What's Going On?

If you are feeling desperate, alone or helpless, or know someone who is

call 1-800-273-TALK (8255) to talk to a counselor at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

On 15 July 2007, I asked my husband for a divorce.

We’d been intimate only a handful of times since I’d become pregnant with our son more than four years prior. I had my emotional and mental issues which I was committed to conquer, he had his, too, but his promises to seek help were far less enthusiastic.

While he took to the initial ultimatum of “Treat Yourself or Street Yourself,” his commitment waned and it took but a few months for me to realize that he was not invested his mental health, that moving along was my best option. I began a practical plan to move on: I saved money, devoted myself to my Ashtanga practice, threw myself into my work and my spirituality.

I wanted a clean break; to walk away without guilt or remorse, to be the better person. I found out in the short span of twelve hours that there would be no better person. We would both embody victor and victim, pain would override all logic and I would be burdened, time undefined, by both roles.

We can never know these things until they happen.

And they so rarely happen — no, wait: they happen so frequently but are so under-the-rug that we rarely hear of them, and so there are few frames of reference to guide us through what I declare the Single Most Excruciating and Life-Destroying Event of My Own — so much so that, given the opportunity, I’ve felt more often than not that I’d rather live forever in a loveless marriage than to experience it again.

I would turn back time. I would have stayed. It is not a reason, I know, to stay in a situation where one feels stifled, abused, neglected or disdained, but the aftermath is surreally horrifying, indescribable, heartbreaking.

I find myself with too many words, every one of them wrong, click/delete, click/delete, click/delete, my constant internal dialogue. I attempt to make sense of it and find the right in it and I weep sometimes from the cacophony.

I fear it will destroy me.

I asked for a divorce.

I’d done so a handful of times but was shot down by threats of, “My family is rich! I'll get the best counsellor and we'll take the Boy and there’s nothing you can do. Your poor, trashy family can’t – won’t – help you.” I resented it but he was right. My family is poor and by educational and demographic standards we are trash, generations deep in the lowest tax bracket. I couldn’t see a way out (his family is considerably more affluent than mine but make no mistake: they are of no pedigree, no better pigs than my own, with brighter lipstick, I know now), so I’d let it go.

I remained miserable. I remained sad, lonely and restrained by my husband’s scare tactics. I was finally validated by a good friend who’d been on vacation with us but left early, saying little more than, “I can’t stay, I have to leave but so do you. You need to find your courage and strength, take the Boy and get out of this marriage. It’s painful to watch you crumble.”

When we came home from vacation, I performed the usual post-holiday rituals: airing out the house, putting away clean clothes and laundering the dirty ones. I set out, like I did every night, two small dishes: one containing my medications and supplements and one containing his.

On the mornings he worked, he rose before the sun to make a thermos of tea, take a small breakfast of a muffin and follow it with the contents of his dish. When I awoke, I’d take mine and put the dishes aside to be refilled that evening. This ritual was performed without fail.

Sunday morning, I rose at 6AM for my weekly ashtanga practice in a small studio by the water. I devoted that day’s practice to the courage to say, “no more.” After, per ritual, I took a small breakfast and espresso with my fellow Ashtangis. This time I talked about my plan, and I parted with a flip, “see y’all, I’m off to ruin someone’s life,” in my usual sarcastic manner.

I am careful(er) now when I utter such inanities — I never know when they might be truer than I intend.

I got home to find he and The Boy puttering around, Sunday-morning-style. I asked to speak to him on the porch. Bolstered by the heat of my ujjayi pranayama, or ocean breath which fuels the rigor of ashtanga, I felt confident and clear-headed. I calmly said, “I’m done. I don’t want to be married to you anymore. I am not happy and neither are you. I have no plan, no idea where I’m going. I need to tell you now while I am brave enough that I mean it and no one — not you, nor your family nor your family’s money will stop me. If you wish, I will leave now, I can go to my sister’s or to Heather’s, but I leave that up to you.”

It should be said that we lived in a big house, an old bungalow built in the early ’20s with two spare bedrooms and our schedules were completely opposing. The idea of us staying under the same roof for a period was not outrageous in the least.

Surprisingly, he took a deep breath and said, “I agree. You’re miserable, I’m angry. I’m sick of arguing all the time, you want more from me than I have and I want the same from you. You don’t have to leave, I think you should stay in the bedroom since that’s where the Boy will search you out at night when he wakes up — I’ll move into the back guest room.”

