What Happened?

October, 2014

The period of time leading up to the decision to end my marriage was oddly reminiscent of the time leading up to the decision to start my marriage. It was a twisted and dark version of dating, wherein every behavior, remark, and brief interaction was dissected and analyzed.

I spent hours trying to figure out his motives, his mindset, and his trustworthiness. I fretted. I extrapolated. I prayed. I examined from every angle, all the while gathering evidence like snowflakes, watching as they coalesced, snowballing into a mountain of truth I could no longer deny.

As I drove home from The Togetherness Project, memories surfaced one after another.

We are dating. After a movie one night, I mention I'd like a pair of soft pajama pants. J drags me into Victoria's Secret, oblivious as I blush scarlet, mortified. I grab the first pair I see and pay quickly. They are 3 sizes too big, but I never return them. I feel like a sheltered prude when he teases me later.

We are newly married, as we unpack our things in our first home, we talk of our lives before we met. J shows me pictures of sand dunes, and confides that he was not worthy to attend the temple with his brother the day they were taken. "Why not?" I ask, but he refuses to tell me. "You would look at me differently. It's between me and the Lord and no one else. It isn't your business." I feel scared by his reticence, but eventually I drop it.

 I work full-time to support us while J attempts to start his own business. We never see each other, and I am under the distinct impression that he wants it that way. I am confused and heartbroken. I hate my job, and tearfully confess one evening that I'd like to quit. "Why would you do that to us?" He says, looking at me with an odd mix of wounded contempt, "Why would you be so selfish?" I shrink away, ashamed.

One of our bills arrives in J's name. When I open it, he berates me for violating his privacy. We have an intense debate over boundaries, and though I am firm in my stance that there IS no privacy in marriage, I am disturbed by his argument to the contrary. For the next 15 years, anytime I open a letter addressed to him, it becomes a point of contention between us.

J looks disappointed and disgusted every time he finds that I'm wearing religious garments under my clothes. I take to wearing sexy underwear instead, but one evening as I'm undressing, he shakes his head and says disapprovingly, "I would feel naked if I didn't wear garments." 

"I'm so lucky that you were raised in a poor family," J tells me. "If I'd married a girl from around here, she would have expected me to provide at a higher level." I take this as a compliment, even when my therapist looks at J askance and asks me if it hurts that he doesn't long to give me the moon.

After hours of unmedicated labor, the doctor insists that I'm not progressing fast enough on my own. He wants to start me on pitocin. I begin to cry. "I can't do this anymore," I whimper, turning to J. There is no empathy in his eyes, only excitement. He sees my tears and thinks, "Transition! We're near the end!"  He is right. Within minutes, I am pushing. But I never forget that he was unmoved by my pain and fear. 

I haven't had more than 4 consecutive hours of sleep in the last 9 months. J calls me on the way home from work. My words are dull. Leaden. I feel full of despair as I bathe one child, the other straddling my hip and screaming uncontrollably. "I can't handle it when you're like this," J sighs. He hangs up and doesn't come home. I am a burden. I am alone.

We get a late-night call from J's brother. He's asking all the siblings to gather in support of their mother, who has shown up on his doorstep, battered and bruised after their father became violent. We are in shock. I gather and dress the kids. I wait by the door. J keeps finding things to put off our departure. At last, I ask in frustration, "We're not leaving, are we? This is you're passive-aggressive way of telling me that you don't want to go?" I expect tears. Instead, he is angry. "Why should I have to go fix her problems? I'm not saying that he has a right to hit her, but honestly-- that mouth of hers...." I feel sick, but am silenced when later, his sentiments are echoed by other family members. The incident is rarely talked of again, but I never forgive my father-in-law.

We are having sex when I start to sob. "Do you even love me?" I ask. He turns away and gets that look on his face-- hurt, disbelieving and angry. Before I can stop myself, I'm apologizing. "I'm sorry," I say. "I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm sorry."

I shook myself from my dark rumination and turned to my mother, who had met me in Utah for The Togetherness Project and was now joining me on the ride back home for an extended visit. "Do you think J has always been unfeeling?" I asked. "Was he a cold, critical person when we met and I just didn't want to believe it? Or has addiction turned him into who he is today?"

She looked at me helplessly. "I don't know, honey. We didn't meet him until right before the wedding, and honestly, we didn't see any red flags. Our first impression was simply that he seemed weak. That he didn't have as strong a testimony as we expected, and that surprised us."

I nodded thoughtfully.

"The thing that eats at me," I replied after a stretch of silence, "is that I've always been able to see his potential. He's capable of being so much more; and it's perpetually seemed so close-- this stronger, more tender version of him-- just a hair-breadths away, really; that I've felt that it was my duty to hold up that image of who he could be like a talisman, or a carrot on a stick. After all, isn't that part of loving someone? That you can see past their faults and flaws and focus on who they really are?"

The question hung in the air as I mused for a moment.

"I've always thought that there was something that I could do or say to entice him to be noble and aspire for more," I sighed, both bitter and despondent. "But I'm starting to wonder if he looked at that image-- that he actually saw it, and maybe even strived for it briefly after our first separation-- and then decided it was too much work. I think he saw who I knew he could be and rejected it. Was I left holding up the ideal so high in front of my face that I was completely blind to reality?" 

"I don't know," I breathed. "I don't know." 

I hit the steering wheel, trying to hold back the tears that were stinging my eyes. "This is so stupid! I'm still doing it! I'm still thinking that he could wake up at any moment. That if I just hold on a little longer...." the tears were there now, hot and streaming down my face. "But I can't. I can't do this one minute more." 

I took a deep breath, regaining control. 

"I've tried letting go. I've told myself that I don't need him to be anything more than he is. I stopped expecting him to love me, to be supportive or warm or even kind. I've told myself that I can have all my needs met by the Lord; that anything J contributes is just icing on the cake. But the only way that works is if J does the same and lets go of me as well, and he can't seem to do that. He's like this yawning black hole that keeps demanding that I fill it."

I was venting now, rambling and disjointed, but I couldn't seem to stop.

"It feels like our relationship is an empty banking account. He says he's putting in deposits-- that he's unselfish and loving and changing his ways. But they're all counterfeit. They're hollow and empty and just for show-- but then he demands these outrageous withdrawals. He asks for more and more from me, waving around his counterfeit money and I don't know how else to say that I have nothing left to give."

We drove in silence for a time, each lost in thought, until at last, I was the first to break the stillness. 

"I keep coming back to this image of him walking through the door," I admitted, my voice trembling. "I dread that moment. Every day, he's out there being unfaithful and dishonest, yet he comes home and expects me to shower him with adoration. The weight of that expectation alone is suffocating. I think of him walking through the door and I get sick. I literally feel sick." As I spoke, my voice grew stronger, gaining conviction despite the terror I felt at my own words. "In the end," I said, "it's visceral, this decision I'm making to get a divorce, because I think of staying together and all I can picture is him walking through that door...  and I know that I can't take it."

I shook my head mirthlessly. "That's it, really. I can't imagine being happy to see him walk through that door ever again." 

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