Sometimes, it’s a good thing when the other shoe drops. It became clear early in my seven-year marriage to Edgar that he is an alcoholic. I might have noticed before the vows were said, had I not been so happy to have found the ultimate drinking buddy.

But after I stopped counting the number of times he went to detox and to rehab, after I stopped hiding his car keys and calling the cops when he found them, after I finally realized he wasn’t the only alcoholic in the house and sobered up, I noticed that I was not happily married.

I should have been. Ed is bright and funny and professionally accomplished.

He was far more likely to cook and clean than I was, and as far as I knew was faithful -- except for those lost weekends, and weeks, with the bottle.

But I did realized that I couldn't trust my husband, who had sworn that he never lied to me about anything important.

In addition, we had uncomfortably different ideas about money, and about the state of our marriage.

But Ed had put the plug in the jug, as recovering alcoholics say. So I tried to be satisfied.

I told him that if he went back to drinking he’d have to find someplace else to live.

Professionals had told him that if he resumed drinking he wouldn’t live very long.

I was glad he was accumulating sober time, though bizarrely, I knew that, if he started drinking again, my decision about the marriage would be much easier to make.

On the other hand, I couldn't wish active alcoholism on anybody, especially not the only guy I ever married.

Then I was gone for a week to visit my elderly parents.

Ed and I talked every day, and I looked forward to getting home. He knew when and where my flight was arriving, but wasn’t there to meet me.

And he didn’t answer his cell phone the first couple of times I called. When he did pick up the phone, he had trouble explaining what was going on.

Sara Muse of Belleview, Nebraska, behaved within the bounds of propriety in her conservative state. She dated her husband for a year before getting engaged. They did not live together before they married. She didn't get pregnant until after they were married.

 "We played by all the rules," she says. "Our marriage had the typical gender rules. I took care of the household chores. I cooked, cleaned, took care of the home. 

“We both worked outside of the home.  He took care of the outside yard work, car maintenance, and I took care of the inside.”

But then their daughter came along. Sara was 20 when Rhyanne was born, but despite her youth, she says, “I was prepared to be a parent.”

Her husband, she says, was not. “He wanted to live the bachelor’s life and do his own things.”

They divorced a year ago, when Rhyanne was 2.

She notes that she thought it would be easier to be a real single mom than to be married and act like a single mom.

“And I was right,” she says. Her ex-husband eventually admitted that he was scared by the idea of having a child.
 
How did this happen to her, she wondered. She had followed all the rules and still wound up divorced.

“My parents just celebrated their 30th anniversary and they played by the same rules I did,” she says, “dating, marriage, waiting for a child.”

“I kind of tried to follow in those footsteps and it didn’t work out.”

What bothers her most, she says, is “I felt like I just didn’t let myself down but also my friends and family."

(In the last part: What Sara learned)

It's 2 am. He's still not home. Why am I still here? Why am I still so pissed? Why am I even contemplating leaving one more message on his turned-off cell phone? So that I can record my fury, my angst, onto that little microchip in cell phone cyberspace for posterity? Lord knows he'll never listen to it. He'll hit '7' to erase it the second he hears, “OK, now, where are...”

Twelve years of marriage and it's come to this. He's not home because he'd rather be somewhere else. With someone else. He denies it but my 'wife radar' is in good working order. I'm sick of picturing who she might be. That's not even the point anymore. It's ABW: Anyone But the Wife. If I tell my girlfriends, they'll all just tell me to leave him, to throw him out. My therapist will again urge couples counseling. Tried that at Year Eight. Lasted the requisite six sessions, with promises to “renew," “refresh,” “re-purpose.” You know the drill.

Make more traditions. Make more efforts. Make more love. Thanks, Ladies Home Journal. Thanks Kathie Lee and Dr. Ruth and Shania Twain. I see it's worked out so well for you.

I could just lie here in the dark. I could start trawling the Internet for a lawyer. I could call that guy from the econ summit, that guy from that party three months ago: “If you're ever free on Thursday nights...”

Or I could go downstairs. Get a jump start making the kids' lunches for school in five hours. Or get the hockey gear loaded in the Tahoe now. Save me a few steps in the morning school hustle. Instead, I swallow an Ambien and knock myself out, just as I hear the car in the driveway. Tomorrow with the lunches and hockey skates. Tomorrow with the confrontation, or the ignoring – I’ll figure it out then, when I sit on the train in my suit from Loehman's. Maybe I'll start shopping at Saks again, like I did before the two kids.

