My Family

The Dependency

We were separated for one year and during that time we saw each other nearly every day. With the financial issues out of the way, we could get back to being friends. We did enjoy some time apart but things happened to each of us that made us re-think our separation.
One such instance was during a particularly busy time at work. My job wasn’t impacted too much but his required him to put in extra hours. One night he had to go in and ended up working until about 4am, after which he had to be back three short hours later at 7am. I was at my condo with our daughter enjoying a full night’s rest, completely oblivious to his working almost all night. After I had been at work for a while I noticed he wasn’t there. By the time I got off work he still hadn’t shown up or called in and I couldn’t get a hold of him.
I drove everywhere I thought he might be then I drove to each place again. I took our daughter home for dinner then loaded her back in the car and looked for him some more. With no luck, I finally gave up. When we got back home, I started calling hospitals. Finally the phone rang on my end. It was him and he said he was at a hospital and needed a ride home.
Come to find out he had decided to go jogging at a park between shifts since he didn’t want to risk not waking up in time from a nap. A man with a knife grabbed him and forced him behind some bushes near a stream in the park. The man thought my husband was a woman and wanted to rape him. He forced my husband’s shorts down and was very angered to find male anatomy. He then started beating my husband and stabbed him repeatedly with the knife. The man then left him bleeding and naked, hidden in the brush. In the evening someone walked through the brush on their way to the stream to go fishing, saw him and called 911.
I felt really bad for my husband. I stayed with him for a couple of days to make sure he was alright. At the same time I wondered why he did such a risky thing. Same reason anyone does, I guess. It was then that I realized just how much he had changed, not just physically but mentally as well. This man who was once strong willed, definite in his convictions, was now not the same man who once defended his store by smacking a would-be thief on the hand with a stick, now wouldn’t even defend his own life. His attitude used to be, now he just curled up in a ball and cried.
The next big incident that made us reconsider our separation was a surgery I had to remove a goiter on my thyroid. A fairly simple operation which took about an hour and I’d be back to work in a week. I was released from the hospital the day after the surgery and I was feeling pretty good. Later that day I would occasionally feel a tiny pain in my calf. I didn’t think much of it because it was such a tiny prick of pain, nothing like the warning signs of a clot I was warned could happen from surgery. However, the next day my lung was hurting so I called my surgeon. He ordered x-rays and gave me antibiotics for pneumonia and vicodin for the pain. Later that day a lung specialist called to confirm that I had pneumonia and bruising from the surgery. I was in so much pain that evening that my husband took me to urgent care. I was told to expect the pain and there was nothing more that could be done. I went home again. My husband was planning on staying at the condo overnight so he could keep an eye on me so he was there to call 911 when it got to the point where I couldn’t breathe. The paramedics also said there wasn’t anything they could do so my husband should drive me to the hospital if I really needed to go. At the hospital I was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism among other things related to the surgery. My husband took care of our daughter and was there every time I needed anything. He stayed at the condo to help me with my oxygen and the shots of blood thinner I had to give myself.
After the stabbing and surgery events and thinking about the financial benefits, we decided he would give up his apartment and move into my condo. We set the move-in date for October 31, 2005.
Halloween was a busy day with both of us having to work, my husband moving in and picking our daughter up from day care and, of course taking her trick-or-treating. At 6pm my co-worker, who’s family also provided my daughter’s cay care, arrived at work and said my husband never picked up our daughter. I immediately left work to get her then drove for two hours looking for my husband. Our store manager eventually called and told me he was no longer employed with the company and refused to say anything else. I went by his apartment one more time and saw his car. His door was unlocked so I went in and found him passed out in a puddle of vomit and empty bottles of pills beside him.
I took a minute to assess and mentally digest the situation and was overcome with anger. I was so mad at his selfishness. This was a turning point for me. I knew that what he’d taken wouldn’t kill him, just make him sick and unconscious. I yelled that I wasn’t going to call 911, wasn’t going to take his sorry butt to the hospital. As I was yelling that he was a selfish bastard, I started slapping him. I yelled and slapped and poured cold water on him. I got out my frustrations and hoped I’d left some bruises while doing so.
I was finally mad at him. Mad because he dropped our marriage like a hot potato, mad because he had no respect for me, mad because he kept playing the game. Mad because he thought he had the right to cut out of life and stick me with his responsibilities and cleaning up his mess. I couldn’t run away, how could he? He only had to deal with his own choices, I had to deal with mine and his. I had to feel the looks, hear the giggles when we went out. I had to deal with our daughter when the time came that kids would tease about her daddy.
Some time around dawn he came to. He felt like hell and I was quietly happy for that bit of justice. We didn’t talk about it much, he told me the short story. He had walked out of our store with a bottle of soda pop that he’d forgotten to pay for. Just as he got out the doors, he remembered about the soda and stopped to go back in to pay for it, but store security was right behind him and didn’t give him the chance. They took him to the manager and she fired him for gross misconduct.
I had thought it was good timing that he was moving back in with me. Little did I know it was just the beginning of an avalanche that would destroy everything in it’s path.

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