22 years is a long time. 26 years is a long time. Living in a difficult situation is a long time no matter how many years go by. But when you love someone and you're in a difficult situation with them, the time can pass by in strange ways. The years with Bill didn't seem like that many. But the day-in and day-out difficulties were there all the time. If they didn't remedy themselves, it would only be a matter of time before I either got steamrolled by Bill or the marriage blew up.
Bill and I were separated twice during our marriage, once in 1993 and again in 1996. The first separation was because he had been depressed, had gone to a shrink to get antidepressants, had been given something people with bipolar disorder shouldn't have, and shot up into the emotional stratosphere. It was then that the diagnosis was made. By his sister. She knew him better than I. The doctors had no trouble agreeing. The second time, the '96 one, was because of gambling.
It was during that second separation that I met and became friends with a woman, a co-worker, who had been married to a fellow in my church. He had turned out to be a liar and swindler who went so far as to forge documents and lie to people -----several from church---- to get them to 'invest' with him. People lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. He told his wife he worked in a special fraud division of a bank, and she was never to call him at work. Every morning she packed him a lunch and waved as he drove off to his job at the 'bank'. Then it all hit the fan and he was exposed for the fraud he was. She turned her back on him and left. It wasn't about whether or not she loved him; they had been sweethearts since high school. She needed to live a life she could endure.
During the '96 episode she said something that lived in my head until this divorce started. She said, "It's not about love. It's about making healthy choices."
It didn't make any sense to me at the time. And I made a choice to stay in the marriage until Laura grew up. But what she said kept repeating itself in my head.
love healthy choices love healthy choices love healthy choices
Why were the two mutually exclusive? Did they HAVE to be? Why couldn't I have love AND a healthy choice? The stubborn part of me couldn't accept that the two were not going to coexist in my world with Bill. Why couldn't marriage to someone I loved and who loved me back be healthy? Couldn't the craziness, the gambling, the reckless spending, the odd social behavior be excised? And I was hopeful. I thought that in time things would get better. Big misconception. He wasn't going to change THAT much. Some do. But not Bill.
I get a funny, uncomfortable feeling as I write this. I feel like I both expose my stupidity and shirk my responsibility for my part in the years wasted. And I am angry with myself for not 'hearing' what she said. She was/is wiser than I and she was far enough removed from my situation to see it for what it was. So I, with my limited perspective, kept on going, hoping against the odds that things would calm down and straighten out. I believed that life would BECOME healthy because there WAS love. One would create the other. Cause and effect.
It's only now that I 'get' what she said. Sometimes you can love someone and they can love you back, but life with them is not good for you. OH! Look who's growing up just in time to turn sixty.
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