Divorce.
When Jake was arrested for the first time in 2011, I felt like everyone automatically assumed that I was going to leave him. I am very sensitive to the expectations of others, so this tore me to pieces. I didn't want a divorce then. I wanted to hold my family together, solve the problems and heal the wounds. I wanted to shovel the shit into my garden to grow flowers. Apparently I'm an optimist.
Now, I'm in such a different place. I really want to leave. I look at all the damage that's been done and I'm ready to walk away. My soul feels bruised. I think about having a second chance away from here and it makes me smile.
But still, as much as I want to leave, I don't want to go through a divorce. I know in my mind and heart that this marriage is done, but I can't get myself to move forward. I've been using that d-word more often in conversation with certain people I trust, partially because I need to try the idea on and exercise it a little. For so long, I've cringed at the word that it is hard to turn around and embrace it. I even find myself trying to puzzle out a way to avoid a divorce . . . but that would be cowardly and downright dishonest to myself and my kids.
I've also realized that I'm scared of what Jake will do when he finds out. I've never seen him violent and I've never worried about it before, but suddenly I'm obsessing over whether the doors and windows are all locked at night. I reassure myself that he's wearing an ankle monitor, but then I lie awake thinking about how it would take him less than five minutes to get here while the police would likely take longer. My fears got bad enough that I called a family friend and asked that she remove the guns from my house (two pistols, a rifle, and a shotgun that all belonged to Jake, although I only ever saw him shoot the shotgun and then it was at prowling coyotes) just to limit the weapons that could be used in a moment of anger. I'm also thinking that I won't file for divorce until I'm physically out of our house and staying somewhere closer to the police than Jake.
I have lingering guilt, too, like I'm breaking my holy marriage vows. Sure, he broke them first, but I'm a "turn the other cheek" kind of girl. I never in a million years could have imagined that I'd be contemplating divorce. But here I am.
I see myself in this post. I am also contemplating divorce. I haven't told my husband. I wonder if I can file for an annulment. We were married a week and a half when the police showed up. It has been the hardest 4 weeks of my life and it's only the beginning. I worry about what he'll do when I tell him. Not that he will hurt me but that he would hurt himself. I did feel like I was betraying him. Leaving him when he needs me the most. But I just have to remember that he did this to himself. And just because our marriage is over it doesn't mean we still can't be friends. It doesn't mean I can't be there for him. I need that contact right now. I need to know he'll be ok.
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