It’s been three years this week since I walked away from my husband for the last time. We had just arrived in San Francisco for a two month stay. The older of my two sons was scheduled to have a kidney transplant at Stanford Hospital in November of 2021. The older of my two daughters would be donating her kidney to save his life.
My younger son and his wife had just vacated their apartment because they had purchased a home. We decided to help them out by renting it from them instead of getting an Airbnb. It was unfurnished and I worked hard in the months beforehand to make it comfortable with borrowed and inexpensive, second-hand items.
After the long trip from Maine, we arrived with Moxie at about 10 pm California time. My ex sat down in the armchair and fell asleep while I set to work, spending about three hours opening boxes and trying to get things minimally set up so that we would have the basics, such as linens for the bed and drinking glasses.
The kids had left us a few items in the fridge so we had coffee and milk and toast in the morning. After breakfast, we took the kids’ rolling cart and walked to the large Asian housewares market that was several blocks away. I selected a few strategic items and then we headed to the supermarket. By the time we got home, it was afternoon. I was tired, but we still needed a quilt for the bed.
“Why don’t we walk over to Eddie’s and borrow his car? We can stop for lunch at Nourish and then head to Bed Bath and Beyond.”
Never one to be agreeable, my ex replied, “No, I don’t want to do that. Why don’t you see if you can get it online? I’ll bet they have immediate delivery in San Francisco. I’ll make us a nice salad for lunch.”
I settled on the couch with my computer. “I just have to make a phone call first” he said as he went into the bedroom and shut the door. Have you ever shopped online at Bed Bath and Beyond for something you really need right away? It was an exercise in frustration. I spent hours trying to find someone who would deliver a quilt that day. Meanwhile I was hungry: I mean, really hungry, and tired; really, really exhausted. Ex finally emerged from the bedroom and I asked what had happened to my lunch. It had been two hours.
“I had a phone call.”
“But you offered to make me lunch.”
“I’ll make you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich right now.”
I was so tired, hungry and frustrated, I think I started to cry. “I don’t want peanut butter! You said you would make a salad. Why couldn’t we have just done what I suggested? Everything would have been fine. Why did you offer to make me lunch if you weren’t going to do it?”
And then it started. The barrage. “You are just being mean. I don’t know why you are always so mean to me. You are always picking on me; pick pick pick! It must be because you had a rotten childhood. You are always so mean. You really need to be in therapy because you aren’t rational at all. There’s something wrong with you and you’re trying to pin in on me. Why don’t you take a look at yourself? Why don’t you get into therapy? You need therapy!” and it went on and on.
I was completely out of gas at that moment, and he just wouldn’t stop attacking me. I was utterly depleted. I couldn’t even respond. In a daze, I picked up my bag and walked out the door. I walked to the Presidio, the big park in San Francisco, sat down on a log in the woods and cried.
I cried for a half hour. I was so hungry. It must have been after three by then and all I’d eaten all day was a piece of buttered toast. I took out my phone and called my daughter. “I just left Dad. I can’t do it anymore. I’m so tired and so hungry, and he wouldn’t stop yelling at me. I just can’t do it anymore. I can’t.”
She was working from home and said she’d be done in an hour. I picked myself up and walked through the park to a restaurant near her apartment where I was able to fortify myself with a veggie burger, fries and a martini. I was finishing up when she arrived. We walked over to the Gap where I bought a pair of pajamas, and then to Walgreen’s for a toothbrush.
My sweet daughter slept on the couch for two days, and let me have her bed. Then I stayed for a week with a dear friend in San Mateo. After that, I rented an apartment just outside of San Francisco for the duration. I didn’t tell anyone that I had left my marriage, not my siblings or any of my friends on the east coast. I didn’t say a word about it to anyone for months, until after I was back in Maine. I didn’t want the focus to be on me. My two children were undertaking something remarkably courageous and life-affirming. I didn’t want to hi-jack the attention away from them.
I first met Ex when I was fifteen and he was twenty-two. We married ten years later. I adored him and looked up to him, but I was a child. By our twentieth year, my respect for him had started to wane. By our thirtieth, it had turned to contempt.
Like all humans, he had some good points, and I tried very hard to make it work. Lord! did I try! I feared being alone. He used that to his advantage, telling me that if I broke up the family the kids would cast me out. That one or another had said that to him. We saw four or five different marriage counselors over the years, and when I left he swore he had found a new really terrific one who could help us. “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result,” was my response, and I refused. I was finally done.
About a year later, Eddie, who is the closest to his father of all the children, stopped answering my calls and texts. It went on for a couple of months until I managed to come up with something that prompted a response. It was an angry one. He berated me for choosing to break up my marriage while his siblings were going through something monumental. He called me despicable and insisted I owed everyone an apology. Subsequently, I called each child. The others were more understanding, but the marriage was bad for so long, that they had to wonder why I chose that particular moment in time.
The answer of course, is that I did not choose the moment. It chose me. I would never have chosen that moment, but the truth is that I might not have ever chosen any moment because I was afraid to leave.
Over the last three years, I have asked myself many questions. Why is it that my children blame only me for the break up? Why don’t they blame their father for putting his business first and not being supportive of me at such a stressful time? They seem to buy into his take on the situation, “We had an argument and Mom walked out,” as if it had been a normal day and we had argued over who was going to do the dishes.
I ask myself often why I stayed so long in the face of his unrelenting verbal abuse, but I’ve already answered that question. I ask why I married him, but I know the answer to that too. He proved himself to be so much like my father. I can’t be too hard on myself. Life is a journey of learning, and it seems I still have much to learn.
Alone in my big house in Maine, there has been too much time for reflection and it has made me melancholy. Some days I struggle more than others, but I know with certainty that I cannot continue to exist this way; a solitary holdout in a place my family has left. I must pick myself up and, putting, one foot in front of the other, walk the path out of this lonely forest. Nobody will do it for me.
On Wednesday, two men with a van are coming to gather up the few pieces of furniture, and boxes of housewares that the house can spare and take them to Brooklyn. Messages and texts have been arriving from friends anticipating my arrival, and words can hardly express how good this makes me feel. I still have a ton of stuff to do, but emotionally, I am ready for this new chapter. And so I’ve written a reminder and tacked it to my bathroom mirror and to my fridge. It says, Whisper to self: I am strong.
Lydia
Hi Lydia: WOW, welcome to NYC! I am thrilled to read you're moving to Brooklyn, and just told Andy the gist of this chapter.....he sends love and says "GO, GIRL!" What an exciting new beginning for you, and I look forward to catching up in person! xx Gina