking all the questions I needed and getting the kind of answers I was expecting, not to be outdone I promptly shot a letter back to her stating I was sorry but she loses again. She had given all the wrong answers and as long as John is technically married, she will never be his wife. And as far as her wishing me love, that was a blatant lie too. I'm the last person she would want to see any good come to. No doubt John was probably loving every moment of having two women, in a sense, fighting over him. What insecure drunk with a macho attitude wouldn't? And I knew that but it was so hard to just sit back and see another woman treading on what was supposed to be sacred territory, even though I knew in my heart that in reality he was using both of us. Later the true story was revealed. While they were at a wedding reception in the bar, the clan decided to put on a mock wedding with the two of them being the chosen pair of drunks to make a mockery of the vows.
Our Sixth Anniversary
John and I were supposed to get together on our anniversary date to talk about making amends - for the last time, in my mind. But when that day came, he never showed up. I didn't care what his excuse was going to be this time. I was suddenly ready for that divorce and if I could have gotten it the next day, that wouldn't have been too soon. I was to find out later that John had spent that anniversary date in jail, accused of domestic violence. Wow! This was going to be great. Now they could lock him away, he'd have to dry up , he could be put in a rehab program and he'd come out drug/alcohol free. But this is the real world, not some fantasy movie. I went to the judge to find out the outcome of John's hearing and was met with great disappointment. First, the judge wasn't going to tell me anything until I told him I was still married to John. (Like everyone else, he thought John and Ann were married.) At the hearing, Ann dropped all charges, claimed everything was her fault, she was so drunk she didn't even know what was going on and had no business calling the law on him.
I commented that I had hoped John would have to spend time in the pen for awhile and maybe get some help to get off the booze. Then the most idiotic reply came out of the judge's mouth. "I didn't realize he had a drinking problem. You should have come and talked to me before the hearing. But don't worry, he'll goof up again and we'll get him." This man's statements flabbergasted me. He had to know John had a drinking problem. John had spent many times reporting to that office because of drinking problems. This was the same judge who suspended his license, sentenced him to jail before, required him to attend DUI classes and charged him with over $500 in fines...from drinking. Most of that amount, I sat in that office with John and wrote out the checks. And this person didn't know that he had a drinking problem?! I wanted to believe the judge when he said don't worry, we'll get him. But in my heart I knew it would never happen. As I walked out, I buried my initial hopes.
Ready to Call It Quits
My first idea was to get a divorce through the mail - one of those cheap Mexican things. My girlfriend had enough wits about her to bring me to my senses on that. They're not legal in all states and this was a major step that I sure didn't want to take a chance on. I also had the problem of not knowing where John had recently moved to. I started the long proceeding of finding a lawyer. I wanted one outside my own town because I was very embarrassed about having to go through such a thing anyway and I figured it would be less chance for gossip to be flying at my expense if it was done quietly in another town. The first one, I had heard very good reports on but he was very pricy and couldn't get to it right away. I thought I had found the right one with the second choice. And this lawyer being a woman, made it much nicer as I really didn't have too much good to say about men by now anyway. It was going to work out great because she had to go through my town every couple of weeks anyway. She'd send me the forms I needed to fill out then I'd have a personal meeting with her. A month went by with no papers received. I finally called. Oh yes. She had them right there on her desk, just never got them mailed...so she asked me the questions over the phone. Then she said she'd get everything in order and give me a call when ready. After hearing the talk but not seeing the action for the next few months, when the new year came, I looked for a new lawyer. This one was ready to help me immediately. This was the one I would have to say God had planned for me. She grew up with an alcoholic father and had an alcoholic son, so knew much of what I had gone through and was very compassionate toward my feelings now. She would be the one to walk through the process with me.
