undercurrent

So there is something still. It’s nagging me. I don’t know what it is. A lingering obsession over what could have been? Fear that I made my decision to stay with John purely out of being afraid of being alone? I did. I did decide to stay because even trying to leave was overwhelming. I stayed because it was easier (divorce is hard work man). And it has been easier…and it has even seemed like a good decision.

I no longer think that two people are either perfect for each other or they aren’t. It’s work. You both keep changing (hopefully growing) and you have to work to keep up with each other and adapt to the new person in your life. The relationship only holds together if both people are willing to do the work. And the reality is, that in any other relationship, I would find the exact same thing. I think that I’m very lucky because John is willing to work. We’ve both spent the last several months shoring ourselves up – filling in the cracks of our glaring faults and trying to be better people for ourselves and for each other. But…there are always storms coming.

His hatred for Matthew, and for the part of me that wanted to be with Matthew, has really not been resolved. My therapist thinks that I could just be friends with Matthew again (she’s crazy…and very, very wrong…but it’s hard to stop someone from complimenting you on how much you’ve grown up), but the reality is that even if I were and if it were a good thing for me, John will never be okay enough for me to be within 20 feet of Matthew. 

John’s steadiness right now is incredibly fragile. He’s told me not to worry about it but I’m convinced that, if I upset him/piss him off enough, he could very well give up on AA and go back to being what he was for the first 5 years together. He wasn’t a bad guy. But he would black out and become a monster (overstated for dramatic effect, but trust me, it’s not pretty). He also lied non-stop for no reason at all, and took everything personally, and never believed I was good enough. I haven’t talked to him about this, but I’m pretty sure that if he started drinking again, I would have to leave him. I wouldn’t be able to trust him or feel safe with him. But what if he starts drinking again after we have kids together? What then?

And the knowledge that him drinking again would make me walk away, well…I’m a pretty self-destructive person. I wouldn’t put it beyond myself to provoke him into it so that I would be able to walk away without any doubts in my mind that I was doing the right thing. So what’s to stop me from getting tired of him in a few years and starting to push those buttons to end his sobriety? Horrible, right? I would be a horrible fucking person to do something like that. And yet I know that I have something in me that could potentially do that. Something that’s not so different from the part of him that pushed me into spending the night with Matthew so that he could make me be the whore and the bad person in our relationship. What ugly fucking people we can be.

But right now, we’re kind of amazing together. Everything is in harmony, no one is trying to do anything but help anyone else…it’s really good. So *what* the fuck is wrong with me that I just break down into tears, hyperventilating and freaking out once every couple weeks with no apparent trigger? Is it because I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop? Because I know that we have the potential to be every bit as horrible as we are amazing and that it’s all just hanging out there in the balance, waiting to threaten my life?

Ugh…