The Knife

So I'd left my husband.

I'd moved into temporary accommodation.

I'd spent precisely one night there by myself.

Then somehow he was there every night afterwards.

And eventually?

I moved back home.

Again.

By this point, I can practically hear people reading this screaming:

WHY DID YOU KEEP GOING BACK?

And it's a fair question.

It's one I've asked myself plenty of times.

But leaving somebody you've built years of your life around isn't always one dramatic moment where you pack a suitcase, slam the door and march confidently towards your fabulous new future.

Sometimes you leave physically before you've left emotionally.

Sometimes you miss the person they used to be.

Sometimes you look at your children and the family you've built.

Sometimes they do something that reminds you why you fell in love with them.

Sometimes you genuinely believe:

Maybe this time will be different.

And sometimes?

You're simply not ready yet.

I wasn't.

So I went back.

Then I Turned 40

My 40th birthday came around.

And for once?

He did something really nice for me with all the kids.

It was one of those moments where I got a glimpse of the family I'd always wanted.

The man I'd married.

The children.

Us.

And that little bit of hope appeared again.

Maybe we'd finally turned a corner.

Maybe after everything we'd been through, we could still fix this.

Maybe forty was going to be some kind of fresh start.

Except it didn't last.

Because before long, another routine developed.

His mate's pub.

Every Weekend

He started going to his mate's pub every weekend.

And going to the pub wasn't simply:

I'll pop out for a couple of drinks and see you later.

It affected the whole weekend.

He'd go out.

Drink.

Then spend the following day in bed hungover.

So even when technically he was back home?

He wasn't really there.

The drinking was becoming a bigger and bigger part of our lives.

And none of us liked the person he became when he drank.

I certainly didn't.

Especially after losing Mum.

Alcohol had become something I found particularly difficult to be around.

And just to make this clear because it's been mixed up before:

I don't drink.

The alcohol in the house was his.

The drinking that was becoming a problem was his.

And gradually I started dreading what version of my husband I was going to get.

Then came the night with the green.

He Couldn't Find It

I was in bed.

He'd been drinking.

He was banging about the cupboards looking for his green.

He couldn't find it.

And apparently the only possible explanation for that was:

I'd hidden it.

He started accusing me.

I hadn't hidden it.

But it didn't matter what I said.

He was drunk.

Angry.

And convinced I was responsible.

Then he came into the bedroom.

I was still in bed.

He came over to me.

Leaned over me.

And put a knife to my throat.

My husband.

The man I'd married.

The father of my youngest daughter.

The man whose son had become my stepson.

The man my other children had grown up with.

Standing over me with a knife at my throat.

Screaming in my face.

The force was so much that the handle of the knife actually snapped.

Then he left the house.

And I was left there.

That Should Have Been the End

There are things I've written in this blog where I can understand why I stayed.

There are others where even I look backwards and think:

How the fuck did I normalise that?

This is one of them.

Because a knife isn't a bad argument.

It isn't somebody losing their temper and saying something horrible.

It's a knife.

At your throat.

And yet when you've spent years experiencing things, forgiving them, moving on, having good periods in between and convincing yourself that wasn't really him...

your understanding of normal becomes completely fucked.

The line doesn't move all at once.

It moves a little bit at a time.

Until one day you're lying in bed with a knife at your throat and somehow, afterwards, life carries on.

But something had changed in me.

I was frightened of him.

And not long afterwards, that secret came out.

The Pub

I went out for food and to the pub with my dad, my cousin and my youngest.

My husband kept texting.

Phoning.

Telling me to come home.

At one point I took a photo of me and my cousin and sent it to her with loads of kisses.

My daughter saw it.

And messaged her dad saying I was texting somebody.

So he came to the pub.

And an argument started.

He told me to get into the car.

But I was scared.

Really scared.

And suddenly I shouted something I'd been keeping to myself.

Something Dad didn't know.

“What, so you can put a knife to my throat again?”

And just like that?

It wasn't a secret happening behind closed doors anymore.

My dad had heard me.

He knew.

Dad Told Him to Leave

Dad told him to go.

I wasn't leaving with him.

I was staying with Dad.

So my cousin and I went back there.

And this time?

I moved in properly.

Me.

My daughter.

And the dog.

Back at Dad's.

Again.

Except Mum wasn't there anymore.

And that alone made this return different from all the others.

For years I'd gone back to Mum and Dad's.

Now I was going back to Dad.