Taking Action
One night during the next summer after our separation, John stopped by unannounced with three other drunks, to pick up some of his things. As much as I didn't want a bunch of drunks sleeping here, I tried to talk them into staying until morning. None of them acted sober enough to be walking - let alone driving. But the driver insisted that he wasn't drunk. There's nothing much more pitiful than a bunch of drunks sitting around thinking each is more sober than the other. One of the four started trying to say something but he was so far gone he couldn't even get it said. John and the woman looked at each other and laughed about this, totally oblivious to the fact that they were making just as big of fools of themselves as this other man. My mind was steadily changing about John. When the woman said why don't John and I just "hang ten" (whatever that means) and get back together...that it looks like we still have feelings for each other, and I should fight for him - I made no response but in my mind I was saying, "Why??" I was steadily becoming able to stand back more all the time, view the situation as a third person rather than the emotionally attached and blind first person, and start looking at things more realistically. As soon as they walked out the door and got in the pickup, I called the law and reported them, hoping the cops would catch up with this bunch of drunks before they killed someone. I was afraid however to give my name. I dreaded the consequences if John found out it was me who called. But after taking that initial step that night, I concluded that it would be my policy for the rest of my life that if a person showed up at my doorstep drunk or if I saw someone drunk getting into the driver's seat anyplace, anytime, the first thing I will do is call the law. I don't care who it is. In my book, every drunk behind the wheel is a potential murderer and it's my duty to try to stop that murder from taking place.
One Last Chance
About three months had passed since my initial talk with the lawyer. John was contacting me a little more often, just to talk...claiming he could come talk to me and always leave feeling better, that I always knew what to say. I had to admit that even if it was a pack of lies, it made me feel good. I wasn't able to believe it was a pack of lies anyway.
At this point in time, John came by for a serious conversation. He should have received an Oscar. Everything he said, his actions, his attitude...all seemed totally convincing. Whatever terms I had for him, he'd abide by. He said he had treated me terribly, he kept apologizing. He wanted us to get back together. This time was not like any of the others. He'd had all the right answers before but this time those right answers came with the appearance of a true sincerity that I couldn't see through. By this time I wasn't looking forward at all to getting back together with him. How could I live with this person for the rest of my life and not be suspicious every time he was out of my sight? Even if he has changed like he certainly appears to, how can I ever really trust him again? But how could I not give it a try? I was still married to him. I had no intention of calling the lawyer and stopping the paperwork at this point. And just out of spite I had no intention of telling him that I'd been attempting to start divorce proceedings. But still I wondered if I should give him one last chance since he seemed so different this time. I got a second opinion and was given smart advice that if I did decide to attempt reconciliation, I should hold him accountable for at least six months to a year. My answer to that was "I was thinking more on the terms of the rest of his life!" So I found myself allowing him to come back into my home with the rules that there would be no drinking, no other women, and no sex at least until condoms became a part of that house (and I was in no hurry to buy any.) The first night was an experience of a lifetime. It started with his girlfriend calling and wanting to talk to John. I just hung up. A little later the phone rang again. After counting the thirtieth ring, I picked it up, said John wasn't here, then unplugged the phone. We had already settled down for the night when I saw red and blue lights outside the window then suddenly a crash at the back door and someone yelling my name. I jumped up and ran out to see a flashlight and pistol pointed at me, with the sheriff behind them. It seems that Ann had been up to her tricks again, having called 911 claiming to be me, claiming that John was beating me to death. The sheriff said he expected to come here and find me dead. Then John came out and after seeing that there were obviously no problems here, the sheriff radioed in and then went looking for Ann. The next day my parents said that they were being harassed the night before with phone calls also The method pointed to Ann also. I called the dispatch to report this and wanted to apologize for not taking the time to see if those thirty rings had come from someone else beside Ann. Dispatch was just glad to know I was okay. Everyone thought I was being killed. She had put on quite a show over the phone with screaming and banging around. This also made me question if I was doing the right thing by allowing John back into the house. With that deranged woman running loose, who continued to be obsessed by John...how safe does that make me from her? I had his two dogs now which would offer me some protection but was still nervous about it, knowing that a dog can't stand up to a bullet. I didn't know how far she'd push things or if that was going to be the last we'd hear from her. John had a job so he left early and came home late and tired. I was able to confirm his hours with his employer. With him coming home tired, we