Same Old

J's pain was both short lived and fruitless. 

He came to me one afternoon and announced that he'd discovered he was co-dependent. "I've been spending all this time trying to make you happy," he explained, "thinking that it would make me happy. I should be focusing more on myself."

My figurative jaw dropped. This has been you trying to make me happy? I thought, my inner sarcasm kicking in. Well that was an epic fail! And, I added, incredulous, if you focus any more on yourself, you'll drown in your own reflection. 

Though I could see elements of truth in his words--that he did expect me to make him happy, and had never learned to accept responsibility for his own feelings-- I could also see that that wasn't at all what he meant. His words were correct on the surface, but his attitude was one of glee over finding a plausible excuse to act more selfishly. I braced myself for the entitlement that was sure to follow. 

I didn't have to wait long. 

For the next few days, he made efforts to insert himself into my life. Under the guise of helpfulness, he asked to come to Family Home Evening. I turned him down. 

Next, he made a show of taking the children to the new Temple open house. He acted hurt when I refused to join him. 

Finally, he came to pick up our daughter for a concert, then dangled the tickets in front of my face. "Last chance," he coaxed. 

I gave him a dirty look and took him aside. 

"Why are you always so pissed at me?" He whined when we were alone. "Is it really so insulting that I want to spend time with you?"

"Of course you want to spend time with me!" I countered. "I'm awesome! But you're too arrogant to consider the fact that I don't want to spend time with you."

His face grew stony. 

"What has changed," I challenged him, "that you think you're even worthy to ask that of me?"

"Worthy?" He repeated woodenly. 

"I told you," I continued, "I'm not willing to take a single step toward you unless you prove that you're safe, and you haven't done anything to show me that."

"Yes I--" he protested, but I interrupted, 

"Don't give me that crap about how long you've been sober. I don't believe a word of it anyway. You have a list of 6 behaviors, so you know exactly what I need to see in order to trust you, and nowhere on that list does it say, 'chocolates, flowers, time together, white-knuckle sobriety and a massive dose of denial'. Shoving those things in my face in place of actual recovery is insulting. So yes, I'm pissed."

I'm sure J argued in response. I'm sure he became defensive, looked wounded and called me mean and unreasonable, the same way he had in Europe and during every other iteration of this fight that we'd had over the years. But I no longer registered any of it. His words had become meaningless long ago, and my efforts to get him to acknowledge reality and act accordingly were predictably futile. 

I read once that people tell you who they are through their actions, and your challenge lies in whether you accept what they show you. 

J's actions were speaking loud and clear, but it wasn't until what came next that I finally started to believe it. 

Endless Thought Cycle

J's moodiness lasted several days following our return from Europe, and though I cautioned myself against it, I became vaguely optimistic. 

Maybe this is rock bottom, I thought. Maybe this is the beginning of the end. 

In my minds eye, I attempted to see J being led through the emotional labyrinth that started with remorse and humility and ended with love and recovery. How wonderful to step to the very brink of disaster, only to recognize it for what it was and allow yourself to be snatched to safety! Perhaps this is what God had been orchestrating all along! 

But even as I tried to envision us strong and united, hope was crushed under the terrible weight of just how far J would have to go and how long it would take to get there. I knew it wasn't impossible-- with God, nothing is-- but I'd experienced the agony of that journey twice. Those journeys had been refining. They had brought me strength and growth unlike I'd ever before known, but apparently they hadn't had the same- or perhaps any-  effect on J. 

I could not comprehend how that was even possible. He was either extraordinarily dense or willfully rejecting everything we'd been taught, neither of which made me eager to go through hell a third time with only the smallest flicker of hope in his capacity and desire to change sustaining me. 

Here I was, still waiting around for him to reach rock bottom? Waiting for him to wake up and decide that addiction was not serving him? Waiting for him to finally start this journey of a thousand steps?

Thinking about it that way always circled me back to the same conclusions:

That I was outgrowing him. 

That I was done with this stage of growth.

That I was ready for the next hard thing. 

That at this point, even if J were sprinting towards recovery, I was not certain I could wait around for him to catch up. 

That J was nowhere near sprinting.

I worried that God would ask me to stay anyway. That He needed me to learn something more that I wasn't yet seeing. While I would do anything He asked of me, in my heart of hearts, I felt certain that the possibility of having a loving, respectful, and equally yoked marriage with J was gone. If God wanted me to stay, it would be for another purpose entirely, and that made me feel sad, afraid, and so, so tired. 

As it turned out, I needn't have worried.  

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Outgrowing

It was somewhere in Oxford that it happened. 

It was overcast and windy, giving me a perfect excuse to wear riding boots and a heavy scarf as I walked through scattered leaves. I'd spent the morning taking in the Great Hall at Christchurch, sitting in the library where they filmed Harry Potter, and exploring gardens and university buildings that had been the stomping grounds of Lewis Carrol and JRR Tolkein. 

Now I sat on a weathered pew sipping tea in what had once been an Abby, but was now a whitewashed bakery overlooking a courtyard. I read my book intermittently, pausing to take in the scenery or listen in as the older woman at the next table over described her house hunting adventures of the previous afternoon. 

And then he walked by. 

Someone-- just the briefest flash of a profile. A sure walk; a smart silhouette. Nothing I'd be able to recall later or describe in any detail. I didn't even see his face-- but my stomach leapt and my heart picked up its pace. 

I looked away quickly, flushed and ashamed. I'd noticed someone. For the first time in more than fifteen years, I'd let someone who wasn't my husband catch my eye. 

I felt sick. 

