My husband was let go from his job this week.
I feel terrified. Not because of immediate financial needs. I live in a part of the country where the cost of living is low. And we have savings. I am terrified because my husband lives in a bubble. I am terrified because he keeps making reckless mistakes at the cost of his family, for the sake of dopamine highs. I am terrified that my problems are not even the classic ones. He's not addicted to drugs. He's not been cheating on me. But he is neurodivergent like me. And I might have hinted at it before but the way he is... as a combination of his upbringing, neurotype, and family history, demographic etc has made him into a person that does not percieve how dangerous the world can really be. How ruthless and unforgiving.
For 15 years, I’ve failed to make him see: we can keep our hearts open, but we must be ready for the world's cruelty.. Perhaps I learned that lesson when my dad abused me, or when he left, or when mom died, or when I was raped, or the times I couldn't afford to feed myself. Maybe I learned it every time I let person after person touch my body and not care about the deeper parts of my soul. But it's a lesson deep in me. Not in him. He trusts second chances, that people will take pity on him and help him. Because people are protective of him.
It's been a long time since I felt safe in my marriage. Maybe it was the time he drank and punched the wall whilst I was pregnant, or the time I screamed and broke a glass in anger, or the times I indulged in short-lived emotional affairs in a series of childish fits, or the time my daughter got sick and he made me to take care of her overnight, as he slept off his beers. I remember waking up the next morning, after 3 hours, and frosting his birthday cake. The times he scolded me for getting hurt. The times I felt cold and told him to consider himself my roommate. I promised myself that my daughter won't suffer like I did. I swore to be by her side as long as she needs me. To stay in my marraige long enough to see her through the beautiful, heartwrenching business that is growing up. I swore to myself to do this thing, and to do it with grace, no matter what.
So now, I am in this situation, where I have this unorthodox family, and one is 47, won't take care of himself, doesn't know what he wants or how to get it, and somehow sheperd him to a place where he can provide even a superficial amount of stability to the people around him. And to do this while he refuses to get help, strategize for the future, or accept advice or guidance. So I feel this helplessness. I can control myself. I can make it work for me and scramble and scrooge, no matter how hard things are. And in the end, that's what makes me the saddest, and what has traumatized me so firmly that I have wholly decided never ever ever to let myself love anyone again. I really want my little cottage one day, even if it were so tiny to fit a place to sleep, some books, a small place to cook, and a way to work. A way to welcome my daughter when needed, and just live without the terrifying sense that the ground is constantly threatening to give away from under me. One day, I’ll have my little cottage. Small, safe, and mine. A place where the ground doesn’t threaten to vanish beneath me.
No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side.
Or you don't.
– Stephen King (The Stand)