My heart is incredibly heavy today, about someone I do not know. I will start by saying that I was lying in bed last night, playing out scenarios in my head about finding D. I'm not worried that anything is imminent, but this happens to me occasionally. Interesting that it's happening now, since I'm not feeling particularly anxious. The whole scenario played out, me finding him, our dog being there, my calling 911, his body on the stretcher, etc. I guess it was essentially a flashback of the first time I found him, although that time he didn't succeed. Fast forward to my having to tell my children. There were tears running down my face as I was thinking about this.
Then, this morning I got a message from a good friend of D's from high school, who is now a good friend of mine. She knows what's going on, and has been nothing but supportive of me. She's tried reaching out to him, but he just put his wall up. She had contacted me a few years ago, right after D's mom died when my life was truly pure chaos. She told me about a friend whose husband was an alcoholic and had tried to commit suicide with pills. She was asking my advice, asking me to reach out to this woman. I was not in a place to do that, although she didn't know that at the time ( I didn't know her well at that time). I was still processing WTH I was going through. L never brought this family up again until today.
Apparently, L's friend got tired of cleaning up her husbands messes and chasing him down, so she divorced him. He became estranged from their 3 children and moved out of state. I'm not sure of the details, but he was somehow back in town (not sure living, visiting, etc), and committed suicide. Ex-wife found his body. She had to tell their children.
This is my nightmare. This is it, and this woman is living it. And the emotions she must be dealing with. To not only FIND your ex-spouse, but to know they were most likely only "ex" because of an addiction that they weren't strong enough to fight.
It could be me. It may be me. This is real life. THis happened. I think part of me always felt a teeny sense of relief that maybe I awas just being dramatic about the possibility of this happening. But now I'm aware that it has happened to someone. I'm simply at a loss.
I've had no contact with D since Sat afternoon when he left. He's been on/off FB, so I know he's alive, but that's about it. His parenting class is tomorrow morning. He better pull his shit together for that. Without our attendance at this class (mine is next week), we can't legally separate. It truly baffles my mind that he doesn't want to see his kids. I don't understand. I don't GET it.
S doesn't even ask about him everyday. It's a good thing, but at the same time it's so sad.
I'm not naive, I always knew that bad things *do* happen to people... but until something REALLY horrible happened and it directly effected me, it seemed like those sort of "things" only happened on tv and in the movies. When something hits close to home, it opens up all sorts of new emotions, new worries, new fears. Frankly, it sucks. I'm very sorry to hear about this poor woman's loss and as horrible as it is, it is NOT her fault. I hope she realizes this. The same goes for you and D. Anything that may (or may not) happen down the line is not your fault. Don't ever forget that. It's actually something I struggle with to this very day. I go through periods of "I should have done more", "I should have done things differently", "I should have, could have... blah blah blah". The truth is though, that we have done what we can and especially in your situation, you gave it your all for YEARS and D is doing this to himself. He's proven time and time again that he cares about one thing only - the bottle. What more can you do? Please don't worry yourself sick about the "what ifs" - worrying about tomorrow only steals the joy out of today. (You can thank Pinterest for that one!) Being a "worrier" myself, I know it's hard and I know that the reality of how things are going with D are pretty darn grim, but always remember that you gave it your ALL and right now those babies must be your number one priority. (and I know that they are) We cannot be responsible for the world. People need to help themselves.
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