didn't get a chance to have serious discussions yet, in which I wanted to confirm all of the terms. Then on the third night he came home later and drunk. I said nothing to him as he walked in the door. He only said he could be out of the house within a couple of days. Evidently he at least remembered the term of no drinking. I still didn't bother saying anything to him the next morning but when he came home earlier that afternoon, he said he had to finish a part of his job and would be gone for the weekend. He was also driving his employer's car, claiming he was buying it. After he left, my gut feelings took over again. I called his employer who was kind enough to tell me he wasn't going to lie for John. His job ended that day and John wasn't doing anything for him that weekend. But if I saw John, to let him know because John borrowed his car and he wants it back. John had been true to his word. He actually had left for good that fourth day, even though he left many of his belongings and the dogs with me. Why he had to lie about a job over the weekend and buying his boss' car, I don't know...other than after living a lie, it probably becomes easier to lie than it does to tell the truth. When he came back that following Monday to pick up a few belongings, I confronted him about all those lies. Then he had to make up another lie to cover the one about the car. As far as working that weekend, his eyes and reactions showed that he'd been caught but he wouldn't confess. He only said, "Well, I can't help it. That's what I was doing." When he walked out the door this time, I was relieved and glad to see him go. I was still in love with the fantasy I thought I'd married but I wanted nothing to do with this character.
Again I called the lawyer to see how things were going. Again there had been a delay. That's when I gave myself a deadline of December 31st. If I wasn't divorced by then or close to it, I was looking for a different lawyer.
Hardened
By the time the second new year rolled around, the soft side of my emotions had become calloused. I could no longer cry. That part of me had gotten buried somewhere along the way. Things that should have affected me, didn't have much of an impact. When a tragedy struck my family, I should have been mourning but my subconscious mind wouldn't allow anything to be released. I felt guilty that I couldn't show any emotions as I thought I was expected to. I almost felt worse about that than about what had happened. I felt tired, unhappy, but not tearful. In another instance, I had gone to a meeting. The speaker was excellent. One woman commented later that there was not a dry eye in the room. That wasn't quite right. Among all these tearful women, I sat there unable to let that emotion flow. I looked around me and saw only one other woman in the entire room also dry eyed. I thought to myself, "What terrible tragedy had happened in her life that, like me, she's unable to respond to the speaker's words and these surroundings as she should be?" The speaker talked about the death of her children, focusing primarily on the one who had been killed by a drunk driver. Like myself, she became obsessed. She learned and quoted all the statistics on drunk drivers. She had worked through her pain and gotten over the obsession whereas I had buried so much of my pain, even though I also had gotten over the obsession part. The biggest problem I had at the meeting was feeling like everyone was looking down at me. Most of those women didn't have the slightest idea who I was and had no idea of my past. Even though I didn't drink, I felt somehow that I was looked at as a bad person because I was married (separated now for 1 1/2 years) to an alcoholic...one who also drives drunk. It was rewarding to listen to how this woman made it through her worse times but it was humiliating to me to still be a part of that drunk's life even if it was only a piece of paper that tied us together. I'm sure no one would have put any kind of blame on me for anything but my crazy runaway mind wouldn't rest on that fact. In my mind I felt attacked by this room full of women simply because of a relationship I'd had with a drunk. All my life I'd had a habit of being harder on myself than necessary and this time was no different. The last thing I felt was any kind of pride in myself at the meeting.
Getting Closer to Divorce
I finally told John I was filing for divorce and he'd have to get the rest of his things. After he had stopped by to do this, he talked to me later. It seemed primarily to accuse me of having another man living with me. After everything he had done with all the other women in his life, here he was in a fit of jealousy, because he just knew a man was somewhere in that house. The reasons for his deductions were that there were two dishes drying on the dish rack, not one. And when he used the bathroom, the toilet lid (not seat) was up. He told me he knew me too well. Especially the toilet lid I would never leave up. I had no reaction to those accusations other than this guy has finally gone off the deep end. I had no reason to try to explain away his false accusations. If he wanted to believe the ideas he had come up with then he deserved to ponder away at them. As much as I was tired of having to take care of John's dogs, I felt some pain when John quickly stopped by one day and picked them up before I even knew he was around. I felt a bit of a loss that I hadn't been able to say goodbye to them. My freedom from the responsibility was nice but just having them snatched up didn't seem like a fair way to take them at all. This put me into a temporary state of depression. More than anything because I knew this was another step closer to getting the divorce. And with each step came some anxiety, a feeling of failure and worthlessness.
