How long does a person wait?

I used to hide the knives every night.

Whe Shawn resumed drinking, following 7 months of miserable sobriety, I started to get scared.

He was filled with rage. 

During his non-drinking hours of the day he was agitated, mean and sarcastic.

And when he drank at night the rage turned cold.

He was largely mute once he reached his targeted blood alcohol content. 

Instead of talking he would sit in the living room and, when he looked at me, it was a blank, cold, piercing stare.

Knowing the rage that lied behind that cold stare and, knowing he was fully blacked- out (i.e. he was up walking and doing things and would have ZERO recollection of anything the next day), I was chilled to the core and began to fear that some evening he would snap and kill me.

For years I simply hid the knives and told myself that this was all in my mind - simply a by-product of my scary childhood and reading too many People magazine articles about murdered wives.  Every morning I would wake up and put the knives back out.

And then, on October 30, 2006, after I had tucked the kids into bed I came upstairs, found him sitting, in a stupor, in his chair and I summoned my courage...

"Shawn?  Would you every hurt me?"

He turned slowly and looked blankly at me.  And his reply was this...

"Why would I fuck up my life like that?"

Not, "No!  Oh my gosh!  How could you think that?  I would never hurt you".

"Why would I fuck up my life like that?"

I instantly went into fight or flight mode.  It suddenly seemed dangerous to have even asked the question.  I feared that it was the trigger for the violence I had feared for so long.

"Shawn, I need you leave.  I need you to leave the house right now."  My voice was much more calm and firm than I felt inside. 

I was eyeing the door and knew I could move fast to get the kids and run. 

There was a moment of silence and then he looked at me with wide incredulous eyes.  In a cold voice he said "You want me to leave?  You want me to leave??"

"Yes, Shawn.  I need you to leave the house right now."

He jumped out of the chair but didn't make a move for me.  Instead he went downstairs to Lily's room and grabbed the duffel bag out of her closet.

"Daddy!  Hi, Daddy", she squealed. Lennon came running into Lily's room, happy to see his Daddy at this time of night.

Shawn turned to the kids and said, "Mommy said I can't live here anymore.  She doesn't want Daddy to live here."

I was horrified!  The kids started crying, "No, Mommy!  Please don't make Daddy move!"

I began crying, too, and pleading with Shawn, "I didn't say that, Shawn!  Please just go to a friends house for tonight!  We'll talk in the morning.  I didn't say Daddy can't live here!"

All I had hoped was that he would ride his bike to a friend's house, wake up on the couch and think, "My wife is afraid I'm going to hurt her.  I need to make some changes."

I ran and got a hundred dollar bill which I kept thrusting at him pleading, "Please just go to a hotel for tonight."
On the front porch the kids were clinging to Shawn crying, "No, Daddy!  Please come back!"

And his reply to them...

"Maybe I'll just go drive into the reservoir."

"No, Daddy!  Please don't do that!!"

"Shawn!  Please don't drive the car!  Please, just ride your bike!  Please."  He was way too intoxicated to drive and I knew he was safer on his bike.

I caught hold of his duffel bag as I continued pleading with him not to drive.  With one aggressive, fast jerk he yanked the bag away and I felt the muscles in my shoulder tear.

At this point I knew it was better for everyone to let him go.

I shut the door and took our now hysterical kids upstairs.

Damn him!  How could he do this to our kids???  After all the sacrifices we had made to be fully present for our kids!  Didn't he know that scenes like this stay with you for a lifetime?  I knew it all too well - I had lived it.

And then I knew I needed help.

No more hiding behind a smiling face.  The happy wife, the happy kids, the successful business - it was a lie and I couldn't keep it up anymore.

I called my Mom first.  God, I never wanted to be like her in this regard!  The sobbing, helpless mother with the scared kids.  It was too familiar to both of us.

I doubt she could understand much of what I said but she knew I needed her and she was there within 5 minutes.  She was able to calm the kids and get them too sleep while I called the Sheriff and made a report that my husband had driven off, highly intoxicated, and threatening to drive into the reservoir.

It didn't sound as if the Sheriff was going to be sending out a search party - I got the feeling I would be lucky if the officer patrolling the reservoir kept an eye out on his rounds. 

I called Shawn's two best friends and further broke apart the facade that had been my life with Shawn.  I told them that he had been drinking around 16 drinks every night, that he blacked-out every single evening and that he had driven off threatening suicide.  I begged them to go look for him.  They responded, "He just needs time to think" and if he's not back in the morning they would "see if they could find him and talk to him".

What else was I to do then?  I couldn't go out looking for him by myself - it was dangerous and I had to think about our kids. 

As I recall, I let my Mom tuck me into bed and fell into a deep sleep while she slept restlessly on the couch.

Shawn wasn't home when we all woke up and I knew I had to crack the shell a little more.

I called Shawn's Dad and, crying, confided everything I had shared with the friends the night before.  He responded with great seriousness, asked me to keep him posted and said he would fly out if needed.

And then, sometime around 10am, the VW pulled into the driveway.  I can't remember what either of us said.  I think I was calm and greeted him with a quiet hug.

The kids were at pre-school and Shawn and I went for a hike together.  We needed to be outdoors.

He acknowledged that his drinking was a problem but kept telling me he "wasn't ready" to quit drinking.  I pressed him for when he would be ready.  He couldn't tell me.  I pressed him, "How long do I wait?"  He had no answer for this either.

We did not discuss whether he would ever hurt me or my fear.  I didn't even know if he remembered me asking that question and I didn't want to hear the answer.
We both wanted everything to be okay and so we pretended it was. 

We picked up the kids from pre-school together.  We were all smiles.  We went to the park and laughed and played.  Shawn and I were affectionate with each other, united in our desire for everything to be normal for our family.  We put on our Halloween costumes and went Trick-or-Treating.

I don't think Shawn's friends ever spoke to him about what happened.  I don't think his parents expressed their worries to him.  I guess they wanted everything to be okay as much as we did.

The kids remembered the events of this evening for a few months (Lennon, a few times, did a play-by-play reenactment with the exact intonations in everyone's voices) and then the details seemed to fade away.  They were 3 1/2 and just barely 5 when this happened and don't seem to have any conscious recollection of it now.

It was a turning point for me.  I had shut off close friendships for years.  For the first time I had to be REAL with my friends and family about what my life was really like.  I just couldn't do it on my own any more.  And I discovered that I am stronger when I am real and let my friends support me during hard times.

I knew when Shawn threatened suicide in front of the kids that I wouldn't wait forever for Shawn to quit drinking.  I knew I would not let my children grow up in a house with an alcoholic. 

It turned out the answer to the question, "How long do I wait?" was 8 months.

Eight months to save money so I would have a place to live if he wouldn't move out of the house.  Eight months to gather my mental strength to make the break and stick with it the first time without looking back.

And I did it!  I didn't wait forever!  And I wasn't the one who was there for the final act.  I wasn't the one who had to plan his funeral.

And for that I am grateful.

An afterthought:  When I look back at the day at the evening I describe here and then reflect on how terrible it was last year to spend the day worrying, learning of Shawn's death and staying awake all night waiting for morning to tell the kids - I am struck that I would rather relive August 29, 2011 a hundred times than relive October 30, 2006 even once.  And I guess that tells you something.