Leave Him

I remember the day I told my mom to leave my dad like it was yesterday. I remember what restaurant we were at, I remember the weather, and exactly where we sat. Which is funny because many things for me fade together sometimes. It’s not always easy to remember when each relapse was especially since there were so many over the years, and again they started when I was thirteen going on fourteen. Barely a teen, so when you have 11 years worth of slips, relapses, rehab stints, etc its hard to not blend them together or lose when what happened. 

We had gone to Maggie McFlys for a casual lunch. We sat in their outside section, and it was beautiful out. I remember we sat in the corner, and I could feel the warmth on my skin from the sun shining. Amazing what our mind chooses to keep and discard with memories. It was nice because we didn’t go out together too often anymore. Especially since I still held so much anger towards both my mom and dad. 

The subject of my dad came up naturally; how could it not? He was the main force of so many things in our house. I looked at my mom and told her, “Just leave him! You don’t need to stay for us.” He treated my mom and us like crap more and more as time went on. As my mom tells me, his drinking went from relapsing every year to every six months, to every three months… until it just kept being an issue. 

I’ll never forget the look of relief on my moms face when I said that. She took my hands in hers and said it’s what she needed to hear. I didn’t know it then but my mom wanted to leave my dad earlier, but my Grandpa Sheldon (my dad’s dad) talked her out of it. It was his son, so I understand that he didn’t want to see him in more pain, but he didn’t fully understand the situation at hand, and it was something that needed to be done. Looking back, I think it was selfish of my Grandfather to ask that of my mom. He wasn’t here, he didn’t have to look his disease in the face, but it was his son and I understand that we all try to save things we know can’t be saved. We had all tried.

Shortly after that lunch, my dad ended up in rehab again, and with the support of her Al-Anon group, my mom decided to serve him divorce papers. Yes, I wanted them to separate but, I also thought to give him those papers in rehab was super shitty. 

I couldn’t understand why she did it that way at the time. Now I know why. Her Al-Anon group helped her see that if she did it while he was in rehab, he would have the support to help him with coping with the idea of divorce and that it had come to this. My dad was a stubborn hard man and only took it worse that she had done it while he was away trying to get better. I can also understand that. You think that you’re still going to have your family, and to him, poof that’s gone. 

People voiced their opinions to mom, but they weren’t married to him. It’s always easy for others to put their two cents in when they don’t understand the whole picture.

My mom rented him a house to stay at when he got out of rehab, but that didn’t stop him from coming over. There was always an excuse to stop by, something he needed. One instance stands out in my head more than the others. I was taking a shower when all of a sudden I heard screaming. I jumped out of that shower so fast, and dressed with a speed I didn’t know I had. 

“You’re a cunt!”

“I know what you’ve been doing!”

“I can’t fucking wait to divorce you!” 

I couldn’t take the yelling. My dad was so mean, so angry; it was frightening. I screamed for him to leave, but again, he was angry and turned it my way, and I was scared. He told me to mind my own business. Which always pissed me off, but his look scared me, and he started rushing at me. I automatically grabbed one of the knives out of our butcher block and pointed it at him. “Leave!” I was running on pure fear, but in a second he had my wrist twisted back and flipped the knife around on me laughing knowing I couldn’t do anything. I begged him again, “Just leave!”. I was sobbing scared and my wrist was throbbing. He let me go, glared at my mom once more and left. 

I know now the reason he was so nasty was that he was a dry drunk. You will hear me mention dry drunk a few times. Sometimes it feels like a dry drunk is worse than an actual drunk. They feel so overwhelmed with not being able to drink they start to take it out on family members, and friends. They think it’s our fault they can’t drink.

I am happy that I told my mom to leave my dad, who the hell did he think he was? That year would only get more confusing on who to trust, feelings of betrayal, and flat out loneliness. My mom had done the hard part, but there was so much more to come.