The Final Battle
I asked for nothing from John in the divorce papers. Only that everything I had in my possession was mine and everything in his possession was his and I wanted my name taken off the title of the pickup, realizing that if he should get into trouble with that pickup, they'd come to the person most able to make restitution. That would be me since John's record showed he had no money. At the strong persuasion of the attorney and friends, I also got a restraining order. Although I didn't want to think that John would actually do anything to me, the cards were stacked against him because of his increasingly violent nature toward others. And I knew he'd be angry when he was handed the papers. He had also been arrested a little earlier for carrying a concealed weapon. The bottom line was told me by those concerned - never, never trust the reactions of an alcoholic. The restraining order was enforced for a year in which he couldn't come to my house or on my property or call my home.
It was only a matter of days to my scheduled court date and we had heard nothing from John. But then came the blow. He was contesting. He claimed I owed him money from the business we had in the past and wanted restitution. It came as no surprise that he contested the divorce. He always said that he would. The reason being because he "loved me". But for the first time since the separation I finally became truly angry with him. After all I had gone through and he still wanted money from me. Those were fighting words. He'd be dipping into my ability to travel and I wasn't about to take that lightly. I gathered up all that anger toward John that was long past due and focused it on getting out of this mess with no big losses. I spent several days going back through all my records since I married him. I never realized that having exceptionally detailed records would come in so handy but that was no doubt what saved a lot of hassle in the end. My goal now was to hang John as high as I could unless he dropped everything. If he did that, then I would also. I knew I had put a lot of money strictly toward no one else but John in those five years together but the final figure was still shocking - over $29,000. This did not include all the monthly bills I also paid such as electrical, telephone (although almost all calls were made by John), most of the groceries, insurance...I still don't know how I did it because my wages weren't all that much. Once I had all the facts down, my attorney and I compiled a letter to John's attorney stating facts that didn't agree at all with his fabricated stories. He had claimed he had contributed value to the property. In reality he cut down a few small trees and just left many of them there creating a mess. He charged that I sold all the property we had acquired through the business, kept the money for myself, then dumped him. He claimed he had given the pickup to someone else (but my name was still on the title.) After a three page reply to his attorney containing the facts which was hopefully enough to scare off any more pursuit of John wanting anything from me, the wait started again. Finally, John called me at work. He wanted to know "what was going on?" I wanted to know the same thing. He claimed the only reason he contested was because I said in the divorce papers that he owed me $500 from a bill at a parts store. This guy was loonier than a pet coon. I told him to read back through the thing and find where it says anything about any money being owed to anyone. I also told him that if he didn't contest this thing then I would also drop everything. Otherwise he better be prepared to get himself hung from the highest tree because I was stopping at nothing and I had the proof to do him in. Of course, being the perfect liar and innocent victim to the end, he said that my attorney better get her act together and get the $500 off the papers (which was nonexistent anyway.) If that happened then he would drop everything. My guess was that after his attorney read our reply, he possibly told John he doesn't have a chance and had better back out while he still can. Weeks passed and we heard nothing. John's attorney was supposed to send a reply to us but it never happened. After the necessary amount of time transpired, another date was set for the divorce. This time that day came. I left home that morning feeling very apprehensive, praying that John wouldn't even show up. My prayers were answered. The proceeding was very short and not overly painful. After I walked out of the court room a very heavy weight lifted off my shoulders and I finally shed a few tears of relief. For the first time in years I felt truly free and suddenly I didn't feel quite so worthless. I had myself back and I was eventually going to be okay again.