He stood up and put his arms out to me, we embraced, kissed and thanked each other for the release.

I declare, without exaggeration, that this was one of the bigger moments of relief and joy in my life. I’d been prepared for a battle, and in his embrace I felt my shoulders relax and tears pour from my eyes; I realized then that I could not recall the last time in our marriage when I had felt relaxed in his arms. This is what words like bittersweet should be reserved for, a perfect description of that moment.

And so he climbed the stairs to the second floor and began the task of moving his necessities to the guest room. I followed him with fresh sheets, pillows freshly dry-cleaned and vacuum-sealed intended for guests. I helped him make a bed and set up his nightstand with a book he’d been reading about the Iroquoi and a spare alarm clock. I even put a framed photo of The Boy on the table so that he might feel more comfortable in his temporary setup, watched over by the person whom he’d declared “My One True Love,” which I’d never challenged or resented because I felt the same way.

The Boy had not been born, in my opinion, to further unify a marriage of two people but to give each individual a real purpose and recognize our higher callings. I can now safely say that I believe we were together only to make The Boy, we two spiritual orphans from shattered upbringings who wanted nothing more than to be feel and to be perceived as normal.

I asked if there was anything else I could do, he kissed my cheek and sadly told me, “no, love, you’ve done plenty and I’m so very sorry,” and I felt myself well-up some, so I quickly retreated and hopped down the stairs to find The Boy.

The afternoon ticked on, and he realized that he was to start driving a company van the next morning, the first day of his promotion to Apprentice Carpenter. He asked if I minded driving him to the shop to pick up the van. I said of course not, I was happy to, and we piled into the car, the three of us, and set off on the twenty-minute drive.

Shortly into the ride – I cannot recall the catalyst anymore – we began to bicker and finger-point. I wouldn’t remember it, possibly, if the Boy hadn’t pleaded from the backseat, “please, please stop fighting, Ma, Da, please, I can’t hear it anymore!” clapping his hands over his ears, kicking the back of my seat with his then-still-tiny feet. We were silent the remainder of the drive.

When we arrived at the shop, I asked if he wanted me to wait and he declined, saying, “g’on home, now, I’ll be right behind ya.” So we went. We got home without incident, The Boy and me, and there we waited for three long hours for his return. I tried not to be concerned. I kept my fingers away from the phone because what business was it of mine where he was? I doubted he’d been in an accident.

I thought he was likely having pints at the local, talking with his older brother or pub mates, catching a repeat of an Arsenal match. When he returned he did not smell of alcohol but of anger and resentment. It was imprinted in every footstep and syllable he laid down.

Something had changed, I couldn’t know what and it doesn’t matter. I felt as if I needed to give berth to the force-field surrounding him. I worried our time under the same roof would be painful.

And so begins the part where my discomfort flared and I became uncertain whether or not I had made the right decision. If I had made the right decision, was it prudent to stay in such a hostile environment? There were places to go: my sister’s, my best friend’s; countless others would have happily made a bed and welcomed us for the short-but-indefinite period I would need to procure a small flat for The Boy and me.

My credit was outstanding, I had a decent amount of money saved and it was the middle of the month, which gave us two whole weeks to find something suitable and clean – should I stay? I decided to stay the night, gauge the environment from now until tomorrow and make my decision in the morning.

The handlebars came off the Boy’s trike mid-ride and he called, “Ma! Da! My trike is broke!” and I hollered up to him upstairs, “hey, the handlebars came off the Boy’s trike, can you give a hand, please?”

No answer. But I heard the footsteps, heavy, across the upper floor and down the stairs; he walked determinedly toward me and opened the tool drawer in the utility room, pointed and said, “fix it yourself, you’re going to need to learn how to do these things anyway. Why not start now?”

Cutting, it was, but also true, so I grabbed an adjustable wrench and both types of screwdrivers. Lo, I fixed it in a minute. When I returned to the utility room to put the tools away, he announced, “I’ve taken all your Xanax.”

I’m sorry to say that my reaction was to laugh, for I realized this was, in fact, War. I said with a grin, appropriating his accent, “fat lotta good that’ll do ya. They make those pills for crazy people who want to die and you’d need ten times that many to do more than enjoy a good nap. Sleep tight!” as I turned heel and walked off, shaken but not visibly so.