That safety net was still there.

But part of it was missing.

And I was missing her too.

I Stayed for Months

This wasn't a night away after an argument.

It wasn't me disappearing for a week and then going back.

I stayed with Dad for a few months.

I had my daughter.

The dog.

I had distance from my husband.

Time to think.

Time to recognise how bad things had become.

And then...

Yep.

You already know what's coming.

I moved back home.

Again.

I know.

But I wasn't finished with the marriage yet.

And strangely, the next stage wasn't defined by one huge dramatic incident.

It was something quieter.

Something that probably looked completely ordinary from the outside.

Loneliness.

I Started Working at the Care Home

Around this period, I started working in a care home.

And work became an important part of my life.

Not just financially.

It gave me somewhere to go.

People to speak to.

Something useful to do.

And because of our working hours, there were times when my husband would be arriving home from work just as I was getting ready to leave for mine.

Sometimes we'd have roughly:

Twenty minutes.

Twenty minutes with my husband.

That was it.

You'd think when a married couple barely sees each other, those twenty minutes would matter.

A kiss.

A cuddle.

"How was your day?"

"How are you?"

"Have a good shift."

Even ten minutes sitting together.

Something.

Anything that reminded us we were husband and wife.

Instead?

He'd come through the door.

And the moaning would start.

Something had happened.

Somebody had annoyed him.

Someone at work had done something.

Something wasn't right.

There was always somebody or something.

And I'd listen.

Then he'd roll a joint.

The Xbox would go on.

And there went our twenty minutes.

I'd leave for work.

He'd settle down.

And we'd pass each other again.

Then We Stopped Even Sharing a Room

Even when we were both home?

We weren't really together.

We started sitting in separate rooms.

He'd be drinking and sitting on the Xbox.

I'd be somewhere else.

Alone.

And that's a strange kind of loneliness.

Because technically, your husband is in the house.

He's through a door.

Maybe only a few metres away.

But emotionally?

You might as well be living by yourself.

We weren't spending evenings together.

We weren't talking properly.

We weren't behaving like two people who actually wanted to share their lives.

We were just occupying the same building.

So I Started Picking Up Overtime

I began taking extra shifts.

Obviously the money helped.

But if I'm being truthful?

That wasn't the only reason.

Sometimes I'd rather be at work than sitting alone at home.

At work, there were people.

Conversation.

Things happening.

I was needed.

I had a purpose.

At home, I could sit in one room while my husband drank and played Xbox in another.

So when overtime was available?

I'd take it.

And that's quite a sad thing to realise about your marriage.

I'd spent years wanting more of his time.

Waiting for him to come home.

Wanting him around.

Wanting us to do things together.

And now?

I was volunteering to spend more of my own time away from him.

Not because I had some exciting life elsewhere.

Because work felt less lonely than my own house.

Eventually, I moved from the care home to a brain injury unit.

I was working.

Functioning.

Getting on with life.

From the outside, I probably looked fine.

But inside our house, the marriage was becoming emptier and emptier.

And then my youngest started football.

Football Changed My Social Circle

My youngest started playing football.

Which meant training.

Matches.

Other parents.

Standing about football pitches.

And that's how I met another mum.

The woman who would become my new friend.

At first?

There was absolutely nothing sinister about it.

We clicked.

We talked.

We laughed.

And after spending so much time feeling alone in my marriage, it was nice having somebody new to talk to.

Somebody who seemed interested.

Somebody who listened.

Somebody outside the situation who seemed able to see how unhappy I'd become.

We became close.

I trusted her.

And eventually?

I started telling her things.

About my marriage.

About the drinking.

The Xbox.

The separate rooms.

The loneliness.

The arguments.

About how unhappy I was.

And she had plenty to say about my husband.

She told me he'd flirted with her.

She called him an arsehole.

She told me I deserved better.

She asked why I was still there.

And when you're already sitting alone in one room while your husband drinks in another?

Those words find somewhere to land.

I thought I'd found a friend who genuinely cared about me.

Someone who wanted me to be happy.

Someone who was going to help me see things more clearly.

I had absolutely no idea how deeply she was about to become tangled up in my marriage, my family and eventually the breakdown of relationships with some of the people closest to me.

Because the next part of this story isn't really about my husband.

Not at first.

It's about her.

The friend I trusted.

The friend I listened to.

And the friend who kept telling me:

“You deserve to be happy.”

Next: The Friend who was always on my side.