The hostility became so pervasive that a few weeks later when we had plans to visit friends out of town, I suggested that NH stay home.  A friend had stayed with us the week before and she commented on how he was treating me – when he spoke he was hostile, disdainful and mean. She felt uncomfortable being in the house. I didn’t think it was right to bring our fucked-up dog and pony show to someone else’s home. “Hi, thanks for having us. Now we’re going to berate one another and make really awkward comments about our personal life. Yes, I’d love more salad”.

I would take the kids and he could use the time alone to figure out what was going on with this flood of emotions. I told him that it wasn’t acceptable to be so angry and loathsome towards me and we really needed find a better way to deal with the problem. To his credit, he broke down..shaking..sobbing…about how horrible he felt, how full of shame he was. He kept repeating how shameful he felt. I remember being in shock, or maybe it was disconnect. As difficult and frustrating as our relationship was, I couldn’t understand how he pulled shame from the marriage. Shame is about humiliation, guilt, or disgrace. Where was the shame coming from? That was the very first time I thought there might be something else going one here – something more than just poor communication.  Incredibly naive of me, but I began to get that we were having two very separate and distinct experiences that occasionally managed to overlap in small places.

I left with the kids and made lame excuses for NH’s absence. No one really questioned me because we were in the beginning stages of buying a business.  The process was time consuming and stressful. The trip wasn’t great, though. These weren’t people I knew well enough to confide in, and even if did, what was I going to say? “We’ve been having communication issues for years, and now my husband thinks he raped me, and I’m getting creeped out…read any good books lately?” I had no clue how quickly our marriage was unraveling and I wasn’t even sure what the cause of our unhappiness was anymore.

I returned home with the kids late Sunday afternoon and I didn’t feel well. By dinner, I had a fever of 102, and was in bed. I don’t even remember the last time I had a fever before that day. NH took care of the kids and I slept. Deep sleep. On Monday, a friend helped with the kids while I stayed in bed. No interest in food and unable to do much for the family. NH again made dinner for the kids and I sat at the table with everyone, but my fever hadn’t broken and I was quickly back in bed. I could hear him cleaning up the kitchen and getting the kids ready for bed. Around 9pm, after the children were asleep, NH came in and stood by the side of the bed. The lights were out but the sun hadn’t completely set and the room was full of that twilight glow.

NH told me he was leaving. My head was foggy from the fever and I didn’t comprehend what was going down. NH was leaving and he we would need to make a plans for the kids to spend time with him. I think I asked, “What? Why? Really? You’re doing this right now?”. He said he thought about what I had said, that he was angry and it wasn’t right for him to treat me badly, so he was leaving and he would make arrangements for the kids to be with him part of the time. (Uh, I didn’t mean walk out on us, I meant dig deeper and try to make some sense of the spiral…talk to me about what’s going on in your head…fight for us.)

What? Where are you going? To a recently divorced friend’s house. NH was staying on a blow up mattress in this friend’s home-office. And you’re going to take the kids to stay there? Are you divorcing me? No. Then the kids aren’t leaving this house. Every night, their heads will hit the pillows in the bed they’ve always known. We will have to make some other plan for the kids to see you. OK.

And he walked out. I heard the garage open, close, and his car pull away. The man walked out with little explanation as I was lying in bed with a fever of 102. Who does that? Apparently the man I married does that. As silly as it sounds, I never imagined NH and I would separate. I knew we had problems…that there was a two-ton elephant in the room regarding our intimacy and communication, funny how those two items are so tightly bound for most of us – men and women. But I always assumed we would just muster through it…til death do us part.  I believed there was something better on the other side and we just had to push ourselves over the hill.