A Long Time in Coming

It's  been 4 years since I've posted.  There's a lot of not-so-nice history in that gap, but also some very wonderful memories as my children started to enter adulthood.  I'll back-post down the road sometime.  Today is not that day. This morning I woke up at 4 am wondering what the day would bring.  Last night when I finally dropped off to sleep, it was under the burden of my husband's threat of suicide if I pursued a divorce.  Yes, it was ugly last night and this morning I am numb.  Not sad, for I grieved long ago for our failed marriage, just emotionally spent.  There was a dark period in my life as a teen when I considered suicide.  I've always remembered the loneliness amidst a sea of people.  I remember the feelings of worthlessness and wanting so desperately to feel loved and accepted...by anyone.   I see these same things in him.  The simple fix on his end would be for me to stay in an empty marriage, keep pretending that things are all right.  But I can't bear the cost anymore.  Next month we would have been married 29 years and there's nothing synergistic to show for it. I've had thoughts of shame for not being able to manufacture life into our relationship as I've jumped through hoop after hoop trying to do the right thing, to try to fill his void.   And I don't want to sound perfect for I know I share equally in the failure..but I have tried long and hard. I don't know where the shame comes from -- probably because I have always despised quitting.  And now here I am....almost an owner of just another statistic.

But that statistic will bring new hope for a different kind of life.  I will not take ownership of his decision, even though he manipulates me to feel it's in my hands.   I know it will be hell to clean up the pieces while putting my children back together.  All my sorrow is for them, learning to live with the fact that he didn't love them enough.   They've each individually struggled with that concept for most of their lives already, but now it's going to be forced home.   I'm okay that I was never enough of a wife to him, because eventually over time I began to realize that there would never be anyone enough.  No one good enough to trust, to share with, to be vulnerable to.  Somewhere in his history is a sad tale of why he doesn't let people in.  And maybe the cost of that is too much for him to bear as well.