How Did I Get Here?

I sit here too tired to sleep wondering how I got to this life. My husband is an alcoholic. He refuses to accept this unless it is convenient. He will deny it vehemently or embrace it entirely depending on the circumstance surrounding his latest binge.

By his reasoning, he can't be an alcoholic because he doesn't drink every day. I am so disgusted at this point I no longer care. I just know that I don't want to live like this anymore. I don't have much of a choice, though. I am almost 56 years old with no marketable skills. I take that back, there are many things I know how to do and do them well..... I just don't have the "degrees to back me up.

I got married when I was 15, then divorced when I was 16, had the child from that union when I was 17. Married again when I was 18 and had another child at 19, divorced again at 20. To say I was very confused and desperate for someone to take care of my future is putting it lightly. I lacked self esteem (obviously) and grew up thinking that I needed a husband to "define" me. I had to live with my parents with my two children and collect my meager child support that was supplemented by welfare.

I felt trapped. I wanted to feel respectable and I did not. Perusing the newspaper my eyes landed upon an ad for a government assisted program through which I could become a nurse. It sounded too good to be true. They were offering me a chance to become a productive member of society and all I had to do was qualify on two levels. The first was financially..... I had to be on assistance and needful of an education I could not afford. That was easy. Second was to qualify academically. I needed my GED, since I had not graduated. I took the test and got that qualification out of the way and was accepted.

I was back in school and my children were being cared for by my mother and grandmother, each caring for their chosen child and arguing every month over the check they received from another program I qualified for. The dynamics there is a whole story in itself and I won't get into that. Long story short, I completed the course and graduated in the top 2 percentile of nursing students in the United States. See that self esteem rising?

The instructor assigned to our class was inspiring to say the least. She took a group of misfits and turned us into confidant professionals. I credit this woman with helping me to become someone who could rise above circumstance.

So, here I was a brand new woman at age 21 with a brand new job as an ER nurse. A little green around the gills, but finally beginning to make my own way in the world. It was during this first job that I looked up to see the really good looking EMT delivering a patient to my care. He seemed to hang around a lot after every run and chat with the clerk. He knew every body in the ER...but me. He did seem to come in a lot though and he did seem to always end up in the same exam room with me and I did notice that he was definitely noticing me. He finally called me personally to the phone one day to give me some patient information and ended with asking for my phone number. We started dating in November and were married December 17th. He was Prince Charming. He was my hero and he rescued me. He took my children in as his own and eventually adopted them. We went on to have three more children.

Almost 35 years later and as he lays here next to me snoring and exhaling his alcohol soaked breath.................I feel abandoned.