Why I Remained Unhappily Married For Way Too Long
My husband’s bad behavior eventually became my own.
LuisPortugal, Prostock-studio | Canva “I’m lonely being married to you,” I say.
“Colleen,” says my husband. “You started the war.”
He begins to drink uncharacteristically. Despite his warning, I am unaware a battle has been waged. I believe he’s unhappy or experiencing a midlife crisis. I think he’s sad he’s lost his father.
I’m trying to make sense of his bad behavior. I shouldn’t have. It was never my job.
My husband was an adult. He was angry that I shared my feelings. He was upset that I might leave him. He was taking his emotions out on his family. No one deserves to be on the receiving end of another person's pain. It’s up to grown adults to tend to their behavior.
But marriage made me stay. A vow I said in my twenties. It changed the woman I was in my forties.
My husband’s bad behavior soon became my own. The more he drank and upset us, the more I digressed. I began to yell. I began to say ugly things. The kind of things even four walls shouldn’t hear.
I changed. More importantly, I allowed someone to change who I was. I thought I was rescuing him. I thought leaving him would devastate him. The more he drank, the more I worried he wouldn’t be okay without me. I needed to help him before I left. He hadn’t always been like this.
I worried about my children. They needed us to stay together — or so I thought.
I knew better. I knew it was an unhealthy situation. But the unhealthier it got, the harder it became to leave. I was weakened. I was worn down. I surrendered to it. A part of me gave up.
In some odd way, it became easier to stay. Either that or my bad behavior, which was once foreign to me, became more natural. An unhealthy dynamic evolved. My husband drank and I reacted to it.
I was so unhappy I couldn’t think straight. I soldiered on. I shouldn’t have.
As I usually say, “Unhappiness needs to be entertained. If not, it becomes a houseguest that never leaves.”
It seems so simple now. The choices I should have made. The boundaries and the self-protective instincts that I lacked.
It was never my job to be my husband’s mommy. I shouldn’t have had to parent him. I shouldn’t have had to plead with him to go to counseling. I shouldn’t have had to beg him to stop upsetting his family. I shouldn’t have had to tell him to deal with what’s bothering him or leave. I shouldn’t have had to draw a line in the sand.
He was an adult. He was a husband and a father. It was up to him to deal with his emotions. It was up to him to address his bad behavior. It was up to him to behave responsibly. I couldn’t fix him.
Unfortunately, in the process I damaged myself. I was now the one who needed fixing. Or as I say, resurrecting…becoming myself again.
I remained unhappily married for too long — until my husband’s bad behavior became my own.
Colleen Sheehy Orme is a national relationship columnist, journalist, and former business columnist. She writes about love, life, relationships, family, parenting, divorce, and narcissism.