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Where'd you go, I miss you so...


Dear Michael,

You're right next to me, but I miss you profoundly. I hate that alcohol drowns the man I know is inside you.  You were doing so well for so long that now that the real you is gone again it hurts worse. You go so fast too.  One day you're there and the next you are completely gone.  A shell of yourself stands as a placeholder in our life.

I dared to dream that this last time was the time you would remain sober.  Deep down I knew the relapse was inevitable but every day of sobriety added to the hope that I had won over the alcohol.  That I had finally become your priority.  You have been married to the booze longer than me so why should I be surprised that I am, in fact, the mistress?  Your loyalty is to her. You may wish you could let her go and just be with me, but she's a vengeful bitch that won't let you go without a fight and even if the day comes you will always look back and wonder if it was ever really that bad in her arms. Even now, I remain hopeful that it'll be her you leave behind and not me that is sent packing. 

Some days I really hate how much I love you.  I know I deserve the best, but that's you only when alcohol isn't coursing through your body and tainting your mind; blocking you from treating me the way you would normally.  I hate that I don't want to leave because I cannot imagine my life without you in it.  So, I put up with the distance, with the one-sided conversations, with the hateful, childish name calling and the hurtful words.  The worst of which being that I am a "bad wife and bad mother" when we both know I'm not. 

I have threatened to leave before and yet I've never been able to take that first step out the door. Threatening once made you sober up for a time and do everything right to regain my trust, but then gone you were again as my fragile trust in you started to show its weary face again.  It's an endless cycle and you know it.  You know I won't leave and that's why now I no longer give out ultimatums.  They are a temporary fix, not anywhere near the solution.

I long for the whole package.  Something I'm starting to convince myself you are incapable of ever giving me. I want the man the man who makes me laugh until I feel my sides will split, the man who gives me butterflies when he kisses me tenderly, and the man who never ceases to make me feel important and so very loved. You are not that man anymore.  I fear it will be a long time before the demon inside you lets that real personality see the light of day again. So, it becomes a question of if I can handle being married to half a man.

V-
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