Heartbroken – Matt is dead. New chapters

(Trigger Warning: Suicide)

The last couple of months have been insane. So much I should have been updating regularly. Today I am not okay. I will be. But, not in the slightest do I feel okay today. I’ll provide some good updates first…as they are impacted by the bad.

Eric and I opened up our relationship. He’s been dating. A LOT (so many more posts on this…!) I have been doing what I do…and not been getting out there that much. In part because I am traveling a ton.

I spent Thanksgiving with Eric at his house. It was really nice. Before I left FL to go to MA, I didn’t have a return date. That scared me. I felt like I would probably stay through the new year. But I also knew I may have a work trip involved and not sure when I would have to go for that…so planning an exact return date was not feasible. I actually sat and cried eating dinner with my mom, questioning if possibly moving up with Eric (in the near-ish future) was crazy? I told my friends how scared I was. Eric was great. The relationship was great. But, I just wasn’t ready to say “I am moving to Boston (a cold place I hate!) and leaving my parents (who I FINALLY got to be with again after 20 years apart!) for a man I am not exactly sure about yet…”

We had a really hard conversation about what we both wanted. He kept asking me “what does Ryanne want?” I told him on Thanksgiving Day that I wanted to be with him, at his house, as much as I could be. Not moving in. (I was clear about that!) That I had things planned in FL and AZ that I had to travel for, but when I wasn’t there, I wanted to try things with him for longer periods of time. He said okay, but I wasn’t convinced that is what he meant. So I pressed…and he too was scared. And not sure if he was ready for it. And my being there “without a return date” (at this point I knew I was going to AZ for work the following week) was scary for him too. We decided that after my AZ trip, I would go back to FL for a couple of weeks and come back for Christmas.

It stung a lot at the time. But, I forged ahead and thought about what I wanted. Did I want to buy a house in FL? Rent? Eric would have loved for me to buy a condo in MA nearby. Great solution – we can continue the relationship locally and organically – but without the complications of living together. I was adamant that I didn’t want that. If we were not sure enough about our relationship yet, I wasn’t buying in a place that I wasn’t willing to live without the relationship. I proceeded to look at options in FL, from afar as I was still traveling. I decided if I was going to be in FL for awhile and we were open, I would create a OK Cupid non-monogamy profile and see what fun I could get into in FL.

I had been feeling so unsettled. I moved to FL in April of this year. I bought a new car my first day here and had put an offer on a house within 3 weeks….when that offer wasn’t accepted, my dad was the one who insisted I slow down so that I could see what direction things were going with Eric. I never imagined I would spend 3 months with my parents (unless maybe I was building a new house), let alone now 8 months. And the prospect of waiting and seeing and hitting the one year mark, kind of devastated me. I have been traveling roughly 60% of the time since moving in April. I feel like I spend more time packing and unpacking than I do settled in any one place. I am sad when I leave anywhere because I am leaving good people, but I am starting to feel like no where is home. I explained this to Eric and that it was okay that Boston wasn’t the place, but I needed to put down roots. I have always volunteered and been part of the community. Found friends and connections. I can’t volunteer when I am only anywhere for 1-3 weeks at a time.

Sunday night, Eric pushed again about me finding a condo in MA. I was adamant, no. Explained it. He teasingly kept saying “let me call Candance (his realtor) she might have a hidden gem for you like she did me.” No. No. NO.

Monday, I was traveling back to FL from AZ. Eric called me on my layover. “So I called Candace.” I was walking through the Midway Terminal and I just stopped. I was MAD. “Eric, NO. What the fuck.” He continues “She said she knows of a room for rent in my town, great location, it should be available in January, or February, yeah February.” I walked over to seats at a nearby empty gate and sat down. Shocked. He hadn’t called Candance. He was being cutesy and asking me to move in with him. I played along for a bit and asked him for more details on the room that was available. As we talk he tells me that after our cruise (Oh yes…we booked a cruise as a joint Christmas gift. We leave Jan 30th out of Tampa. 5 nights! Grand Cayman and Cozumel!) he thinks we should drive my car back to his house and I should stay.

Flabbergasted. Shocked. Surprised. All great ways to describe how I felt. I didn’t answer him though. I needed to think. I asked him what changed his mind. He didn’t feel like he’d changed his mind, just that he’d finally made a decision. I felt like I was going to say yes, but I needed to be sure. I was waiting for some sign to tell me this was the right decision for the right reason.

