Opening the Door

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February 27, 2007 . . .  Most of the events of my marriage run together . . .  Dates are nearly impossible to remember, but this was a special day, so I remember, and this was the day the door opened . . . for me . . .

I don't remember what we fought about.  I rarely do after a little time.  The fights are so often over the insignificant.  But . . . he once again brought up divorce.  Nearly every fight, every argument . . . and there were so many . . . for the first nearly six years of our marriage . . . he brought up divorce.  He brought up divorce.  For me, divorce was not an option.  It didn't exist as a choice.  This marriage was going to work . . .  Until this morning . . .  This time when he said divorce, something snapped inside of me, and suddenly a door opened . . .  Divorce was a possibility . . . It is a possibility . . .

Our relationship began a steady decline after that.  With me no longer fighting to hold this marriage together, it rapidly began falling to pieces, until finally in November 2007, I drafted and signed divorce papers.  He just needed to sign and file them . . .  And instead he talked me into giving the relationship another chance.  He knew so many ways he'd been wrong, and he didn't want to lose me . . .

It's a funny thing though . . . this door to divorce.  Once opened, it never really closes.  And as the relationship hits new all time lows, it even becomes a comfort . . . for there is a way out of this hell.

So, that door stands there . . . open . . . beckoning . . .  But, something holds me back . . .  Something keeps me from stepping through it . . .  fear . . .  Fear of the unknown . . .  I know others find my inaction exhausting . . . frustrating . . .  But, fear is paralyzing . . .  And it is only overcome one step at a time . . .

If knowledge is power, the fear of the unknown is just as powerful.  It is a war fought on mental and emotional battlefields that those outside of the abuse simply cannot comprehend, and any truly positive outcome is excruciatingly slow in its arrival.

Three weeks ago I embraced that door.  I was more powerful than that fear.  I was ready to walk through it . . .  until I was wrenched back from its threshold . . .  and consumed by all new fears . . .

But the door stands . . . open to the blackness of the unknown . . . and I am on an agonizingly slow journey once again . . .

A journey that may someday end in my stepping through the door . . . into the abyss . . . and beginning again . . . beginning anew . . .

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