I would not be rattled, I was determined, he was convincing me that my decision to leave was the right one, stocking my larder with his every word. It was early evening and time to eat, so I asked, “I’m fixing tea [dinner, in Irish, it's a whole other story] for The Boy, are you hungry?”

He replied, “Fuck you.”

I took that to mean no, and while he retreated back upstairs I set to preparing enough salads, vegetables and breaded chicken for the three of us in case he changed his mind. While I was cooking, the Boy was up and down the stairs, dividing his attention between the two of us and blissfully unaware of any unusual tension. There was constant tension, the Boy was sadly accustomed to it. I put the tea on the table, called for The Boy and we sat down in the sweltering dining room to eat our evening meal.

Within a few bites, he came down to the dining room where he took from the liquor cabinet a bottle of the Balvenie, 12-years aged, single malt and reserved for nips and toasts on special occasions. He poured nearly a pint of it, set it down to grasp the Boy’s face with both hands, kiss him on the head and said, “be a good boy for yer Ma now, eat all yer tea and don’t forget that your Da loves you best,” then picked up the glass without so much as a glance in my direction and went back upstairs.

A few minutes passed when the Boy put down his fork and said, earnestly, “Ma, is daddy really gonna shoot himself in the head with a gun?” My entire body flushed red and hot as I handed the phone to the Boy and said, “if you hear any loud noises, call 911 – only if you hear a loud noise, y’understand me?” He nodded, showing the first bit of fright I’d seen on his face that day.

I ran up the stairs and shouted his name. He did not answer; I found him crouched in his closet — as I said, our house was old and in the master bedroom were two full-sized walk-in closets — wearing only his trainers, a pair of Dickie’s shorts with a pair of red plaid boxers showing over the top.

In his hand, elbow bent and pointing upward, was a handgun I recognized as his grandfather’s service sidearm from WWI and I said, “Jaysus, what’re you doin’?! You scared the Boy half t’death, that piece o’shit doesn’t even work! This is pure melodrama, I won’t have it, I’m calling your brother.”

He replied, “do what ya will, y’always do – what th’fuck do I care, anyway? You’re ruining my life, tell whoever you want, it doesn’t fucking matter anymore.”

I steadied my breath before returning to the dining room, assuring the Boy that all was well, Daddy was a bit drunk and sad but that no, he was not going to shoot himself. I grasped his face in the same manner his father had shortly before, kissing his baby lips, then I took the phone out on the back deck and called his brother, explaining the situation and asking him to please come over, I could not handle keeping the Boy ignorant and calming down his brother at the same time.

Exasperated, he said, “what the fuck?! That old thing? It doesn’t even work, does it?” and I told him, of course it didn’t work, I wouldn’t have allowed it in the house had it been operable.” He said, “of course, you’re right, I’m sorry he’s such a handful, I’ll be right over.” Again I took my place at the table and it wasn’t five minutes later that we heard the unmistakable sound of a gun being fired directly above our heads.

I leapt from my chair, grabbed the Boy and both phones and ran, full-speed out the front door, shutting it behind me and sitting on the top step.

Shaking, I called 911 and asked, “can someone come quickly, my husband just shot himself, no I didn’t know he had a gun, well, I knew he did but I didn’t think it worked, yes, we’d been arguing, we were planning a separation would someone please come?!?” The Boy sat calmly next to me, wide-eyed, not saying a word (it may be the quietest he’s ever been while awake).

We were clad in little more than underwear: I hadn’t changed out of my yoga clothes, so I sat on our steps in little more than glorified boy-shorts and a sports bra; the Boy wore nothing but a pair of underpants. I phoned my brother-in-law; he did not answer. I called his wife and told her, hysterically, what was happening. She stayed on the phone with me until I felt the door open behind me, revealing the Husband as I’d seen him upstairs.

Shocked, I told my sister-in-law that he was, actually, alive and standing right behind me and she said, “oh, thank g-d, I will phone D and tell him to hustle.”

He was grinning so drunkenly, it was frightening, but I was furious. My anger overrode my fear as I screamed, “what the fuck is your problem? What are you doing?”

He replied, “Jes shootin’ the place up, baby.”

I told him that I thought he was dead, that he’d killed himself and the police were on their way and so was his brother and at that point the Boy said, “Da! Can I see your gun again?” and when I looked to my right I saw, level with my head, the pistol that was, indeed, quite operable. Without answering the Boy’s question he asked, “Ya ready t’go now?”