Trapped in the Past
My experiences with John have had a lot of influence on how I've reacted to other incidences since being with him. I had no desire to have another human male in my life but God had different plans and introduced me to a man who was just as bullheaded as me in the sense that he was determined to be my friend and ultimately my new husband. We had been seeing each other for about two months. I liked him but certainly wasn't interested in romance or any kind of commitment in the future. But one day feelings from the past flooded my mind. He told me earlier that day that he'd be stopping by after taking care of a few things around his home. It was no big deal to me until about 4:30 rolled around. Suddenly, as if a dark heavy cloud moved over me, I got very depressed because I knew he wasn't coming back. I knew I would never see him again. That time of day had always been the time I would start getting apprehensive about when John would be showing up, (while we were still together) or if he'd be out all night. So by the time my friend did show up a little later, I was in such a depressed state that I couldn't show any emotion other than silence and distance. I couldn't allow this man to get to me. I wasn't going to care enough for anyone again where I would risk being hurt. Any feelings of friendship I had for this person needed to be locked away.
But fortunately, this man wasn't the type to let things slide at all. As soon as he suspected something was wrong, we sat down and discussed it for as long as it took...to convince me beyond any doubt that he would never just walk out of my life. Here, I could start experiencing true trust. There was someone in my life who would always treat me the way he wanted to be treated...nothing less. It was up to me to allow myself to trust again, but it was going to take time on his part and effort on mine. There was also the problem of "I love you." I was pretty well burned out on that after John left. The only thing that came with those words was pain. It was such a hard thing for me to say that my new husband never heard the words from me until three months after we were married. On our wedding day I had written it on a piece of paper and placed the note in a tiny treasure chest to present to him. The only reason I said the words when I did was because that was the deadline I gave myself. He deserved to hear them. It's still not a comfortable thing to say but I keep working on it. I do love him and he deserves to hear it. It's just another scar from my past that won't totally heal.
The Biggest Scar
I have been brutally honest in putting all my experiences and thoughts on paper but this topic is by far the hardest to write about but at the same time is probably the most important because it has had the most devastating effect on me. There must have been a time in my past that I enjoyed sex but I really can't remember - or I don't want to remember. What I do remember is that John and I had sex before we were married. I felt very guilty about that. I grew up in a family where it was never talked about, only that through my mother's influence, it was something that was considered nasty until you got married and then everything was okay. My belief in the Bible also told me that I shouldn't indulge in such activities until I was married. The pressure of my fiance' and my love for him overpowered all else though. But after it was all said and done, I didn't feel good about it or about myself. I thought things would change like magic after we got married, that the shyness would leave and I would have a strong desire to please and be pleased. I found that just because a piece of paper had been signed that says it's okay now to do things that should be saved for the sacred bonding of two people into one, my feelings didn't change like magic. Embedded in me was my past but that was only a small aspect of it. How the entire thing was approached had significant impact on my attitudes. It seemed like sex became John's focus the day we were married. As soon as we got out of our costumes, he needed to satisfy himself. I went along with it because I was determined to be the dutiful little wife, submitting to my husband's needs. And at that point I really did want with all my heart to be able to satisfy him. That night things were no better. The room we rented had a TV with a station that showed porno flicks. I was embarrassed by it but for all I knew, this is how marriages were. So I tried to be open minded about it and didn't object. What was more degrading though was that John was getting off on these scenes and using me as his source of relief. I was awakened throughout the first night with these actions and was very sore by morning. In fact, I spent the entire honeymoon sore but I was determined to be loving and continue to try to muster up the courage to be sensual toward him and enjoy it. I don't remember if I reached that moment of enjoyment during our honeymoon or not. The first year of our marriage we had sex everyday, at least once a day. John hadn't started forcing himself on me yet. He generally asked and I was obedient. Pornography started seeping its way into the house and he expected me to act in the same way the women did in the stories he'd read. I didn't like those magazines being in the house. In the later years of our marriage I threatened to burn them all. He said if I did, he'd burn my books. One time I went ahead and took one magazine out of a big box of