It Hurts

I think of it like this: it's hard to do what needs to be done.  Like, re-setting a bone that has started to heal improperly.  It's gonna hurt like a booger and set you back a while as it heals properly, but it's the thing that needs to be done.  Well, that is, if you actually want to heal to your full potential and stop limping through life.

Ouch. It hurts.

I signed the divorce papers yesterday.  I woke up Tuesday morning (yesterday, of course) and knew what had to be done.  Just like that.  Before my feet even hit the floor, I knew.  This was in stark contrast to Sunday (two days before yesterday, of course), when my heart ached to have him near, to enjoy the honeymoon stage that this vicious cycle goes through, and forget that the top of the wheel is where life falls apart in one of his outbursts of calm, cool, deliberate and damaging punishment.  Sunday night I called her, my friend that's not my friend, and asked those questions my heart longed to hear good answers to: has he really changed?  Is he dangerous?  Is he different?

And Monday (the day before yesterday, of course), I could barely hold myself together.  At work, a patient came in to the office, smiled at me and politely asked, "How are you today?"  The normal response would be, "I'm fine, how are you?"  But oh no, far be it from me to be anything close to normal.  I simply looked at her and started to cry.  I had sucked it up too many times, for too many patients, the tears wouldn't stay in; cursed tears.

Oh, how it hurts.

Yes, Monday (the day before yesterday, of course, of course), I was an emotional, exhausted, held-together-barely-by-duct-tape-type of mess.  And I missed him, oh how I missed him.

I pushed the emotions to the side, like separating the food on your plate so the salad dressing doesn't touch the rest of the edibles and make the flavors meld in an un-tasteful (i.e.yucky) way. Yes, to the side went the emotions, as I searched diligently for the "logic" switch that had been eluding me for several days.  Finally, I found it.
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On came Logic, sneering at Emotions, and the facts were examined, again, and though Emotions ached for things to be different, the verdict did not change.  Guilty as charged.

Emotions screamed out, "But I love him!  He can change, I KNOW he can!"

And Logic replied, "It's been nearly 18 years now, how much longer will you waste your time?  You know he won't change unless you leave him.  He's too complacent, too selfish, you know you can't make him change; you can't make a blind man see."

Oh, poor Emotions, they knew Logic was correct.  "But," they retaliated, "I don't want the children to grow up without a father!"  (Emotions thought she could fool Logic with this one, because she had in years past.)

"Oh, but they already have," Logic rebuked.  "Look how much damage he has caused them.  More than he even dares to recognize, more than he'll ever admit, more than he can bare.  Neglect is the worse form of abuse, they say, and besides demoralizing his son and neglecting his daughters, he has put bruises on every single one of them; every single one.  Physical bruises, of course, but much deeper and painful emotional bruises that have yet to heal.  They fear him.  An unhealthy, trauma-causing fear.  And face it Emotions, you fear him, too."

Oh, how Emotions can't stand Logic.
 
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Too many times I have let emotions win, and look at what it's got me.  Look at what it's done to my children.  Look at what it's done to me.  The counselor tells me I need to forgive myself.  And she's right.  But I don't know that I can.  I tried to stand up for my children, for myself, but I didn't do a good enough job. Once again, I wasn't good enough.  I wasn't good enough for him, and now, a failure at a mother's task, I wasn't good enough for myself.  I tried to compensate for his lack of parenting, I tried to be an extra good mother.  But, good mothers don't let their children get hurt.  Especially by their fathers.  Or so I tell myself.

I wanted to love him good; God knows it's true.  I wanted to love him with everything I had, and that's just what I did...to my own detriment.  I poured out love, sweat, and tears for years and years into a bucket with holes, a sink with no stopper, a bottomless pit.  I gave 'till it hurt, and then I gave some more.  I thought that was love: sacrifice.  I covered for his sins, covered bruises on children, covered scars on my heart.  I covered and covered and covered.  I should have exposed.  I know that now.  My bad.

Regret.  Pain.  It hurts.

When you love someone, you don't let them continue on their path of destruction.  You stop them, warn them, help them get back on the right track.  It's the kindest, most loving thing to do. 

And that's why I signed the papers.  Because I do love him.  And for too long I have covered when I should have exposed.  I should have gone to others when the concern I raised to his parents fell on deaf ears.  I should have been braver, wiser.  I should have listened to my instinct that told me to leave that first week we were married.  The second year.  The fifth. The seventh.  And every year after that all the way up to seventeen.

His family calls me vindictive.  I know vindictive, I even attempted to dress up in it and try it on for size.  It didn't fit.  Part of me wanted it to fit, but it just wasn't "me."  It hurts to be called something you're not, but, I suppose I understand.  A small part of me wants to say, "Oh yeah?  You want to see vindictive, I'll show you vindictive!"  But then, it falls flat, and I'm glad, because wearing someone else's ill fitting clothes is never attractive or fun.

Yes, it still hurts.

But, his family is the least of my worries.  I have my children to think about, as they struggle through, so angry at him for doing the things he's done.  They see what he cannot; that he is abusive.  He doesn't see the PTSD he's caused them, the deep rooted issues that I, alone, after counseling sessions and throughout the days and weeks, have to deal with.  He doesn't feel their pain or hold them when they awake in fear that he's coming for them with a gun in his hand.  He has burned what little bridges he's had with them.  It hurts my heart to see it happen. Why couldn't he have just listened to me when I read the warning signs to him before?  Damn you!  Why didn't you just listen to what I had to say?

Once again, I pay the price for his sin.  I try to put the pieces of little broken lives back together, while exhausted and carrying my own bundle of pain, tears, and hurts.  Once again I clean up his mess.  I get angry.  And, it hurts.

All the divorces I've known have been two people hating each other and wanting the other to suffer.  Not I.  I signed the papers and wanted to attach an apology note saying, "I'm so sorry.  I know this hurts, and I don't want to hurt you; it hurts me, too.  But, you need to change. I can't make you change. You need to see the darkness that is rooted inside of you, and put it to death.  Until it is dead and long, long gone, this marriage cannot work, nor can you be a good, safe father.  P.S. Let's get back together once you slay the beast."

I'm sure my lawyer would find this completely absurd.  Already she thinks I am being "too nice."  Too nice.  Tooooo nice.  Sigh.

Make it stop.  It hurts.

I wish it all would work out.  Oh, how I wish it would.  But I can't control that.  I can't control him.  I can't control anything.  And I accept that.

In the mean time, it hurts.  I hurt.

But.

I've hurt for a long time.

A long, long, looooong time.

At least this time, there is hope for change. Paradoxical.  Ironic.  But here it is.

The papers are signed.

It hurts.