I would like it if my blog was always reflecting the happiest parts of our lives as family. But just like all blogs, no family is perfect. And so, I will begin to enter some things into my blog pages that I have been holding back on.
I have been feeling very accomplished the last month. I am cleaning my house in slow but purposeful bursts. Why is this different from before? The difference is my spouse. He isnt here.
He is living out on his mother's farm for the summer, and possible for a very long time. I dont need to go into details to say that addiction and mental illness take their toll on even the most dedicated family. There are things that children should not have to live with in their lives and we have reached that point in our family.
I am sad. And yet I am happier than I have been in twenty-some years.
Life just feels... good. Content. Real.
I was putting so much on hold, holding out for DH to 'come around'. Some of that was my mistake in hoping for change where none was ever going to take place. Some of that was his mistake in never correcting that which was unacceptable for committed marital relationship and family with children. What I know is that life is easier now. And while I am, inside, excrutiatingly despondent about the loss of a traditional family, my family is functioning better now than it has in a very long time.
You simply cannot ignore the elephant in the room. And once you admit the elephant is there, you must decide if it should stay or not. This elephant was trampling our emotions, invading our physical selves, and...well, pooping all over the house. It had to go.
Not so easy when you consider that the elephant is not an elephant at all, but a real human person who has real feelings and needs. It only took me ten years to get to this point. Ten years, and lots of therapy. And a shift in my religious moral thinking.
It sucks. And nevertheless, I am feeling accomplished and proud right now. I have taken a life on hold and started it back up again. It shows in my house. It shows in the kids- who are feeling a new kind of freedom/lack of oppression. My yard is nicer; I am calmer and able to think more creatively. Yes, i still have the occasional pang of anxiety or depression, but even that is at the lowest levels in a decade or longer. Even my fibromyalgia pain is down to a managable roar. I am no longer drowning in my husband's forces.
I never thought it would feel like this. What I have selfishly wanted all these years of marital struggle is to have a whole and happy family. Instead I get a broken and happy family. That is preferable over the whole but depressed and anxiety ridden family that we had. But my efforts for so long have been to pray for healing.
Healing is not happening. Harm is coming to the children and myself. And so it is time to step away and find safety. This is what has happened, and the children and I truly do feel safer.
As my husband's behavior continues to become more and more destructive, I realize just how much I was covering for him. When I see him from a distance- not so closely enmeshed- I realize that he would willingly pull his children right down into the hell of despair with him. He will not do anything to help himself. He never would. For years I helped him, against his wishes. For years I tried to see change and progress, but what I was really seeing was him nodding at me with hatred and passive aggression, while I tried to make it seem like he was doing better.
Maybe I was wrong to try to help him grow. That was my wish, not his. Either way, he is rid of me and I am rid of him. I dont want that to sound so callous. I dont know how else to explain it.
So, I may be blogging a bit more about my personal accomplishments. I had believed over the years that I was helpless to do certain things. I bought into a lie. And now I am discovering how very much I AM capable of, and how healthy it feels and how the children are responding to the peace within our home as well.
And that is all I have to say about it for now. This is a weird blog. I feel conflicted knowing that this is not positive and happy news. And yet I feel positive and happy. I see contentment and ease in my children. So maybe a blog should reflect the positive. Good things can come from awful events. I will focus on that.
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