Day 5 has ended. Elul 29 is over. The world is still here, the Australian stock market is currently up, and martial law has not taken over.
There are two days remaining.
Our neighbors, who are like grandparents to our children, invited the kids to go swimming this afternoon. My husband and I went over, and we played nice until he decided he needed a beer and took two out of their refrigerator.
He’s so fucking strong that he can quit anytime he wants, except he can’t quit by himself because he’s not strong enough.
It was dinner time, the boy was already out of the pool, and the girls kept asking to eat. My husband kept telling them they had fifteen… twenty… ten more minutes, then he went into the house to check out one of their collections, and I took the kids home. Got them ready for bed, fixed them dinner, put them in front of the movie.
When he finally got home, he was mad at me for having locked the front door (the boy likes to sneak out if it’s unlocked) when I knew he didn’t have the keys. Then he got mad because I had cleaned up the mess that I told the girls they had to clean before they went swimming. Then he got mad again, though I don’t know why or at what.
Finally, he snapped, ”If this is the way it’s going to be now, why don’t you just leave? Take the kids and go!”
And so began our conversation.
We yelled. A lot. I yelled at him, ”You have got to be fucking kidding me. Don’t you dare stand in front of me and tell me such fucking bullshit. That is bullshit!” Rather interesting since anyone who knows me knows how infrequently I actually curse.
At one point (long before I yelled that), our six-year-old stepped into the room and stood between us. She lifted her hands in the air, and she said, ”Guys. guys. You are yelling. We can hear you.”
”We’re having an adult conversation,” I tried to explain, ”And we’re yelling because we can’t figure out how to get the other one to listen.”
”You need to stop talking at the same time,” she wisely advised. ”First, one of you talks, then the other one talks, then the other one talks, then the other one talks, and you keep going like that until everything has been said.”
I told him that his addictions have become so intense that I have grown to vehemently hate them. That there are twenty cigarettes in a box, and that every time he lights one, I feel as if he has had sex with another woman. Each box represents twenty different women that he has betrayed me with.
He said I knew he was a smoker when I married him, as if that means that I should accept that he’s going to do what he wants to do, regardless. He said he’s trying to quit smoking. I asked him what he’s doing to try to quit, and he repeated that he’s trying to quit. That’s not trying. That’s thinking.
He told me that my arguments about smoking are selfish, and I told him that his smoking was destroying our family. Our six-year-old was in the room then, and I pointed to her and demanded, ”Ask her. Ask her what she thinks about you smoking.”
He did.
”I’ve told you, Daddy.” She looked straight at him when she spoke, though she looked to me for permission. ”I don’t like it when you smoke. You always go outside, and you never come inside, and you smell bad. You stink. Smoking is dangerous. The cigarettes are going to kill you. I don’t want you to die, Daddy.”
Word of advice– never ask a child for their opinion unless you truly want it.
It took nearly five hours, but we finally got somewhat there.
He said he didn’t know before, but he knows now. He has two days to save our marriage.
He said he sabotages himself every time he goes after something that he wants, and that he could have had all of his wants by now if he hadn’t “cut himself off at the knees”. Then he said that everyone wants a part of him, and no one wants to help him. He said he lives in a constant, vicious cycle where he wants something, then he thinks he doesn’t deserve it, then he behaves in a way that he can’t get it, then he’s bitter because he didn’t get it, then he wants something else, then he thinks he doesn’t deserve it, et. al.
”I don’t want to leave,” I told him. I was calm by then. I’m a little alarmed by the fact that I didn’t cry throughout the conversation, though I hope it is simply because I am so ready to be done with this drama. I want my husband back, or I want to move forward without him. I’m tired of limbo.
”I don’t want to separate, and I don’t want to divorce you. But I have a responsibility to protect our children, and I cannot do that if you are going to do everything you can to destroy their security. They deserve to know that there will be food in the fridge. That someone will pick them up from school. That they will have a bed and a room and a house and a happy family.”
I told him, ”You have a problem. You have admitted you have a problem. Now you are either ready to seek help for that problem, or you are ready to lose your family. I do not want to leave you, but I will, and the children will come with me.”
He went to bed without any conclusion. He looked exhausted. I’m sure that beating yourself up for the past is an extremely tiring past time, and I’m sure that trying to come up with excuses as to why other people have wronged you to the point that you wronged yourself is even more tiring. He is sickened by all that he has done. He said he is weak and that he has been weak.
I so pray he will seek help. It is there, right there, ready and waiting for him. It’s so easy for him to access, if he just wants it.
I have no idea if he wants it.
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