No More Lies for You

   I stood in the kitchen shaking, staring at the patterned linoleum, and recognized my marriage was over. I had to be done excusing his lies, ignoring his addictions, allowing his selfishness to rule our relationship. Our children were napping. Blissfully unaware of the turmoil in the kitchen. Too small to recognize their father had been absent the past three days. Too innocent to discern his brokenness.  

     I called his phone, again, and left a firm and final message that he had to live somewhere else or go to treatment. That I loved him. That he can't deal and do drugs in our home with an infant and preschooler. I also texted him. A long message with all the same firmness and finality. Even in this tough-love-Mama-has-to-do-what's-right-not-what's-easy, I just knew he would choose treatment. In all of our years together, he always chose healing and moving forward. I always enabled him. But his little codependent was done helping him do the bare minimum. Just enough to get me off his back. Just enough to let him continue in his sickness. One foot in recovery. The other knee deep in his illness. 

    Although he did not reply to either message, I knew what was next and I began heaving his belongings into the garage. His clothes, his disc golf bag, his books he never finished reading, his WWII documentaries my Mom gave him. The sobbing subsided the more of him I threw out the door. I began to feel in control of my life, the life of the kiddos and I. I began to realize we did not have to stay in his wake. We could thrive.