Of course he would exit my life on his mother’s birthday. Given what I had always perceived as their enmeshment, I felt certain I was witnessing their thoroughly discussed and pre-planned theatrics. It was an understatement to say that my confident non-compliance, so-called disrespect and reconnection with my family after ten years of self-inflicted estrangement (oh, the audacity) had drawn both his and his parents’ ire.
His father’s disdain for my “smart mouth” (i.e. I stood up to him) and his mother’s overall disdain for me (i.e. I stood up to her) had been clear for some time. His parents’ emotions and ideology had always been mirrored in their son – their thoughts fiercely intertwined. No matter how hard I protested and resisted, their child ensured their doctrines became the blueprint for our lives. I could no longer live in bondage and isolation while pretending to be the exemplary couple. For those transgressions and many others, it seemed I was being punished. It felt as though the act of leaving on his mother’s birthday, which just so happened to coincide with Valentine’s Day, was a spiteful and vindictive message tailor-made just for me. For all intents and purposes, let us call it the prelude to the beginning of the manipulative, intimidating and often frightening end of two mentally, physically, spiritually and financially debilitating decades of matrimony. SPOILER ALERT: I’m living happily ever after abuse!
Just after 8:30am on Sunday, February 14, 2021, my soon-to-be-former exited our rather tidy beige garage for the last time. He drove off in one of his coveted Japanese vehicles – a recently purchased, black, 1990’s era sedan – to officially begin his new life of marital separation. Importantly, he was relocating in response to his organization’s requirement that he transition from remote to onsite work. His physical presence was needed to fulfill the tasks of his recently acquired, high profile job. They would no longer extend the courtesy of working from home. His parting became a well organized endeavor. In the weeks leading up to his departure, he canvased the house day and night in search of his possessions and various legal documents. As he found these treasures, they were immediately stored and locked in his sedan. Until he found more treasure to stow away, he would place the keys in what he thought were hidden locations. I found them, of course.
Before crossing the threshold between the kitchen and garage, he turned to me and blurted, “I was waiting for you to beg me not to leave! I did the same thing when you wanted to leave!” As the contradicting emotions of anguish and euphoria simultaneously flooded my being, I could only conjure tears in response. I had crafted, presented and maintained a blatant lie to get to this point. To guarantee his departure, I agreed to putting our 4,000 square foot, three-level townhome up for sale and following him to his new location with our children in the summer. We would “try to make things work” for a year in the new location. It was a risky, but necessary, gamble for freedom. I was beyond afraid. I was terrified. The emotionally wrecked me was deeply wounded because that person was the father of my two beautiful children and the one with whom I had dreamed of conquering the world. Conversely, the common sense me – the woman who had been resurrected through intense trauma therapy – desperately needed him to leave as quickly and as calmly as possible. This time, his words were powerless, and as such, could no longer influence me.
He crossed the threshold, walked into the garage and sat in his sedan. As the ignition turned, he pressed the garage opener still clinging to the sun visor. He only looked back when I tearfully requested the opener citing the need to include it with the sale of the house. I could not have cared any less about selling the house, let alone including a garage door opener to sweeten the pot. In reality, I simply needed to prevent his re-entry.
Although experiencing an avalanche of emotions, I never failed to maintain clarity during that seemingly endless point in time. In the days preceding his actual departure (he had been leaving since January 2021), I successfully executed the first part of my plan to ensure that he could not re-enter the house once he left. Whenever he showered in the morning, he would do so for upwards of thirty minutes ultimately laying on the shower floor to allow the water to run over him. Understanding his pattern, I waited until I heard him move to the floor, then swapped out his house key for a decoy of similar shape, color and wear. He was working remotely at the time, rarely left me alone and, as a result, there was never a need for him to use his house key. This act, along with requesting the garage door opener just as he was leaving, were extremely important parts of my safety plan that actually paid off the very next month. We will talk about that later, ok? Ok.
As he drove out of the garage, the thick scent of exhaust engulfed the now empty space. I pressed the garage opener and watched the door finally close on a life so desolate that at times it did not seem worth living. In his wake, my 17-year-old daughter who would graduate from high school in three months, never bothered to emerge from her bedroom. My 15-year-old-son, completely unmoved by the whole spectacle, watched the black sedan exit the garage from his perch behind the kitchen island. As she had always done when sensing or witnessing household drama, our black and white lab mix was crouched on her pillow – ears laid back and flat to her head, tail tucked and body trembling. Her emotional response seemed to join those of her remaining human pack members whose proverbial alpha male simply left them to pursue his need for freedom and grandiosity 700 miles away.