Then Tuesday Happens.

Around 1PM my time I get a FB message from Matt’s (my ex-husband) step-sister asking me where he works. I don’t know that I have spoken to her in a couple of years. My initial thought was “how does she not know we are divorced?” Then I thought…well maybe, she reached out to him and couldn’t get a quick response and she has a friend trying to get medical help in the Phoenix area and wants to send them to Matt’s hospital? Or was she randomly trying to send him a gift to his work??? I couldn’t think of any other reason she would ask…let alone ME? I responded with what I knew, which was that he had 2 jobs, one I knew of and the other was a new ER and I “thought” I  knew the name. I followed up with “everything ok?” And no response.

40 minutes later, his sister, Holli, calls me. Holli and I are very close. She lives in FL and I see her often. She and Matt haven’t been the closest over the years, but she and I have remained, like-sisters. I knew it was wayyyy out of the norm for her to CALL me in the middle of a work day. Text, maybe. Call. No. I answer and ask “is something wrong? is something going on?” She tells me possibly. I explain I received a message from Vanessa already and had a feeling. She tells me Matt sent several family members “goodbye” sounding emails. That there was concern that he was already dead. The police went to his home but no one appeared to be home and they didn’t have enough cause to force entry at that time. I asked if they had reached out to his girlfriend. Holli said that was in part why she was calling. The family was hoping I had a way to get in touch with her.

I went outside and called Carlyn. No answer. I called Megan. No answer. While I dialing Megan, Carlyn texted. She is a therapist. “I am in session can I call you back?” I let her know I needed Sadie’s number, that his family was worried he was a danger to himself. She text his right back. Then she said “I received an email too, but I am in session and can’t deal with it right now.”

Fuck.

I give Holli the number.

And then I think. “Have I checked my email in the last few hours? Do I have an email?”

I walk inside and see that I indeed have an email from Matt. Subject Line: Goodbye

I hold my breath.

The email starts “I dont know if it was you or Kristy but either you or someone you told informed the board about my relapse.  Ive chosen to end my life”

I collapsed on the floor. My knees buckled and I just fell. I already knew he was dead. He came so close 6 years ago, he wouldn’t get it wrong this time. This wasn’t a cry for help, this was a “I already did it, and I’ve informed you as to why.” He never left a letter last time. There was no goodbye. We were almost without answers 6 years ago. He made sure this time he didn’t do that.

He goes on to tell me the dogs were boarded at doggy day care through the 8th. That if I didn’t want to take them, a trainer at one of the facilities in town has agreed to take Ivy. And that “my current partner will probably take Piper tho I recommend using an intermediary as I doubt she will be open to direct contact.”

That part, as I have had time to process it, pissed me off. I didn’t run off with her husband or curse her out. I didn’t do anything to her nor have I have spoken and ill word to her. So I can’t help but wonder what it in her letter. Did he blame me? Because that is certainly how my letter reads.

Even in the end, no ability to take responsibility for his actions. He relapsed and is in trouble with the nursing board, but it’s because someone else reported him that he chose to end it.

The police found him in a hotel room. He shot himself. I had to do an interview with the police.

“Are you his wife”

“Ex-Wife”

“Did you do paperwork, are you actually divorced?”

“Yes”

She proceeds to still ask me about taking procession of his belongings. And tells me the autopsy will be Thursday and his body can be released after. I take too much on. I call his mom and get the okay to release his belongings to a friend locally. I agree to find a funeral home for him mom. Eric reminds me, I can say no. He tells me “The next time someone asks you to do something, pause. Take a deep breath. Ask yourself do I want to do this? If the answer is Yes, okay. And if the answer is NO, than that is OKAY too, and say no. No one can blame you for saying no.”

He was so right.

I had an emergency session with my therapist Tuesday night. It was helpful to frame it all. She said the level of planning Matt had is clinically considered a “suicidal trance.” The person comes focused that they only way out is through suicide and makes plans accordingly. When people are in this clinical state it is almost impossible to pull them back.

I am angry. Sad. Highly emotional. I have had my moments of guilt.

