This is the ninth year that he’s been in my life.
It hasn’t been all bad, and god knows a lot of our problems, whether we were on or off, were my fault too, but there’s always been the one not-so-silent pachyderm in the room: booze.
When we’d been together for a month an a half, he got ripped-to-the-gills drunk, drinking triple long island ice teas. On my birthday. He fell asleep that night, saying what a nice, good girl I was. I plotted dumping him. The next day, I walked out.
Then I came back.
He said he was going to cut back, that he knew he was out of line and he was so sorry. He said he knew he had a problem and that he was going to get it under control. I’d never lived with an active alcoholic before, and I had the ability at 20 to quit (and now, writing this, have been sober for 98 days) – even though some days, I still want to drink away the 18 hours I’m awake – so I believed him.
What a naive little girl I was.
He lasted two days, that I know of.
A year and a half later, I found irrefutable proof he’d been smoking pot the whole time, hiding it from me. After 18 months of arguing about the beer, I joined him and we became potheads together. Until I got pregnant. Then lost it. Then I’d start again, because at that point, sex, drinking, pot, and mutual adoration of stupid stoner comedy was what we had going for us, in a whole sea of what we didn’t. Then I got pregnant again. And quit again. And lost it again.
By 2004, we were broke, and on the verge of bankruptcy. The beer and weed were his priority. Everytime I tried to plant a foot about it, it became a larger hassle than just choking down the financial ruin. I’d never before had to switch service providers because the last had cut off my account for lack of payment. I almost bought a condo at 20, for fuck sakes. But now, I was. And everything, every bill, was in my name, because he had no credit history.
Then, I had a bipolar break, right before we went to visit his family – my first time meeting them. I needed to be in a locked-up room and instead, I was surrounded by strangers, telling me they loved me as they served him more alcohol. I heard the whispers about me, we had fights that couldn’t be concealed, and all I wanted was to drown myself in the lake.
Shortly after we returned, we broke up.
Ask me why I had stayed, why I fought for his sobriety, for our bank accounts and ultimately always backed down, and I could over-simplify it: I wanted him to be happy and I wanted to fix him. But that’s not the whole truth. I thought I owed it to him, for every insult I’d thrown his way. For every time that I told him that I loved him, knowing that I had no concept what the word meant, never mind owned the feeling. Because he needed me, and I needed him to need me.
It took him five months to want to be my friend again. Within two weeks, we were sleeping together. I didn’t want to be there, doing that, smoking that, drinking that, laughing then. Again. But I wanted him to want me, and he did need me, and I once again financially supported him while he decided to quit his job and get sober.
He thinks he lasted for three months, today. I know it was five weeks.
About a week after he started making up for lost drinking time, I was pregnant.
Selfishly, I told him that I was keeping it. Her. Zoë. Unselfishly, I told him that he could be as much a part of her life as he wanted. He said he wanted to. We talked about communication, and rules and boundaries. We talked about the drinking and how he would control it. It could be perfect.
What a naive little girl I was.
Pregnant and being called a stupid cunt doesn’t breed love, especially in me. He had became a mean drunk. Before, he’d always been a goof – someone who tripped over his feet and got a little too loud or emphatic. Then, with a belly weighing me down, the stench coming off of him making me gag, I lost the will to keep anything inside, so I unleashed full-bore.
But you know, he recognized that he had a problem and things would change when the baby came.
I did everything in preparation myself. I ruled pregnancy, and he failed. I took early maternity leave, so my income was half of what I was used to making, and he got a full-time income, plus an inheritance, and I still paid for every single thing for the baby.
And after she was born, while I was suicidal with post-partum, he got to come home from work every day and listen to me cry or whine for three minutes while he gulped down his first beer, and then he got to complain that it really sucked for him that he worked hard all day and had to come home at exactly the time when Zoë was most colicky. He didn’t get up at night, unless I made him, because he had to work. And I had breasts, you see, and once he figured out that breastfeeding made Zoë stop crying, it was the go-to solution. For the first couple of months when we would share rocking and bouncing duties while she screamed, he would need breaks every 10 minutes or so, a fresh beer nearby, and to have smoked a joint, first.
