Husband

I sat on the kitchen floor, screwing on the 20th light cover as my hands throbbed. It had been one of the few tasks my husband had been responsible for since starting our renovation, and he'd once again neglected his responsibilities. It was in that moment that I looked around our beautiful heritage house, and realized that no matter how pretty we made it, it would never be a home. In fact, no house would ever be a home as long as we were together. "No, go away, you're not welcome here," I whispered, as I felt the depression return, fueled by my terrible marriage. "I just got better, please don't take hold of me again." But it had, after realizing that I no longer loved my husband, not even a morsel.

He'd been completely unsupportive through my illness, and now here I was in a new house, and once again left holding all the pieces. Cook, banker, entertainer, cleaner, planner, teacher, and now renovator added to the list. We were now the couple that sat at the dinner table in complete silence, only speaking when one of us needed the salt. Could I live like this for the next 50 years of my life? I knew the answer, but then I was reminded how trapped I was, forced to listen to yet another sermon on marriage.

Being married to a jerk had never been enough for a wife to leave. Neither was being strangled on the stairs, as my close friend had been by her new husband while her four year old son watched. Neither was being repeatedly raped and beaten by one's husband, as my best friend's mom was. Then there was me, never beaten, raped or strangled, but emotionally neglected, while forced to tolerate my husband's ongoing insults due to the extra weight I'd gained from the medication I'd been on the past year.

"Hi belly," he said, wrapping his arms around my stomach, as I stood at the stove making dinner. Then as I got out of the shower, he looked me up and down, and said "Maybe you should go to the gym." My looks had always been extremely important to me, due to me being raised by a mother who'd been hyper focused on them my whole life. She thought I was the most gorgeous thing she'd ever seen, which had been flattering, but had also come with immense pressure to look a certain way. I spent hours doing my hair and make-up, while continually putting myself on a diet in order to maintain my skinniness, that bordered an eating disorder. Now, no matter how much I exercised, or how little I ate, the weight I'd gained refused to detach from my body. I knew that if I went off the medication I'd likely lose the weight, but then I was scared it might be too soon, as a dark cloud continued to hover above me, ready to engulf me at any moment.

I knew I couldn't talk about my unhappiness to anyone in the religion, as I'd tried that once, having confided in one of my close friends about my marriage. You would have thought I'd just confessed to murder by the look on her face. Three days later, we had two leaders from the church show up, pretending to stop by for a random visit. They'd gotten nothing from me or my husband, as we'd been good at pretending too. But then one day, while out with my coworker on a client call, I found myself pouring my heart out in the car. I'd expected him to be empathetic, as he'd become one of my good friends, but what I hadn't expected was a look of horror after I'd finished sharing my stories. "Okay, you're probably not going to want to hear this, but your husband is abusive. Sure, he may not hit you, but the fact that you are constantly walking on cracked eggshells, and having to deal with his degrading comments is abuse. Period." His words had been shocking to hear, so I wrapped his words in skepticism to make myself feel better "Look, I can see you don't believe me, so I'm going to give you a book to read on that exact topic. Read it, and then tell me if you're in an abusive relationship or not."

The next day I took the book, tucking it under the mattress so my husband wouldn't find it. Within it were horrific stories of abuse, some too hard to read, but then tucked between those ones were stories just like mine. Unsupportive partners, insulting partners, angry partners...okay, so maybe I was in an abusive relationship after all, but what was I going to do about it when I was in a religion that would never see it that way. If I left, I'd be forced to wear a scarlet letter just as my mom had when she'd left my dad, and I wasn't sure I was emotionally strong enough to face that. And yet if I stayed, I wasn't sure I'd survive another year either. I'd never felt so trapped in my life, and the conversation with my co-worker hadn't helped, with it only magnifying the situation.

"Love, what's wrong?" My dad asked, having shown up for an impromptu visit. I attempted to suck in my despair, but it was oozing out of me. "I can't live like this anymore, I'd rather die than be married!" He pulled me in for a hug, as I gasped for air between sobs. I hadn't cried this hard since finding Mom dead.

"Shhh, it's okay," he said, rubbing my back. "I should have never let you marry him, and I can tell it's been really hard on you." Then he said the words that were about to release me from my turmoil. "If you want to leave him, then I support your decision."

My tears subsided as I pulled back to study his face. Had I heard him correctly? Leave? What? Dad had recently returned to his role as leader within the church, and was fully aware of the church's stance on separation and divorce, and was supposed to enforce it. Plus, he was in a terrible marriage himself, and yet I didn't see him trying to leave. Why was it okay for me and not for him? Was it because I'd used the word die? I had so many questions, but I was too tired to ask them, and too focused on what I needed to do next before I lost the courage. "Yes, I need to leave him," I said.

After 10 years together, I wasn't sure what our break-up would even look like. Would he cry, scream, throw furniture around, call his family for reinforcement, or even worse call the leaders of the church to come over? I'd had 10 minutes to come up with a speech before he walked through the door, and decided to go the route of, "I don't hate you, and I don't think you hate me, but we definitely shouldn't be together, as neither of us are happy." I waited for a reaction but there wasn't one. Instead he said, "So, I'm assuming you'll be taking your car with you then?" After answering yes, I went upstairs to pack a few things in a duffle bag, and when I came down, there he was on the phone, making a call to the parts department, enquiring about a piece for his Jeep.

"Well, I'm leaving now," I said, lingering at the front door. He turned, gave me a nod and returned to his phone call. It was clear there was going to be no fighting for me or for our marriage. I ran to my car and sat behind the wheel, my whole body shaking, while tears of relief streamed down my face. It was over, finally over. As I looked back at the house, I realized how silly it had all been. I'd been caged for so long that I hadn't realized that the door had been open the whole time, and all I had to do was fly out. There were no locks or chains, just a scared bird that had been told she could never leave, so she never did. And as big of a step as this was, I was now in a world of unknown, having just gone against the societal rules of a community I've been raised in. Would they attempt to throw me back in my cage, or would they continue to accept me? Deep down I knew the answer, but I wasn't yet ready to face it.