The End

 It has been a year since my separation. 

I am a mother of two daughters. J is 15, and she is a challenge. J has struggled with her mental health since way before I made her father leave. S is 12 and the most easy-going child you could ever dream of. 2 children, entirely different personalities. They remind me of me and my older sister. We were raised in the same household, we had the same parents and the same other siblings; yet it would be difficult to find 2 sisters more unlikely to be sisters. Except for J and S.

I'll tell you the story of my separation.

My husband C and I were together for 16 years. It wasn't an easy 16 years, we had battled many problems. Bankruptcy, pregnancy loss, marriage counselling, sick family members... we had been through it all. It wasn't a great marriage, I knew that. I hadn't realised quite how toxic it was until I ended it. The last year has been as enlightening as it has stressful. 

On the run-up to my husband's birthday, I had discovered a lump in my breast. I was so worried, and waiting for my appointment with the specialist to decide on next steps. I was finding anything and everything to distract myself from obsessing and imagining life with cancer. I was also clueless for what birthday gift to buy him; he already bought the things he wanted, and the house was full of his old and discarded presents. Golf clubs lay collecting cobwebs. Unread books were sun bleached but pristine inside. A personalised license plate I had bought him had expired before he used it. Years of birthday and Christmas gifts lay untouched and unused. One night during one of my frequent bouts of insomnia, I was busy searching online for ideas, and realised that C had fallen asleep with his phone on the bed. I picked it up for a nosy, thinking it might help me discover what he might want, so I could surprise him. Instead, I was the one in for a surprise.

'I can get a Henry if you wanna go halves. 1.75g each'. This message came from a person I had never met. Someone whose name was familiar to me through stories from C. They had known each other since childhood, and I associated the name with drugs. 

What the f*&k is a 'Henry'??

A quick google search later revealed that a Henry is an eighth of an ounce, usually referring to cocaine. Get it? Henry the eighth? So clever, or some shit like that. 

C knew how I felt about drugs. He knew I didn't approve of his cavalier attitude to recreational substances. I knew of his history with drugs as a teenager/young man, and I had seen him take cocaine a couple of years earlier. He had assured me this was a one-off. I was especially confused with this message as this was the first UK COVID-19 'lockdown', there were no parties, no nights out at the pub, no groups of friends getting together for fun. Why would he want a social drug at a time when no socialising was going on? 

I wasn't hugely surprised when the messages revealed that he had made this deal for 'half a Henry'. I snooped more. Yes, it wasn't the right approach, but I knew he would lie if I asked any questions. I couldn't bear to raise this with him yet, because I had my appointment with the breast specialist hanging over me, and experience had taught me how this argument would go; he would deny everything, then retreat from me. He'd basically hide and refuse to discuss it, and if I forced the issue, he would become offensive instead. It would be my fault. 

I found reference to cocaine in his work's group chat. I knew the group and their behaviours. I knew they were all quite fond of the white stuff, but C had assured me it wasn't his kind of thing anymore. He was too old for that, he would say. However, his messages made it clear that this deal wasn't his first dabble with the drug. I had noticed his changed behaviour over the previous year or two. As I sat on my bed in the middle of the night next to my snoring husband, I found myself provided with the distraction from my worries that I had been looking for. I barely slept that night, finally dozing off somewhere near the dawn. 

I can't describe how I made it through the days that followed. I think I was a robot, running on auto-pilot; just functioning enough to meet what was expected of me. I went to work, I came home and made dinner. I binge watched TV and continued as 'normal', all the while in turmoil inside. I bought my husband's birthday present and even splurged a little more than usual. In hindsight, I wonder if this was to try and counterbalance his anger for when I would confront him? I wasn't really thinking straight at the time. I deliberately engineered a conversation with C about cocaine. His thoughts on it were clear; he thought it was nothing at all to worry about, loads of people do it... but not him. Oh no, definitely not him, not his kind of thing at all. I knew this was an outright lie, but I couldn't bring myself to say so.

His birthday passed, and my appointment was just days afterwards. Thankfully, they found nothing of concern. I was cleared! After all my time imagining my kids being left without a mother, or having to nurse a sick mother, it came to nothing. Unfortunately, what that also meant was I then had the brain space to address my other concern.

I confronted him that night. We were both in bed. I told him I knew he had been lying. As I expected, he refused to discuss it, he just shut me off and went to sleep. I had yet another sleepless night. The next morning, he got up and went to work. It was a Saturday, he definitely didn't need to work. As I had known he would, he chose to ignore the problem and give me the silent treatment for daring to question him. He came home late, ignored me, slept, and did the same thing again the next day. 

By this point, I was furious. I think this was the final straw for me. Our marriage was a mess and had been for some time. We were functioning day to day, showing a normal husband and wife, mother and father, to our children and to the rest of the world. But there was no passion left; no trust, no respect. I decided to give him a final chance and drove to his work to confront him.

C first refused to talk to me. He even tried to walk away. Then, he turned on me. It was my fault that he was driven to drugs, because I 'did his nut in'. I expected this, but this for me was the last time I could put up with it. I went to my car, removed the bag I had packed him in preparation for this, and I told him he wasn't welcome back home. I walked away. 

It was The End.