I look out the window and it looks beautiful but I know if I go outside it is cold. Maybe I could look at my marriage like that. Looking at other couples it seemed if they had all the answers, but when others looked at my marriage what they saw was disaster. So maybe I should have turned mine inside out....My husband killed himself and I do not know why. Yes he was an alcoholic but he and I had several discussion on happiness. And believe or not we were happy as long as both of us were sober. It is true it was him that needed to be sober because I haven't been drunk in years. After seeing him destroy himself a little at a time I lost my taste for drinking. I do socially drink but it is a very small amount...I just have that picture of him passed out on the couch or floor and all good times go out the window. Anyway back to the happy guy I married and loved. He had a great sense of humor and found most everything in life to have a funny side. I guess that is what we most had in common. Of course the obvious Harleys, books, movies and just having a good time. We spent a lot of time together just him and I just laughing at the TV or movie and especially we loved to people watch. It was one of our favorite things to say to each other "Did you see that guy or girl and what the hell were they doing?" And being the age we both were we had plenty to say about the state of the world. But the most important thing about us was we went thorough a lot of things together...my mother passing on Christmas Eve, his mother passing, his 24 yr. old niece dying of the swine flu and of course his and mine broken bones. I had a broken ankle , broken hand and had a couple of hand surgeries due to cysts. Due to a motorcycle wreck he broke every bone in his leg in between knee and ankle. Also during some of his binge drinking he broke his shoulder and fell off the back porch a year ago Christmas Eve. In the rough times we took care of each other and all it took was one of us reaching out to touch each others hand to know the love was still there just underneath a lot of stuff. So to all you married people out there even if on the outside your marriage looks like a disaster maybe you should dig and find out why you married each other.
After each drinking binge we would have the stop drinking discussion. Sometimes a calm talk. Sometimes not. But I truly do not think he was unhappy in our marriage, I think he was so unhappy with the world he could not see how to dig himself out of the hell hole he was in.
In my mind I always see him crying as my daughter was driving out of the driveway with me on the way to Montana. My last ditch attempt to see he had to get help. I had left him with a lot of choices that he could do. VA programs, Kaiser programs, AA programs. Made sure people would help him after I moved. In my mind I thought I could force his hand. But I was so wrong I do not know if I will ever will be able to think about myself the way I used to. Everyone says it was not my fault and I do know that. But I have to live with myself knowing in my heart he was not strong enough to be left. I fought with myself for years knowing he was not strong enough but I wasn't either. So I have to find in myself what I can live with and go with that. I have to answer the question for myself. Did I do the right thing? I will never know but I do know I had to do it. Just like you know you have to do something you do not want to do but have to. Survival. Plain and simple. Scars that will heal I hope but never be gone.
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