I'm not one for maudlin emotional displays, but I've got kind of a big anniversary going on today...so maybe indulge me a bit while I retrace some steps?

A year ago today I left a 20-year-long marriage that had become a kind of daily emotional battery.  The currency of the marriage was control,and the flavor of it alternated between sour and bland.  Ever heard the word "stultifying"?  "Rendering ineffectual; crippling."   That describes pretty well the effect of my marriage on my intellectual and emotional life.

Lots of people meeting us for the first time would remark on how we seemed the perfect couple--enjoying the perfect life.  The perfect life... From a purely material standpoint, I was living it.  Husband built and sold a tech company, and so we were financially independent by age 40.  I lived in a McMansion on a golf course and co-owned a ski house.  Drove a gorgeous, tech-drenched, gas-hogging SUV, had housekeeeping help every week.  Had the mani-pedi every week too, which I do actually really miss.  And the personal trainer, blah blah blah.

No one but my closest friends and a couple of my siblings knew that, while I was living a wealthy lifestyle, I had absolutely no say over how any of our money was managed or invested.  I was completely locked out of all things financial--and when I would ask to make decisions as a partnership, the answer would be, "I let you spend whatever you want on your credit cards.  What is your problem? Do you need your medication adjusted or something"

Degrading.

The attitude toward money began to alarm me--and I wondered if I would absorb it and become someone else.  Once, when our oldest daughter criticized her dad for his lack of charitable giving outside of the church building fund, his answer was, "My money is a sign of God's favor, and my success shows that God approves of the way I'm using my money."

Chilling. 

And there were so many other sad things--which I won't enumerate here.  Suffice it to say, I felt increasingly useless and locked out of my own life.  And bored in a way that is hard to describe.  My days were busy, but I could never bring myself to think about the future...because the future just appeared to be more of the same.  Placating a controlling, increasingly grandiose man, keeping up appearances, playing host, being cheerful for the kids, crying in the shower (where I wouldn't be heard), drinking to feel numb.

A year ago today, I announced that the marriage was over.  I was threatened, cajoled, accused--all the things that had worked to keep me i nplace in the past.  They didn't work this time.  For whatever reason (I'm still not quite sure), I had arrived at the place where I was willing to take whatever he might dish out legally, financially, and emotionally--just to have my freedom.

Over the course of the year, my husband made good on most of his threats--though the justice system kept him from punishing me in all of the ways he might have liked.  He did his best to ruin my reputation with both my children and the many friends I had made over 12 years of living in our small town.  Bitterness is a daily companion, and I try not to let it overtake me. 

My kids have started (without any help from me) to see the areas where their dad hasn't been truthful.   The few friends I have left here I cherish.  A lot of the rest look at me funny when I pass them by in the grocery store.  My sense of humor has come back enough now to think to myself, "Damn! Wish I were half as exciting as the libertine they think I am."  Ah well,  now i've made a bunch of new friends too.

This weekend I move out of the place I've been renting--into a small house that is all my own.  And that I've been working on making beautiful and cozy for the last two months.  No, I'm not rich anymore (in case you were wondering).  Long story about that.  But I have enough to live simply--and that is exactly what I am doing. 

I'd like more money (which is why I'm here)--but for me that desire is mostly about paying educational expenses and showing my kids that I can be independent.  I'll never again want a big house, glitzy vacations, or all of that STUFF.  (Though I probably will reinstitute the biweekly visits to Tony the nail tech, who gives the most amazing foot massages....)

I am celebrating this year.  Grieving it too.  The main thing is, I don't pursue numbness anymore.  There are just too many wonderful possibilities to chase.