If I had to put it in words to make it “Facebook official”, that’s how I’ve described our relationship status over the last year: it’s complicated.
Back Then
He was arrested on a Wednesday. Two days later, Friday, I called a lawyer to inquire about divorce options. The lawyer explained what I’d need in terms of paperwork to divide assets, how he’d handle everything involving signatures if I didn’t want to ever set foot in the prison. He gave me a ballpark price for everything, and I agreed to call him when the dust settled and I had the funds.
Spoiler alert: I never called that lawyer back.
I spent nearly two weeks writing about what happened, and my thoughts on what happened between us. After 12 days, I bailed him out. He offered to sleep on the couch when we got home. The next day, he asked what my plan was. I was honest when I told him that divorce was on the table and fixing is wasn’t even in the same room as that table until he could work on fixing himself.
The Now
These days, he’s not on the couch. He’s my husband on paper, and title. I refer to him online as my “quasihusband” sometimes because I don’t know what’s happening. I know he’s working on himself. A few weeks ago, after a several days of mulling it over in my head, I sat him down, and asked him about what happened. I needed to how it got as bad as it did, both for himself and between us. He needed a plan to prevent relapsing into the same unhealthy behaviors in the future.
Though we lay face to face and cheek to cheek
Stevie Nicks, “Talk to Me”
Our voices stray from the common ground where they could meet
The walls run high, to veil a swelling tear
Oh, let the walls burn down, set your secrets free
You can break their bounds, cause you’re safe with me
You can lose your doubt, cause you’ll find no danger not here
The biggest thing I told him was that I need his honesty in everything, even if he feels like it could upset me. Without that, it’s pointless. We’ve both read the “Outlander” book series a couple of times through, and we joke that the main takeaway from every book is “if these people FUCKING COMMUNICATED, they’d stay out of trouble”. It’s the same for us, we need to talk. Among other things, most of our problems boil down to me not feeling like I’m being heard, and him not speaking up.
Someday, I’d like to wear my wedding band again, or call him my husband and have it mean more than “the guy you married and lives in your house”. He gave up family to be with me 17 years ago, and a lot of time I feel as though I’m losing mine by being with him. I don’t want it to be for nothing. I want things to be better between us, but I don’t want to put in the work if it’s not a team effort.
Once we have a better idea how the next few months are going to pan out, we’ll know what paths we’ll be taking. There’s a long road ahead, and an imperial fuck-ton of work to in the meantime.
Get the bulldozers warmed up. We’ve got work to do.
