Enough

When is enough? The last 24 hours have been a test of faith and self, and it got me thinking when do you say enough? No more, I surrender. It has been a family secret, something that I have been ashamed of for a very long time. Only a couple of friends, my daughters and my dear departed mother knew of the secret. Twenty seven years ago I got married not out of love but because I was settling. Afraid that I would not find love, so I married a man I really didn't know.

Not all bad came from my marriage, I was gifted my two daughters who are the love of my life. I put up with a lot of stuff because I was too caught up in the hiding of the secret. I did not believe in myself that I could raise my girls without finacial support so I stayed in a loveless marriage so I could put the girls through college and not admit to the world that I had failed at the marriage game. When my oldest daughter graduated from high school, another parent walked up to me and my husband and said, I have known you since our kids were in preschool, I always thought you were a single parent. My husband never showed any interest in the girls' activities. He was and is a functional alcoholic. He goes to work, and when he comes home he drinks until he passes out. In the early years of our marriage he didn't drink as much, but as the years went on, his drinking increased. He then became abusive to me, I left many times only to return to apologies of never again.....but it always happened again. I was sick with lupus so I stayed, for medical coverage, hiding marks and the pain I was going through. At one point he was so out of control, He came after me in front of the girls and they called 911. They arrested him, a restraining was put in place and I tried to make it on my own. I could not so after he completed anger counseling, I conceded and he came back home. We began sleeping in seperate bedrooms. We were roommates who shared children. He always professed he loved me, but the drinking and the abuse continued. I was embarrassed by this and told no one accept when my mother and friends witnessed it a few times. I still did not have the strenght to leave.

When you are beaten down so much, you begin to believe that you deserve it because you don't leave. Your will is broken, and your self esteem is nonexistant.

When I was diagnosed with cancer, I felt inside that I was getting what I deserve......I was useless and this was God's way of saying you live in a toxic envioroment, now you have become toxic. In a screwed up way I believed I deserve to have an expiration date, somehow I think I was glad that I did.

Yesterday, my husband got off his graveyard shift. He began drinking as soon as he got home. He drank all day and verbally attacked me. At 9pm he came into the house after being gone for a few hours, and demanded I make him dinner. I offered up the leftovers and he did not want them. He started to come after me and I slipped out of his grasp and he went tumbling down hitting his head on the tile floor. He said it was my fault and he was going to tell the police I tried to hurt him. I was frightened. I called my daughter in tears as he lay on the floor cursing at me. She said call 911. I did and told them what had happened. They took him to the ER. My daughters came from Sacramento to drive me to the hospital. When we arrived they said he was combative and abusive to the nurses and doctor. They did a CT scan on his head. They wanted me to stay in the room with him and I tried to explain that it just made him madder. At 3am they released him with instructions that he see his doctor for alcoholism.

This morning I had to be at the hospital so the urologist could insert a camera inside my bladder. I got 2 hours sleep. I went alone, got an injection in my private parts and a camera was inserted. The good news is that the cancer has not eaten into the bladder. The tumor is just sitting above the bladder.

I have slept most of the day. I talked to my oldest daughter, and I have finally accepted that I have to leave. I can not stay here. I have chemo in the morning and as soon as I can I will try to find a place to stay where I can live on my social security. In my heart and in my mind the word enough resonates. I do not know what the future holds, I know it will be difficult but I can not do this anymore. The secret has come out....I am an abused woman. I have failed at marriage. I have the will to survive no matter what that will be. I am scared.