Addiction: It was Never the Last Time

I knew my husband was an alcoholic when we were dating. But it was college and I was sure it would get better. It didn’t. We had a baby. Surely once he saw how much our daughter needed him he would stop. He didn’t. He didn’t stop with the birth of our second child. He didn’t stop with his father dying of alcoholism. Not only did he drink, but he drank angry. He would seethe and blame and scream and, inevitably, pass out. When he woke up, he would try to clean up his mess, both literally and figuratively. He would apologize and cry and promise it was the last time.

But it was never the last time.

Sure, he would stop. But not for long. Just long enough for me to exhale and convince myself that he was better. When he started up again, it would blindside me every time. Whether it was finding him passed out on the couch, or finding empty booze bottles hidden with the Christmas decorations. It would hit me like a punch in the stomach. I would try, once again, to convince myself that it wasn’t that bad. That it wasn’t going to affect our family like it had before.

It was a vicious cycle, and it only got worse.

20 years. That’s how long it took me to say: enough

Even though there were incredibly dark days, it was never quite far enough. I convinced myself that if it ever went just one step further, I would finally leave. When he passed out in our daughter’s bed, I rationalized staying because she was asleep and didn’t wake up. I told myself that if she had woken up and seen him, that would have been enough to leave. When he drove drunk with our children in the car, I justified staying because they didn’t get into an accident. If they had crashed, that would have been enough.

Honestly, there was a point when I wasn’t sure what it would take for me to stop making excuses. And then the day came.

20 years. That’s how long it took for me to say, “enough.”

I didn’t wake up that morning knowing I was going to leave. I was fixing my daughter a sandwich and he stood in the doorway calling me names. “Fat, ugly, stupid, worthless…” I ignored him. I was good at that. But my daughter didn’t. She yelled out, “stop, Daddy – you promised!!” He looked at her and said, “I won’t stop. Because you and your sister need to know what a horrible person your mother is.” I watched her cry, knowing that if I opened my mouth, it would only make things worse. That this would only continue, on and on, forever and ever. When he finally walked away, I said to my daughters, “Girls, go get into the car.” I quietly followed them, my heart thumping in my chest. We drove to my mother’s house while I tried to figure out my next steps.

That was the day that I decided to change my life. When I told him I wanted a divorce, he cried and screamed and said I couldn’t have one. He spewed more hateful things at me in front of our children and then begged again and again for me to reconsider.

But here’s the thing. He is sick and needs help, and so do I. And we weren’t going to get that help together. While an outsider could see that this marriage was doomed from the start, we couldn’t. Eventually, my girls and I ended up at a hotel. It wasn’t until I left him that I could see that I didn’t recognize him anymore. I didn’t trust him. And I didn’t love the person he had become.

It definitely got harder before it got easier. He became obsessive. He sent more than 6,500 text messages over the 8 weeks that followed. When he drank, he went on emotionally and verbally abusive tirades. He would threaten to take our children and leave me penniless. That I was delusional if I thought a judge would side with me. He would call 15 times a day – I never answered. We weren’t living together, but he made sure I knew he was still around.

At our first court case, my attorney presented the text messages to the judge. The judge filed a motion that not only required him to take combative parenting classes, but also stated that he was no longer allowed to text me. I didn’t know that was an option. From that point forward, he could only use a monitored legal app for communication. It also has a ‘tone detector’ so he can’t be verbally abusive. Now, I am able to get through my days without wondering how his addiction is going to ruin everything.

It’s not perfect, but it’s a start.