porno magazines he had accumulated, and I did burn it. I thought he'd never miss just one and I could start getting rid of them by burning one about once a week. I was wrong. He did miss that one and he knew that I got rid of it. For fear of him burning something of mine, I didn't touch the magazines after that. Concerning my reaction to sex, I figured that something was wrong with me because as John's wife, I should be responsive. It was easy for him to convince me that I was the one with the problem. I was the one who wasn't normal. That made me try harder to do as he desired. There was nothing that he asked of me that I didn't try once. A couple of things were very painful and others degrading and also that which was so distasteful to me I literally wanted to gag. It seemed that the love aspect of it was steadily diminishing and the strictly animal aspect of it becoming more and more apparent. I was not even safe during my period. As with everything else, I also gave into allowing him to have intercourse at that time too. This was the most degrading thing that I remember giving in to. And then, when it was all over, my self esteem was so severely seized from me that it was I who felt dirty and full of sin to the point that when he instructed me to, I was the one to wash him off. I did find enough pride hidden within myself though, that some of things I refused to allow after the initial time. It wasn't easy to refuse though because I was still in love with my husband and I thought all the sexual problems were my own abnormal hang-ups. When I did refuse, he would get short tempered and sulk for hours. He had me convinced that I was depriving him. He was just barely staying satisfied strictly by the quantity but according to him, I didn't have much quality to offer. By the end of that first year I was totally burned out on anything to do with sex. Any times of enjoyment for me, had to happen within that first year but they've been blocked out at this point.
Going into the second year of marriage I made a discovery. If I could start an argument, then we wouldn't have to have sex that night. I got to the point where I actually looked forward to arguing. There was also the problem of what John had started calling it. At first he was asking if I wanted to make love. But soon that question gave way to "Let's get nasty." And that's just how those words made me feel - nasty. I finally did tell him how it made me feel and from that point he never termed it that way again. It was back to "making love." But the damage had been done. Just because he stopped saying the words, I had it etched into myself that I was nasty, I was nothing but a prostitute. I was no lady, I didn't know how to make love - only be nasty. Another reason for feeling like a prostitute was John told me everything to do and when to do it. If I had tried something on my own, I would have been at a total loss. I was given instructions and expected to perform them for him. He would even want me to reach a climax for him - not for myself. I don't remember if I ever did actually try anything on my own. As the years progressed and I was dreading sex more and more, I started becoming less and less cooperative. It finally got to the point where I was usually only having to put up with it about once a week. John claimed he was being deprived from about two weeks to a month at a time. I'm certain my time spans are more accurate but he would swear by his so I guess it all depends on who you want to believe. The times when we would have sex, I tried to focus on other things. A friend had told me when she was in labor, she was told to focus on something relaxing and soothing. She concentrated on a weeping willow by a babbling brook and it eased her pain. I got good at concentrating on that same scene during sex but was never totally able to break away from the reality of what I was being put through. There were times I'd break down and cry from pain and emotion. John would get very angry at this. He would ask me how could I expect him to get any enjoyment if I was going to act like that? It seemed to become a situation where I was just a body to him. It didn't matter whether I was so sick I had to be in bed. It didn't matter if we had company staying with us. I would usually retire before the others and John would follow me into the bedroom, do his job, then go back out to his friends, leaving me in the dark feeling angry, humiliated and embarrassed. It didn't matter if I was dead tired, if I was awakened from a sound sleep, or needing to get up to get ready for work. (Of course, I suppose after a time, there was no time that would have been convenient for me.) He would force himself upon me and I would have to endure it because he would have such a tight body lock on me that I could only lay there claustrophobic. As soon as he would loosen his grip, I'd generally storm out of the bedroom angry, wanting nothing at that moment but to wash myself physically and mentally of the ordeal. There was also the time when "I love you" came before any physical acts. But that ended up being nonexistent. It turned into going through the act first, then after John got his satisfaction, he would tell me he loved me and expected me to be able to say the same thing. I didn't feel very loving after most of those times. I needed to know beforehand he loved me. Not that he loved me for what was between my legs. It wasn't until the last few weeks that we were still living together that