How did I get here?

 As I reflect on that night, I see so many signs that it was coming.  I had tried for so very long to keep everything together.  31 and 3/4 years to be exact.  What happened to that young girl on her wedding day thinking she was marrying her partner, her friend, the one that made her laugh?  That joy of my marriage didn't last past the honeymoon.  I have always told people that I cried every night during the first year of our marriage.  Why did I stay?  

I wish there was an easy answer to that.  My mom was dying at the age of 43.  I couldn't go home.  He loved me, I was just the problem.  I needed too much.  I needed him to hold me, touch me, and share himself with me.  On our honeymoon, he would pull me towards him while he slept. It made me so happy.  He would hold me in my sleep.  The honeymoon lasted 4 days.  When we got home he never did it again.  I asked if he knew he was doing it and he said he did.  I remember saying you didn't act like this when we dated and he told me if he had I wouldn't have ever married him. 

I spent years believing I could fix this.  If I.  The list of if I's.  If I kept the house cleaner, if I cooked the chicken fried steak like he wanted, if I had makeup on when he got home from work at 11pm, if I kept the kids quiet, if I lost weight, if I was more careful mowing, if I kept the laundry done, if I didn't go out with my friends, if I sat where he wanted me to, if I did what he wanted me to, if I worked more, spent less, only said what he wanted to hear, if, if, if. 

I didn't leave.  Instead, I sold my soul and became the person he wanted me to be, only that made everything worse. By 2020, 29 years into our marriage I was walking around saying, "I'm so sorry, I'll do better." I said this every day, usually more than once.  In September of that year, he made me stay in our room because a student in my class had covid.  I sat in there and planned my first escape.  I rented a house, found furniture, set up a bank account, and started going through clothes. After making me stay in our room, he yelled at me because he had to sleep in his chair.  He wanted to know how long I was going to keep this up.  I just looked at him and said, "If I were you, I'd sleep on the couch it's more comfortable."