Where I Stand

A quick update:

After a few good weeks at work where James was hitting numbers and having success, they changed the call metrics and it’s gotten hard again. I have no idea if they did it on purpose because he’s difficult or if this is just how they operate. What I do know is that we’re back to several hours of ranting about how the world is out to get him. Every night. We literally hold our collective breath when the garage door opens, and duck behind walls while we try to gauge what is coming through the door.

He’s also turned absolutely surly. I finally got my wedding ring back on after months of eczema, but he quit wearing his. He can’t be in the room with me for five minutes without a nasty, mean-spiriting, usually false barb. I feel like I’m alone on a field with arrows coming from every direction…and no shield.

I finally snapped the other night and pointed out that he has had the same problems with every job he’s ever had. I asked if there was, possibly, a job that he would NOT complain about, because I don’t think it exists. His problems are an aversion to hard work and authority, and profound selfishness. He wants to lie around on the couch and watch You Tube and play the kids’ video games. In his underwear. Because this is what he does on the rare occasion that he’s home with the kids, this is what he assumes I must do all day. And because he can’t see anything that doesn’t agree with his worldview, he hates me for the hypothetical life he believes I must be living.

Today he told Violet she was the only thing that makes him happy…after nearly making her cry because he mocked her joke. (Her jokes are terrible…but she’s FIVE.) Now, no one is responsible for another person’s happiness, and a five-year-old certainly doesn’t need to pick up that burden for an adult. Then he said Caleb makes him happy sometimes, and Eli makes him happy occasionally. Did I mention that Eli tells the counselor his dad hates him? That could be why.

I am not the fantasy woman that he has created in his mind, so I will never make him happy, although that didn’t keep me from trying for a long time. I think he realizes that he’s made a critical error and pretty much lost me, so he’s going to reject me with as much force as possible.

I’m surprised by how much it still hurts.

The thing is, if he’d just be honest and make an effort, I’d give him another chance. But he probably never will. The situation is impossible, and I’ll put it out here so that when God works a miracle, I can remember just how miraculous it is:

My husband is chronically un- or underemployed. He cannot hold a job for any amount of time. He’s planning to quit this one in two weeks.

He has a significant mental illness that is clearly spiraling. I don’t feel safe leaving the kids with him. I know his behavior is taking a terrible toll just by being present.

He won’t leave.

He won’t help with the kids or the house, but I know he’ll fight me tooth and nail for custody because that’s how he can hurt me.

I can’t fathom leaving them overnight with a man who has never, ever gotten up with a kid at night. He flat out refuses, often with a lot of cussing.

I’ve been told by two lawyers that the family court system feels a really bad parent is better than no parent, and they’ll award split custody regardless of evidence of emotional and verbal abuse. Even with counselor testimonies.

At this point, I’m convinced he’s capable of anything, and I’m terrified that I’ll get my kids back from a parent visit in a body bag. I’ve decided if that’s going to happen, I’m going to be in a body bag, too. So I have to stay.

He continues to spiral into a hell of his own choosing. He wants people to validate his own tremendous selfishness. No one will. So he gets angrier and angrier.

We live in constant anxiety. My left eyelid twitches almost all the time. My skin itches. I’m gaining belly fat in spite of eating less and working out. I suspect this is all stress-related.  My hairline is getting thin. Stress causes hair loss, too.

God has given me good, well-paying work to do, but we can’t live off it. I am constantly torn between paying work and being with the kids, which is the most important thing I can do.

And yet, the kids are learning. They’re asking big questions about God and relationships. They’re making progress in everything they do. If I look back over the past two years, I’ve grown tremendously in my faith. God has retrained some old instincts and I’m slowly learning to respond by running to God first…instead of freaking out. God has provided financially in spite of my husband’s work ethic. I am learning who God says I am and my heart is being changed.

But I also don’t know if I’ll live through another month of this. I’ve been broken again and again and it hurts too much to even dream. Hope is an extravagance I can’t spare, but it just won’t go away.

So there it is. I don’t know what the answer is. I keep asking God if there’s something I’m missing. If I’m guilty of putting his power in a box. If I’m somehow sinning and blocking what He wants to do in my life.

I don’t know. And I just want to go to sleep.

Grieving

So I just popped onto Facebook, in the spirit of procrastinating.

I’m good at that.

I discovered a post from another colleague from my master’s degree program, a colleague who has already published a darn good fiction book. He was promoting the release of a book by a different author. I glanced at her name, the details he provided, and quickly suspected it was another student from that same program. A quick search on Amazon confirmed: North side of Chicago, the beautiful girl with the amazing proposal story and equally amazing ring, the one who came from money, who bought her own condo on a teacher’s salary when I was struggling to pay rent, the one with the custom-made purse from a boutique in Chicago that I was, admittedly, jealous of for YEARS. Yes, that one.

Jealousy sucks, friends.

It might be more than jealousy in my case. Yes, it’s hard for me to understand why she was earmarked to enjoy the same things I do, but who was also given the bank account to do it. Why she was devoted to have a good time and got to continue doing so, while I devoted years to service and got to be someone’s slave. Why do I have these desires, if they’ll never be realized?

That just sounds frivolous and materialistic, but there’s another layer in my heart. Why did she get earmarked for good love, for a community that cares for her, and I apparently get decades of abuse? Why does she get to realize her dream, while I’m here trapped by a family court system without a heart or a brain and years of wasted potential?

I was right there with her…my writing was lauded and encouraged in the program. Why do I get to be the failure?

And then, I peel back another layer of the onion. At the core, I’m really mourning the loss of my youth. Of the good years of my life, of the potential…of joy. Truly admitting what is happening in my marriage means accepting tremendous loss. Tremendous waste. Almost 15 year now…in the dumpster.

Where would I be if my spouse encouraged me instead of mocking me? Where would I be if I had a partner in parenting? Where would I be if someone spoke God’s love into my life, instead of hurt?

Was there a way to learn what I know about God without the pain of the last fourteen years? Maybe not.

But if so, why was I earmarked to be unloved, unseen, and unremarkable? Why was my potential wasted and hers was fulfilled?

Of course, midway down this incredibly unproductive road, something stops me. When you live with a narcissist, even self-pity is difficult. It’s the cornerstone of the narc’s very existence, and one of my great fears is adopting the traits I despise in him.

But still, at the end of the day, I’m grieving. I’m grieving the experience of having real, good love. If I ever manage to extricate myself from this, I realize the likelihood of dying single is quite high. I have to be OK with that.

I’m grieving the girl I was, and the youth I wasted on a man who couldn’t even appreciate what he was given.

I’m grieving the chance the grow old with someone who looks over and still sees the girl I once was, wrinkles and grey hair and all.

I’m grieving the family I wanted to build, and the life I hoped for. I’m grieving the freedom I handed over for a diamond ring.

I’m grieving the childhood I hoped my children would have, and their chances of growing up healthy and whole. I’m grieving the life I might have had, if I’d made better choices.

It’s a lot of loss for one person to process, and I’m not there yet.

In this month of Thanksgiving, I should write a companion blog post about how God has been faithful in spite of the crap. About how I’ve had breakthroughs in the past two years that I never thought possible. About the growth that’s occurred. About how I’ve changed.

But right now, I just want to grieve. Is that OK?