Looking back at all my posts recently, I had to laugh. One of the first was called "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" That could be the title for all my posts, for my entire blog, and indeed for my life!

In my early posts, I waffled, now and then seemingly determined to pursue one course of action, only to change my mind a week later. But mostly I described my relationship with Rob as something damaged. The question was, and remains: Is it irrevocably so?

Today as a warm breeze drifts through my study window and my thoughts flow easily through my head and onto the page, I feel more comfortable in my apartment with Rob, indeed in my own skin, than I've felt in a while.

Some fellow FWW bloggers and readers say don't make a move until you're certain, and when you're certain, you'll know it. Others say I owe it to myself to leave. The latter is not unwarranted or unhelpful advice, but I don't know anything for certain, and I think I'm going to stay put for now. Feels right.

Where staying put with no big-picture plan seemed torturous just weeks ago, it doesn't seem so hard to bear at the moment. Why is this so? Couples therapy? Recent time apart from Rob as I traveled with a friend? Rob's continued evolution through therapeutic work? Maybe all?

One thing I've learned: being gentle with each other, allowing space for independent growth, and not giving in to fear when our directions diverge or seem unwieldy brings a bit of relief.

The longer I'm half-in, half-out of this thing, the clearer I see myself.

I have a good friend, a therapist, who says we don't keep returning to the same type of man with the same type of issues (the ones our parents had) only because it's familiar, we keep going back for more because we're trying to work out our own issues and these are the places we can do it.

She's always right.

I was telling her the other day over lunch that I hesitate to get all the way back into it, because Sam had this underlying negative something that looks totally different than my parent's negativity. But's it exactly the same.

With my parents the glass isn't just half empty, it's cracked and leaking slowly. Present them any scenario and they go first to what could go wrong.

When my niece who just graduated high school was "hang a good paper on the fridge" age, my dad once looked at a her spelling test up there, 99 percent, and said to her "Oh, Ella, how could miss .... You know how to spell that."

She's a fabulous student. National honor society. One misspelling and it's what he sees before everything that was right.

Like I said, Sam is a different kind of negative. It's more an undercurrent, not so overt.

But it has the same effect on me. The way it feels heavy, like something weighting me down.

Whatever it is I'm trying to work out, if I leave this relationship, I plan on working solo for a long time to come.

Yesterday in NYC I was walking briskly along with a businessgal buddy when the oddest thing happened. I hooked a man — literally.

I was carrying a suit bag filled filled with clothes on hangers over my left arm as we yapped our way down the street.

An older gentleman and his wife were walking past us in the opposite direction. They obviously passed too close and somehow my hangars hooked on the husband, and yanked me backwards after him.

I was trying to unhook myself from him but his wife thought I was intentionally molesting him and was pulling him away from me yelling, "He's mine!"

She obviously didn't see the hanger.

Strangely, the same thing had happened just three minutes before with a construction guy as I was crossing the street. That one almost cost me a two by four to the head.

So here's what I discovered: You can literally hook a man on the street.

Now I just have to work on my aim.

You can tell Roxie feels change coming by the crazy way she's been acting.

It started in Arizona last week, but I just chalked it up to the over-tired, over-stimulated chaos of travel. She started having the kind of meltdowns I haven't seen from her since I Sam and split our household in two.

She bit her cousin in the swimming pool at the end of a long day. Biting was her thing for a while, but it's been a couple years since she last bared her teeth.

Her behavior has reverted, though. She's had a rough week. In school Thursday when I was visiting for family day her best friend looked at me and asked, "Why is Roxie acting that way?"

"That way" being out of control, dumping other kids stuff on the floor and laughing.

None of the 16 kindergarteners have seen this side of my baby.

It's been long gone, packed away when we moved.

Thing is, she's super sensitive, she feels every minor shift — and what I think she felt in Phoenix was Daddy wasn't there. Daddy wasn't there and the energy surrounding his absence had little to do with the high cost of tickets.

This kid, I know she could feel my conflict every time I said Sam and I have been scoping out rentals. Would hear the thoughts under my words saying something else.

