The Moment I Knew it was over....

I wasn't sure how long it had been since I didn't feel like I was choking from lack of oxygen whenever he was in the room.

It might have been when we sat in the marriage therapist's gloomy purple office, and my husband said, "I feel like I am drowning in a river, and she's standing at the edge, throwing rocks at me." I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to smack his face. I wanted to shout, "I was throwing you a lifeline motherfucker!" This was after months of spending sixteen hours a day away from our children because I had to work two jobs to support us because he couldn't get just one. Trying to motivate him, support him, inspire him, help him help himself, but all the while resentment was building up until the Great Wall of China was between us. All because he was "getting ready to get ready", or because he was depressed or unmotivated. And I would come home at night and he'd be sitting in the same spot on the sofa, with a beer in his hand, watching the telly. I wondered what he'd accomplished all day. I would throw my tip money on the table in front of him and go kiss my children while they slept, passing through the kitchen with a sink full of dirty dishes, wishing I didn't wear the pants in this relationship, wishing he would just take me in his arms and say that he would step up and care for us because he wanted to; wondering why our sweet little family was not motivation enough for this man to do what he had to do.    


We hadn't been intimate for six months because of the Great Wall of resentment between us. He didn't come to bed one night. It was almost two in the morning. I got up and made my way down the hall, and saw the blue flickering light of his computer monitor, him sitting in front of it. I asked what he was doing, he said, "Drinking a beer, looking at porn, and jacking off. You got a problem with that?" I didn't. I realized I didn't even care. I was reminded of that American Beauty moment when Kevin Spacey's character is masturbating while in bed with Annette Bening's character. I turned around without saying anything and went back to bed. But that wasn't the moment. It might and should have been. But it wasn't.

It was almost at Marissa's Oscar party. He drank so much that he threw up in her bathroom. All over it; everywhere. It was embarrassing and disgusting. I asked him to sit down, stop drinking, after cleaning up the mess with his best friend. I said my goodbyes and apologized profusley to friends who didn't know what to say and looked at me with pity. I got ready to take him out of there so he wouldn't humiliate himself any further. All the while I was thinking he wasn't even supposed to be drinking, because Zoloft and Grey Goose together was not a good mix. When I came back into the dining room he wasn't sitting where I had left him. He was in the kitchen, and to my horror, had his hands all over Marissa's body. They were kissing behind the freezer door. I was mortified. My eyes grew wide and my knees felt weak. Marissa said it wasn't what it looked like. She said she didn't want to cause a scene and he was being pushy. I whispered through clenched teeth that it was a bit late for that. I turned to walk out the door, and he shouted behind me so everyone could hear, "Well you haven't given me any pussy in six months, what else am I supposed to do?"
I closed my eyes and felt my face getting hot. Humiliation. Hurt. Anger. Twisting themselves around my insides. I wanted to cry but couldn't. Shaking as I drove us home. I didn't say a word in the car. But this wasn't the end, even though we went home and he called me a cunt in front of my ten year old son; and threw a beer bottle at me, smashing the patio door instead of my face.

He went out the next night with a mutual friend of ours to a YNT concert, after a day of silent anger and awkwardness. I went to bed early and awoke in the middle of the night to the smell of something burning. I tiptoed to the kitchen and there he was; passed out drunk on our wood floor, his mouth open, egg rolls burning in the oven. Looking down at him in disgust, I knew it was over; that no matter how much faith and hope I had ever had for my marriage, this man would never ever have the privilege of sharing time with me again.