I started talking to other women. What John had convinced me was supposed to be a normal marriage, I was finding out wasn't so normal after all. No doubt I was frigid but it wasn't necessarily my fault. The things going on at our house weren't taking place at other women's houses. Yes, there were exceptions like the type that John moved in with but then that was their particular style of life. But that didn't make me abnormal like I had been convinced I was. I was fighting the same things these other women would have fought if they had been placed in the same circumstances. The thing that I found most odd was that as much as I had come to hate sex, the first few weeks after John left, my sexual consciousness became magnified and craving. But now I had no husband so I could do nothing about it. That feeling didn't last too long anyway. Instead, all feelings gave way to the attitude that "If I never have sex again, it will be too soon." My current husband was under no delusions about my feelings toward sex. In no uncertain terms did I let him know before we were married. The difference is in the way he treats me. He's never pressured me into anything. I've found that intercourse is the most minute part of making love. But having someone who cares so much for my feelings and my satisfaction, makes me want to try to please him that much more. As far as having any feelings for the physical aspect of love other than enjoying snuggling, I just don't have them. Somehow a wire must have gotten disconnected between my mind and my body. I continue to have to work up to the physical part of the relationship and admittedly could still just as easily live on snuggles for the rest of my life and nothing more. Nothing else feels good...or if it does, my mind and body aren't telling each other it does. But I believe that this too will change with time, maybe a lot of time. But as long as I have the partner I do, who has the utmost respect for me, working together to satisfy each other and be patient with each other, God will reveal His plans for us and we will continue to live in a marital bliss that we now enjoy, not based on sex, not based on romantic love, but based on the respect and similarities and trust we share, and our firm belief to allow God to be the major factor in our marriage.
A Cruel Joke or a Valuable Gift
Starting on the second year after John left, my strength was wearing down. I still had faith that God was in control of my life but I was beginning to think that He was playing some kind of cruel joke on me. Everything was still dragging on. I no longer knew what to pray. Often the only things I could utter was "Lord, I'm sorry." Many things I was afraid to pray for. I figured this cruel joke was being played on me because I deserved it...because of something I was paying for in my past. It was no better when my future husband entered my life. I would pray and ask God, "Why are you doing this to me? Please reveal to me what I did that was so terrible that you sent another man into my life to destroy me again!" But with time, God showed me that it wasn't a cruel joke. I had to go through all the steps necessary to ultimately do what I'm doing right now - writing down my experiences and my feelings within me at the time of those experiences, in the hope that they will help someone else to see that they're not alone in their trials. There are others of us who have gone through similar things and are able to lend an understanding ear because we've been through it. Something even our closest friends aren't able to relate to as well if they haven't been through it. No one can solve another's problems but I believe God has given me that gift of seven years of suffering to become more mature and knowledgeable in some of life's trials, to give others ideas that may or may not work for them. There are some scars I'll probably carry with me for the rest of my life, but they'll be scars - no longer open wounds. And time does heal many things. While writing these pages, sometimes I cried. But at other times I was able to laugh at some of the things I'd done...that were anything but funny at the time they happened. I also found that by putting everything down on paper, I was able to let go completely of some memories to the point that when I read back through the pages, I could no longer remember certain incidences taking place, when before they were so vivid. Of course there are also those occasions that remain as vivid as if they happened an hour ago. Time will ease that too. I also used to have a bad opinion toward all drunks and alcoholics and continued with that "holier than thou" attitude during much of my marriage. But I feel like God was showing me that these people are His creation too. And although they abused a drug that initially abused them, that doesn't give me the right to look down my nose at them. They have as much right to receive compassion as the rest of us sinners but they also must be held accountable. My attitude has been a crucial point in my growing experience. I don't always have the right attitude, but when I do, that's when God has been able to do His best work with me. And at the time I was going through all of my problems, I couldn't see any good outcome but now I do and I will honestly say that I am thankful for what I went through. It was worth it for what is happening in my life now and what it will continue to help me become in the future.
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