Like, if I hadn’t started this chain reaction 7-8  months ago, he wouldn’t be dead. I know that thought isn’t entirely rational. I know he chose to relapse. I know that I made an anonymous complaint 7-8  months ago, without really, enough weight to it for, it alone, to cause him to lose his license. I know that he is a HIGHLY HIGHLY intelligent medical professional. If he was sober for as long as he told me that he was when I saw him this summer, he would have simply said to the board “I deny that to be the case, please take a hair follicle sample and it will prove my sobriety (for the last 6-months…and beyond that, please prove it.) I made the complaint, not to harm him, but to save other lives. I watched him come home from work, high. I was scared he would kill or harm someone – either at work or driving. And I couldn’t live with that on my conscience and I know it would have killed him too. Ethically, I did right for the greater number. But, I don’t feel the least bit good about any of this. I also know, as it’s been pointed out to me, in all the times he has attempted to harm himself, he’s never made the decision sober. He has always been in the midst of a relapse and made an irrational choice influenced by substances. I am certain he was in the middle of a relapse. I am trying to move past the guilt. But the anger and sadness, it’s still a lot.

I am angry that he sucked me back into his web of pain, addiction, lies and mental illness. I felt like I was healing/healed from the divorce and finally in a place where I had moved on. I was happy. Nearly every year, with some exceptions, his shit ruined the holidays. It’s always this time of year he fell. It was the time of year he struggled and relapsed. It’s the first time I ever saw him high. The time I had to bail him out of jail. The first time he left me a note indicating self harm. Etc. Always started this time of year. It was this time of year last year that our marriage fell apart. Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s not even close to happy and joyful. This year was supposed to be different. I find solace though, that this is the final time he can hurt me. This is the end. Once I heal from this, it’s over.

I am angry that he ruined our marriage, without even trying, to live happily ever after with a 20-something, so he could be his authentic-self and be happy…just so he would kill himself less than 8-months after I moved out. We went through hell and a lot of expense to divorce. I am grateful that I am moved on and am in such a better place in my life, but it seems so wasteful. All for naught. I have known for at least 8 months now that I am finally happy. Happiness I didn’t have in the recent years of our marriage. Eric has shown me what a relationship SHOULD be. And this final exit of Matt’s is further proof of what I never deserved. But, I can’t help but having so much anger around all of this.

I am having flashbacks to the parking garage, and finding him dead, almost 6 years ago. And I imagine what he looked like in the hotel room when the police found him. His moments right before. It’s haunting me.

Yesterday was the worst day all week. I woke up and my cheeks were shredded from grinding my teeth all night. Something I never do. I got out of the shower and had messages from people I haven’t spoken with in years, saw FB messages on Matt’s wall, and just broke down hysterically. I know everyone is grieving. And angry. And sad. He wasn’t a bad person, but I fear people making him out to be a great person, when he wasn’t. He was decent and mostly kind. But, not great. And he doesn’t deserve to be a hero in his death. And I don’t want to hear from people who haven’t cared about me in the last, who knows how many years. People who unfriended me on FB yearssss ago, for, I don’t know what reason (probably because we weren’t close, and they went through their own divorce, or whatever.) But, reaching out now, seems so insincere. I cried so hard, I threw up. I have been working all week. It’s my busy week of the year with open enrollment. So between calls and meetings, I just let the tears flow.

My parents have been hovering. Wanting to take me out of town, get me out of the house, something. I haven’t completely isolated. I am talking to my friends (the real ones!) I went to Pilates last night (it was hard to motivate myself, but I am glad I went!) But, in-between the obligations, I need alone time.

I realized Tuesday night something though. The day felt 2-weeks long. I was exhausted, but never going to sleep. All I wanted was to be with Eric. I was at my parents, 1500 miles away. I wanted him to comfort me. I wanted to curl up next to him and just breath. He stepped up that day in ways I couldn’t even ask for and ways I didn’t know I needed. I had been waiting for the right reason to move in. To know that relocating to MA and living with him was the right decision for the right reason. And Matt’s fucked up dated, in some weird fucked up way, was exactly what I needed to show me, my sign, lit up in neon lights.

I told Eric this. He was beyond excited. But, in true amazing Eric fashion, he told me he understood if I changed my mind. He recognized I was making a decision midst all my grief. And if it was different later, he got that too. I don’t think it will be different. And in part, because he is the person to say something like this.

I am supposed to go back up there in 9 days. Last night he asked me to change my ticket and come sooner. I haven’t decided if I will. I want to. It is pretty much all I want. But, I also don’t want to lose some of the last time with my parents before I move permanently. I need to probably decide today what I will do.

I have so many more stories to share, but this has taken me a couple days to get out. I need to be better and write more often. It’s often the best thearpy.