I knew I was hurt. I knew I was detached. I knew I was contemplating divorce. But was I, on some level, allowing myself to feel single? The thought both appalled and frightened me. If J and I did get divorced, I did not want there to be even a hint of "someone better" on the horizon of my mind. I would never be able to trust or respect my own decisions if that were the case. 

Mentally, I berated myself for my lapse. But in the very next breath, I was horrified to realize that I had had to be on the very precipice of divorce before I'd even allowed myself to notice a man. J had been cataloging, lusting, fantasizing over, and comparing me to countless women from the very day we were married. 

What did that say about how attached-- or detached-- he was from me? If it made me sick just to get butterflies over glimpsing a man, how much would he have to cut off feelings of love, loyalty and morality just to allow himself to do the things that he did? 

Once again, I was left feeling bereft and confused. The question was not whether my husband loved me-- I knew he didn't-- but whether I truly could live in a loveless marriage. 

For a decade, I believed it was possible. I believed that the key to marriage was to cease expecting any fulfillment from it; to find joy despite J's callousness; to love him for the sake of loving. I believed in potential. I believed in looking for the good. I believed that life was supposed to be hard, and that a marriage was just a tool for learning and growth. I believed that love was an ability that could be taught. 

But sitting at that pew, warming my hands around my cup of chai, I wondered if it really was possible that a marriage required the efforts of both parties; that I could put forth my best effort and still fail; that staying might actually be more masochism than it was worth. 

In the deepest recesses of my mind, I told Heavenly Father, I know I can do hard things. 

I'm just ready to do a different hard thing. 

I don't know what more I can gain here. 

I think I've outgrown my marriage. 

And then I waited, terrified at what He might answer. 

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The Rundown, Part 18

I am not afraid of solitude. Traveling accross Europe solo just confirmed to me that I enjoy my own company and have the capacity to be happy regardless of J or his actions. 

That was not always the case. 

When J and I got married, I felt as if I had been on hold up until that point and only then could I finally begin living. 

On our honeymoon, we wrote a list together of things we wanted to do and places we wanted to go-- a bucket list of sorts. I remember finding it again a few years after J's first disclosure and being shocked at how little of myself was contained in that list. I don't want to skydive. I thought. I don't want to learn to ski. But at the time, I'd just wanted to go wherever he went and do whatever he did. I'd lost myself in him. 

J's first disclosure changed all that. In the years following, I'd made a conscious decision to live in such a way that I wouldn't need him for anything. I'd stopped looking for his love or validation to fill my emotional holes. I'd pursued my own interests and cultivated my own talents and developed a relationship with Heavenly Father that enabled me to receive strength, comfort and inspiration independent of my husband. 

Our starkly differing experiences in Europe seemed to highlight how far I'd come. 

In Sweden and Denmark, I walked cobblestone streets, read books in quiet cafes, explored art museums and shopped for simple, modern design goods. I went running in lush parks, biked around Nyhaven and sat in grand cathedrals for Evensong. I navigated on my own, spent hours in absolute silence or made a game of trying to go an entire day without speaking English. It was liberating and empowering and centering all at once. I was pleased to find that despite everything, I felt whole and happy, all on my own. 

Meanwhile, on Instagram, J was posting photos of his travels in Ireland. I'd look at him standing by the Cliffs of Mohr or eating in a pub and think, "I am so glad I'm not there!" I'd wondered if I would have any regrets; instead I felt an exhilarating freedom to see what I'd narrowly escaped; to look around at how purely "me" my trip really was. 

I basked in it. For two weeks, I didn't have to cook, clean, talk, sacrifice or compromise. I simply walked wherever I wanted to walk, ate whatever tasted  good, looked at whatever struck me as beautiful and pondered whatever I found intriguing. It was healing and meditative and revealed to me how easy it was for me to actually enjoy myself once I was unencumbered by J and the psychological weight of his manipulations and betrayals. 

By the end of my trip, I felt absolutely filled to the brim with life and beauty. I dreaded seeing J again, aware of how blatantly impenitent he was, and steeled myself for the long flight home. 

Once I was settled in to the seat next to him, I cautioned myself not to open up-- but I could hardly contain how happy I was! It spilled out all over the place. I cheerfully chatted with the woman next to me and ended up enthusing to J about the sights and experiences. As I waxed poetic, I could see him sinking deeper and deeper in to self pity. I turned on a movie to get myself to shut up. 

"I'm not well" J told me. "I was miserable for the entire trip. I wish you were there. It was torture watching others with their spouses and knowing I was all alone." He pulled his hat down over his face and cried. He asked to hold my hand. For a while, I felt sorry for him and obliged, then instantly felt uncomfortable with it and let go. It did not feel like he was crying out of godlike remorse or genuine sorrow for where his actions had led. Instead, he cried because I was happy and he wasn't, and it didn't seem fair to him. 

As I watched a coming-of-age film on the tiny TV embedded into the seat in front of me. J continued to interrupt, fishing for small nuggets of conversation. J had always loved coming-of-age films. For years, he'd been drawn to the awkward underdog. The misunderstood, socially awkward boy who only needs a woman's love in order to 'find' himself. He'd started countless scripts, attempting to encapsulate these feelings into a single character, but always ended up lost in the second act. He never knew how to end the story; how to get his guy to grow up. 

As I mulled this over, I was struck with the thought that J can't finish his coming of age story because he's never come of age. He can't verbalized something he doesn't know or understand, and he's never learned that you can't expect a person or event to make you happy. Being an adult means taking responsibility for your own actions and feelings, but J was still expecting me to "fix" him. 

For a moment, I couldn't help but look at him and think, "You never grew up. I am married to a thirteen year old boy."

And with that, I felt alone for the first time in two weeks. 

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