What just happened has actually been looming for a good few
years. What just happened has made my life pretty much hell. It's a bad dream that doesn't wash off with a splash of cold water to the face, a bad dream with a villain on a mission to destroy me.
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| FLOAT, by Beth Hoeckel |
Do Us Part? Tip #1: Trust that Gut Instinct, Girl.
Dude, we’ll call him, was. Checked. Out. Locked behind the passwords on his cell
phone and computer, shut behind the closed door of his office, away on another
business trip that had, you're not going to believe this, just sprung up. He was not at the dinner table or the parent
teacher conferences, and he was definitely not on the other side of the bed.
Dude's issues seeped in and the next thing I knew I was standing in them knee deep. Waist deep. Up to my chin. At first, I accepted lies as truth, shook my head, strange. Things didn't feel right, look right, smell right. Our joint bank account didn't add up. Without any warning, it was mine alone.
Too late, I questioned truths for lies. Dude morphed. He became scary, embarrassing, verbally and physically abusive. When he withdrew, I gave him space. I pandered to this monster's needs and demands. If I brought up my areas of concern or attempted to help problem solve, I was ridiculed. Most sadly, I accepted his insults and slander directed at me and I said that I was sorry.
The man I had married was gone. Dude was a cliff falling into the ocean in a violent, slow motion collapse.
Too late, I questioned truths for lies. Dude morphed. He became scary, embarrassing, verbally and physically abusive. When he withdrew, I gave him space. I pandered to this monster's needs and demands. If I brought up my areas of concern or attempted to help problem solve, I was ridiculed. Most sadly, I accepted his insults and slander directed at me and I said that I was sorry.
The man I had married was gone. Dude was a cliff falling into the ocean in a violent, slow motion collapse.
In survival mode at last, I began to step away, just back away, from the edge, slowly, slowly now, to protect
myself. I couldn’t afford to get caught in his midlife crisis fall, his midlife crisis fail. Our daughters needed me.
If my
portrait had been painted during this time, I would be clasping my hands, three daughters wrapped, intertwined around me. I'm afraid I'd be staring into space, staring
though the ghost of Dude, wondering where he’d gone. And on a table to my side,
the pieces of a puzzle that were supposed to depict our marriage and a family, but wouldn’t fit together.
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