After a few months, he stopped sharing duties and I stopped letting him do anything, even when he was willing.
I thought it would get better after colick ended. Then he quit his job and we started living off of only my maternity leave, so the booze would have to go – we couldn’t afford it. But he bartered to just three a day, that’s all, just three. He would control it.
What a naive little girl I was.
By her first birthday, there were pushing and shoving matches. I hit him once, a back-hand when he told me to go fuck myself, which gave him a black eye. I poured a beer over his head, and a six-pack down the sink. I blocked doors and I yelled and I gnashed my teeth and called him a fucking loser.
Ask me why I stayed with a baby, why I fought for his sobriety, for our bank accounts and ultimately always backed down, why I took being pushed into doors while I was holding our daughter, and I could over-simplify it: I wanted us to be a family. But that’s not the whole truth. I knew that I owed it to him, for every insult I’d thrown his way. For every critique of his parenting, and how I’d shoved in his face how uninvolved and selfish he’d been. Because it was just easier. Because now, I had a daughter and he was her father, and I wasn’t allowed to take her away from him by moral code.
We broke up. And then we’d start being friends and sleeping together and he’d do something to fuck it up, like, say, not show up for a visit with Zoë because he was too hung over from the night before. Then I got pregnant again, and he threatened to hit me with our daughter between us while I was hemmoraghing to death.
I took him to court and rules were put into place by court order about his drinking. He agreed to them, no problem.
What a naive little girl I was.
But, then we’d start being friends, and start sleeping together and he’d walk all over me and I’d let him.
Ask me why I let him stay in our life, why I begged him to stop walking out on and failing our daughter when he was mad at me or drinking, and I could over-simplify it: I wanted us to be able to be happy together, even if we lived apart. But that’s not the whole truth. I wanted him happy enough that he didn’t drink himself into a stupor and further complicate our lives. Caring about him, getting continually disappointed and being consistently last priority – both Zoë and I – to his drinking and social life, was the price I’d chosen to pay, so that my daughter could have the benefit of two parents who seemed most of the time like they liked, and even maybe even loved, each other.
As long as it wasn’t in her face, and I didn’t promise her ahead of time that she would see him or get a call from him, everything could be okay, right?
What a naive little girl I was.
Today, a person who I wished didn’t have reason for the wisdom said to me, “You have my permission to love you more.”
Lightbulb.
What I’ve been doing in almost every other aspect of my life, but never this one, is to choose me. Not the family we could be, not the friend I could have, or the boyfriend or the husband or provider. Me.
Because, if you ask me why I’ve stayed in this toxic situation, it’s simple: I did it for five years for him; I did it for four years for her. I have a daughter I can’t live without because of it, and she got a father that she already has low expectations of, who walks in the door after not seeing or speaking to her for a week and says he doesn’t want to play because he just wants to drink his coffee.
I always thought that having him in her life, in whatever safe capacity was possible, even if it was only for 10 hours a week, even if he never called her to say goodnight, or attended a preschool meeting or doctor’s appointment, was important because I didn’t have the right to take it away until he gave me no choice.
I thought that choosing what I wanted – ultimately, to be free of him – was selfish, regardless of what bane he brought upon me. And then last night, he showed up drunk, broke and in need of charity. For the fourth time in a year and a half. Despite the no-alcohol rules around Zoë. Despite that he’s promised twice before it wouldn’t happen again.
I didn’t let him stay, but I gave him cab fare to go home. Zoë was the best excuse that I could have ever needed for him to not be here in that condition. But really, in hindsight it wasn’t about her at all.
I chose to love myself – not his happiness or acquiescence – more.