Saying I don't think we'll be back together by the end of the summer, I think we'll be all the way apart.

This is dragging on too long. For everyone. I need to be all the out or all the way in by the time she starts first grade. Sam needs a direction. He deserves it.

Sometimes I hate myself for keeping everyone in waiting. Sometimes I wish I could close my eyes and make this all disappear. Wake up two years in the future, lessons learned with out having to live through them.

As memories of six days of sea and jungle explorations sink in, my eyes open to an old truth about myself.

Years ago I toyed with thoughts of Peace Corp service, working my way around the globe, or a job "in country" with an NGO. When my ability was questioned by parents fearful of such a life, and as my debts rose, I abandoned those dreams. I came to think them ridiculous. (Handy mechanism, to reject away what you actually love but cannot have. It makes the not-having easier to bear!)

But seeking cross-cultural connections and serving others are the only things I've ever felt called to do. Now I'm curious: Can I tap into the strength of purpose I've always had down deep and honor my interests and pursue my dreams?

These days I have more tools in my toolbox and take much better care of my emotional self. Debt can be managed, and my relationship with Rob doesn't have to keep me stuck. Where before I saw obstacles, I now see creative ways to manage concerns. I see opportunity.

With Rob's evolving understanding and acceptance that I can't play the role of a typical wife, and a bit of saving and investigation, I might just be able to get what I always wanted.

This would not be an easy life, to be sure. But fearless exploration of my interior as I trek through new exteriors, and a strong home base from which to depart and return, no longer seem unattainable. Unconventional perhaps, but not unachievable.

A few months before I got married, my brother came to visit. We thought it would be fun to have a night out on the town.

Sidenote: My brother is two years older than me and we have always been close...he's my hero, and I always thought of him as an ideal man. I think a lot of little sisters idolize their big brothers, and I'm no exception.

The evening started out as a lot of fun. He and I and a few friends went to a popular dance club and had a few drinks, and after we all hit the dance floor it wasn't long before I realized I couldn't find him. I headed upstairs to the other dance floor to see if I could find him and there he was, kissing some random woman.

A describe her as "random" because she wasn't his wife. His wife — my sister in law — was back in our hometown, having missed the trip because she had to work. Yes, this woman on the dance floor kissing my brother was indeed random, and I didn't know quite what to think about the whole situation.

I stormed up to him and yelled, "What are you doing?!" Anyone who didn't know the situation would have thought I was his wife with how enraged I was. My friends didn't understand why I was so angry. After all, boys will be boys, right?

This was way more than my brother cheating on his wife, although that did indeed tick me off. What really freaked me out was that I was about three months away from getting married, and the guy who I thought was a great example to all other men was shattering my illusions right before my very eyes.

I yanked him off the dance floor and demanded, "Tell me now...is this what all guys do?" He replied with, "Yeah, every guy does this." It wasn't until I burst into tears that he hurried to add, "Well, not guys like your fiancé. He's different. I can tell."

He was trying really hard to placate me.

I've been separated from Sam for 20 months now, living separately, anyway. We're not divorced and we're not even truly separate. We don't know what we are.

I don't know anyway. Sam, he still wants it all back and me, I don't know how to finish letting go.

This Arizona vacation was my second family visit since the split. The first was Thanksgiving, a month after I left and I was too numb then to remember much of the trip.

In that year of firsts, everything is hard. Everything takes re-calibration. Everything is viewed through the lens of change. The difference is so glaring it's difficult to feel anything else.

This visit was the reminder about how time heals. Doesn't feel like it in the long slow recovery, but it's true. Regeneration comes.

Being with my family, just my kids and I, felt natural and comfortable and right. Now I realize during that first year when I went to Arizona without him, to friends' parties without him, to holiday celebrations without him, so much of what I missed was the familiarity of things being as they were.

For 13 years he was by my side. A lot of those times weren't so good.

With the habit of being together faded, I don't miss having him on trips, at parties, at holiday celebrations.

I realize something. I like myself better on my own. I like who I am and how I relate to other people better this way.

Right now there's false sense of something, because the transition isn't done. Whether we get all the way out or move back in, I still have to negotiate change.

Either way, I know — and I want you to know — transition is temporary. And, as they say, the only way out is through. But there is another side.

Being on it feels pretty darn good.