Picture waking up one day and the one thing you knew for certain was a lie. You know that jobs are fleeting, that friends may come and go, that your favourite team will lose sometimes, but the one certainty you have is that ____________ will be constant.
My constant was my husband. My best friend. Failings he had many, and I knew this. I have my own after all. Apparently, blind trust is one of my many downfalls. I woke up and discovered that he wasn't who I thought him to be, who he portrayed himself to be, and had been leading a double life throughout our marriage.
I am not a stupid woman. I am pretty trusting and prior to the dissolution of my marriage, very naive. So here I am after 15 years of marriage, pregnant with my sixth child. I had given up my career and thoughts of post-secondary to raise our kids. And I did it with no rancour or bitterness. I felt it was my vocation to do so and for the most part I loved it.
This is what I discovered that day: that my husband was an addict. It doesn't matter to what he was addicted to. It only mattered that his addiction was more important than me, our children, and our marriage. In order to protect his addiction he lied. Lie upon lie upon lie. The addict's mind is an incredible thing; he managed to convince himself that lying was justified because he was protecting me or rationalized it to the point where it no longer was a lie in his sick mind. Five years later, the lies are still unraveling and new discoveries are made, but they don't affect me as they once did.
We went to counseling. I really wanted to make my marriage work. The counselor wanted us to do a, b, and c. My husband made a fledgling attempt and then quit trying. I drew further away from him, but felt trapped by my faith, my family, my house, my circumstances. And then things began to point in other directions. I had an opportunity to leave my house. I had an opportunity to be free from my extended family. I had an opportunity to further my education and start a new life for me and my children.
And I have done it with minimal help.
Today, I am enrolled in school. We live in another community. I have a new partner, who loves me and respects me. He is honest, although I still have trouble trusting. We are expecting a baby in January and the future looks bright for our growing family. I'm so grateful I was brave enough to say yes to these opportunities and crawl out of the pit I had fallen into.