So Screwed

Co-dependence makes sense.

It came as a shock to me when my therapist told me I was co-dependent. Even after she told me and I skimmed a few books, I didn't get it. I remember asking people, "How is being a good, loyal wife any different than being co-dependent?"

I stick. I put on a smile, take a Xanax, and stick. I try like a saint to fix it and endure...both of my chief ingredients in my formula to a happy marriage. After 10 years of a pleasant marriage, my husband became a gambler and a verbally abusive alcoholic. He had always lied so that wasn't new. For the next 5 years, he ruined us financially, insulted and degraded me, and terrified our children. Finally, I  left with my girls after another especially rugged five years of rabbit punches to my sanity. And then, after months of arrests, frauds, and vulgar voice mails, he joins AA and gets better.

Now he wants to make it up to me and make amends. He is better than he has ever been. Kind, thoughtful, loving, reflective, and sober.

However, this one fact is impaled in the back of my mind and I cannot extricate it: He was bad when I was there, and he got better when I was gone.

Oh, yeah, co-dependence is a mother-fucker.