The Last Decade: 2004, part one

As I look back on my life over the past decade, I don’t recognize the woman I was 10 years ago: scared, unconscious, trapped. The past decade contained a series of events and mini-awakenings that have led me here. I know I am not fully conscious … yet. But unlike 10 years ago, I can imagine the fulfilled, happy, awakened woman I will be at the turn of the next decade. In an exercise that is almost purely selfish, in the next several posts I’ll be taking a snapshot-heavy look back and where I was each year during the past 10 years, and what my major achievements and losses were. It’s the losses, I believe, that move us forward the most.

2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004-1, 2004-2, 2004-3, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009

2004: Separation, counseling, liberation

January

Saturday night. Four days before my husband, daughter and I were scheduled to travel across the country to Atlanta by plane, then spend five hours in a car driving to a small beach town, my husband turned off Trading Spaces and stood in front of me.

“I don’t love you anymore,” he started. He is a big man, 6-2 and at that time about 245. And he was shaking like a leaf. I sat on our beige couch, my Entertainment Weekly open on my lap. “I am going to my sister’s house to stay for a few days. I’ll come get Lauren for an overnight in a couple of days. We’ll have to figure things out.”

I remember being stunned. A sense of un-reality enveloped me. Time sped by and stood still simultaneously. My mouth went dry. I tried to speak, but my tongue wouldn’t cooperate. I looked at the tawny-painted walls, the charcoal textured carpet, the fireplace, the blank stare of the TV.

“This has been coming for a long time,” he said, standing in front of me.

I had come home a few nights earlier to find he had rearranged the living room without even consulting me. It was astounding, like a slap in the face. We had always decided everything together. And now this.

“I want a divorce,” he said. It was 10:30 pm.

I only remember crying, and breathing, then driving. My car, with its fast engine and safe airbags and loud stereo, was my haven. I didn’t think about Lauren. I just left, and drove. I did not have a single friend I felt I could call in the middle of the night. My mom would try to fix it, or tell me it was my fault. My sister and I were not close. My brother was as emotionally distant as he was physically absent in LA. So I drove. And then, the sun was coming up, and I was in the parking lot of Mile Hi Church. Our church, a slightly weird, New Age church that most first-time observers said reminded them of a space ship.  I wandered in to the 8 am service. Sat, sobbing quietly among 500 strangers. People to my right and left offered me tissue. Then a woman behind me said my name.

She was a member of my organization’s board of directors. Molly led me out of the sanctuary and to a small office. She told me about her divorce, and how she felt, and how she got through it.

“You will get through this,” she said. “It’s going to hurt like hell, but you will get through.”

I was numb and burning at the same time. And just around the corner from the pain was small glimmer of YES! that made me ashamed.

I called my friend Jennifer and drove to her house in the foothills. We talked for several hours, then I went home. My husband had a bag packed. He left, and I cried again. Lauren did not understand. She was 2 and a half.

I went to work and tried to hold it together. My colleagues and employers had been very understanding of me for the past six months, with my injuries and grief about Duncan and scare with my mother’s heart. And they were kind to me that week.

I didn’t want to lose the money we’d invested in our trip, so I said I’d take Lauren alone. My husband agreed to go, somewhat cowed by living with his sister and her family for a few days. We barely talked on that trip, then the second night, wound up making love more passionately than we had in years. The neutral venue and the fact that pressure had been released made me cling to him. And then, the next morning, he was back to being a bully, calling me names, telling me in so many words and actions that I was a horrible mother.

When we got home, he went back to his sister’s. A week later, I’d been to church every chance I could get. I was seeing a pastoral counselor, doing affirmations, meditating. As much as I missed my husband–the idea of him, if nothing else–I also felt a huge sense of relief under the hurt and mild terror. I began wondering if his pulling the plug on us was a blessing for me.

Then, he came back. With flowers. And apologies. He said he wanted to work it out. I was stunned, and angry. I told him we needed to go to counseling, and for the first time ever, he agreed. I let him come home, but I moved into the guest bedroom. At night I would lay in my bed–the double bed I grew up sleeping in–and think about what life would be like without him. I was terrified that I could not make it financially. I made decent part-time money, but he was the main breadwinner. There was no way I could afford our house on my own. I stayed up late on my computer doing spreadsheet after spreadsheet, trying to make the numbers work.

February

In the middle of February, after our second marriage counseling session, I attended a weekend retreat called the Inner Child Journey at Mile Hi. Based on the work of John Bradshaw, the weekend was set up to introduce you to your wounded inner kid and help her down the road to healing. It changed everything for me. Everything.

I had several realizations during that weekend:

• I did not believe I was good enough for God, and had always felt like I was on the outside looking in when it came to having a spiritual life.
• I had never had a soft place to fall–a place where I could completely be myself and fall apart and still feel safe.
• My marriage was over, but it wasn’t done. Over and over I heard the saying: “When it’s done, it’s done, but it’s not done until it’s done.”

We did a lot of small group work that weekend. My best friend Laurel was in my group. We clicked instantly. She was my other epiphany. I did not know it then, but I know now that I could not have survived the coming two years without her. We are so alike that I hardly had to explain anything, and yet when I did (and I did) she listened so intently and didn’t try to fix it. We laughed and cried together (and still do).

On the second day, I came home to find my husband had painted the kitchen and was working on the living room. The year before, I had painstakingly painted a beautiful faux finish in the kitchen (I’d taken classes and done two paid jobs) and a color-block treatment in the living room. These were expressions of my art, and his painting over them without even mentioning it to me felt like a last straw. We screamed at each other with Lauren standing between us in the office. She clung to my leg, then to his. I have only been that furious a few times in my life. My words were scathing.

I went back to my workshop on Sunday morning, unsettled and devastated. The weekend was meant to be transformative, but we were not supposed to make drastic changes in our lives for 30 days. I made a pact to sit tight.

My husband and I went to counseling, which felt useless to me. I bit my tongue, watching the calendar go by. At one session, the counselor asked us to write down three things we wanted the other person to do for us to show love and a commitment to working things out. I asked my husband to give me a love note or romantic card, to kiss me without insinuating the kiss would lead to sex and to surprise me with flowers. He asked me to unload the dishwasher, give Lauren a bath and clean the cat box. Over the next week, I did all he asked. He did nothing. It told me all I needed to know. If I stayed, nothing would change

March

We had a counseling session one month to the day after the Inner Child Journey. As soon as we sat on the couch, I pulled a round throw pillow into my lap as if it could protect me. I listened to him make excuses for why he couldn’t do anything I needed to feel loved, even over a week, as I stared through the blinds at a high-rise apartment building. I wondered how much rent was, if I could have a grill on the balcony, if they accepted cats. When he finished speaking, I took a deep breath and looked at him.

“S, I am done with this marriage. I cannot imagine ever having sex with you again. I do not want to be with you any more. I want a divorce,” I said. My voice was strong and clear. I was never more certain of anything in my life.

Our counselor helped him through his shock. The bully for once was not getting his way. We began talking about how to dismantle our lives, and agreed  to meet for lunch at California Pizza Kitchen at Cherry Creek Mall. Neither of us wanted the house. Neither of us wanted the other to have the house. I couldn’t afford to rent a place and pay the mortgage. By the time he arrived at the restaurant, I had the solution:

He would move into an apartment. I would move in with my parents. We would split custody of Lauren 50/50. And we would sell the house.

It all seemed so simple. And I felt on the verge of a freedom I’d never experienced before.