My Road Beyond The Codependent Divorce

Balboa Press

Chapter One

That spaghetti dinner seemed to last for hours. Steven was clueless. I could tell. His usual silence spoke volumes. He did that when he was angry and disapproved of something I had said. He simply withdrew. I knew Steven assumed the argument we had earlier would eventually blow over, and that soon the dysfunctional balance our relationship had become would be restored.

I was preparing dinner when Steven came home from one of his sessions with his therapist Alice. I was standing at the kitchen sink and straining the spaghetti. I turned towards him when he approached me from behind. He looked angry and his body was tense. Our three babies were on the couch, zoning out in front of the television, doing their best to distract themselves from the impending chaos that was about to unfold a few feet from them. Steam was rising up out of the sink and moistening the back of my t-shirt as Steven began to speak.

"Alice said I don't have to change if I don't want to. So I am not going to change. If you're not happy—you change. And you know what's gonna happen if you keep this shit up Lisa? We're gonna end up getting a divorce because you won't drop this crazy bullshit of yours. Everything is about your feelings, your feelings, your feelings. Ya think most people are happy these days? Nobody is happy these days Lisa. The kind of marriage you want doesn't even exist. But I am warning you ... if you don't stop going to this whacko therapist Ed, and if you don't stop reading these self help books, we're gonna wind up getting a divorce. Is that what you want Lisa? You want to get divorced, huh, huh, huh, well do ya?" Steven prodded, his voice growing more intimidating with every syllable.

Chapter Two

Month's prior to this showdown I had approached Steven and told him I was unhappy in our marriage. In response, he told me that he thought I was crazy and that I needed to see a shrink.

"Look how you live Lisa. How can you not be happy? There must be something wrong with you. Even your own family thinks you're crazy. You should go see a doctor or something and get your head examined."

Desperate to please my husband, as well as to finally find out once and for all whether or not I really was nuts, I called and scheduled an appointment with a therapist named Ed.

"Why are you here?" Ed asked at our first meeting.

"My husband says I am crazy," I replied.

"Do you think you're crazy Lisa?" he asked.

"I'm not sure. All I know is I'm not happy."

"What would make you happy?"

"I don't feel like my husband and I are on the same page. When I try to talk to him about how I feel, he always tells me I have no right to feel the way I do. He tells me that life shouldn't be about the way I feel. He tells me I should be happy I live in a big house, and that he doesn't cheat on me, and that we have three healthy children. He makes me feel like I don't matter, and yet I worry everyday about how to make his life easier. And when something is bothering him, I am always there for him. So when he calls me names like whacko, psycho, or when he ignores me or says that I am a negative person, it hurts. I feel like he is a stranger to me, but yet he is so happy with the way things are, so I wonder if maybe I am crazy sometimes," I said.

"I didn't ask you what made you unhappy Lisa. I asked you what would make you happy," Ed asked.

If my mind was butter, his questions were like a sharp hot knife. As I sat still in my chair, I could feel my thoughts slowing down, and my attention being raised.

"Is there any alcoholism in your family Lisa?"

"My parents don't drink," I replied.

"Listen to my question and answer the question I am asking. Is there any history of alcoholism in your family?"

"Yes. Both sets of my grandparents were alcoholics, and both of my mothers brothers are alcoholics too, but my parents aren't alcoholics," I said.

"I don't remember asking you if your parents were alcoholics," Ed pushed.

"Yes, there is alcoholism in my family," I said.

After a few more questions, and banter back and forth my therapist leaned back in his chair and began to explain what he thought was going on with me.

"I've got some good news and some bad news for you Lisa." Ed said as he knotted his fingers behind his head and stretching to lean back in his chair.

"The good news is you're not crazy. The bad news is you are however co-dependent. Your family has a long history of alcoholism. Your parents are adult children of alcoholics, which is why they were attracted to one another in the first place. More often than not adult children are unaware at how deeply affected they are by their parents alcoholism. Your life is the result of the way you think, and the way you think is the result of your childhood programming, and your programming is the result of whatever your parents programming was. In order for you to truly figure this all out, you'll need to go back to where you began. You have a long road ahead of you, but there is hope. If we can get you to change your thoughts, we can change your life," he said.

Unsure of what his diagnosis meant, but certain I had no place else to turn, I made the decision to commit myself to learning all I could about this thing called codependency. My life was falling apart around me, and I was discovering how few coping skills I had to handle the strain of shattered dreams. My only hope was that my therapist was right and I wasn't crazy.

Immediately following my first therapy session I bought the book called Codependent No More by Melody Beattie. While reading the opening chapter, I felt an unfamiliar feeling rising within my chest. With every sentence my heart seemed to pick up its pace. As if the sentiments expressed had been plucked out of my mind, my being felt mysteriously at home. Spooked by the oddity of suddenly feeling at home, at one point I slammed the book shut. This author knew me, and deeper she understood me. Feeling known was as terrifying as it was welcoming.

As I continued reading about the nature and root causes of codependency, I began to comprehend the idea that if I didn't give up, I would one day be free of this insidious psychological disposition. I wondered who I might be once I stopped blaming others for my unhappiness, and I once and for all, took ownership over my right to be happy. Too tired of what my life had become, I forged ahead hoping that Steven would be as excited about changing our lives for the better as I was.

Within a few days of reading Codependent No More, my eyes had already begun to shed their distorted lenses. Although it was still very early in my recovery, I had faith that my therapy sessions, coupled with what I was learning on my own time about codependency, would one day pay off, and I would eventually live a healthier life. The most difficult aspect of my early recovery was learning to accept that the ones I loved, including Steven, didn't have to change. Even more difficult to learn to accept, was the idea that I didn't have to worry about how the ones that I loved felt about my decision to change my life. So ingrained with the sense that everything I did, felt, or thought needed to be approved by others, learning to detangle my mind from its childhood programming, made my mind feel as if it was in mental boot camp.

Chapter Three

My back was getting wet. The steam from the spaghetti was hot, and Steven had successfully positioned himself close enough to me so that slipping away from the sink would have been an aggressive and awkward move. My heart thumped wildly as I stood and looked deeply into his cocoa colored eyes. My spirit knew the man that I loved was lost somewhere deep within the complex oasis his mind had become. Between us there was only this thing—this dynamic—this way of relating called codependency, and for me it was no longer enough, and worse—it was killing me.

"Is that what you want Lisa? You want a divorce?" Steven asked me again, only this time raising his voice. Before answering I once again glanced over at my three children who were slipping into safe trance like states. I could relate. I did that too when I was a child, whenever my life was about to get turned upside down.

Therapy had taught me much about codependency in the recent months. I now understood that Steven and I were repeating the codependent patterns we had learned as children, and that in turn he and I were conditioning our children with the same dysfunctional belief systems. I knew that unless I changed something, nothing would change, and that as a result my children might one day be locked inside similar dysfunctional patterns. Fueled by my commitment to spare them the type of trauma I was now experiencing, I swore to myself I would do whatever I had to do to ensure my children would one day live healthy and self fulfilled codependent free lives.

Looking up at my husband, I struggled to accept, that he would not be able to understand the words that were about to come out of my mouth.

"No Steven I don't want a divorce. I need a divorce. Alice is right. You don't have to change. That is your right. But I have rights too. And I have the right to want more out of a marriage. I know now that I cannot change you. I was wrong to try. I am sorry. I am sorry I am not what you want me to be. And I am sorry, but you are not what I want you to be. I am sorry I enabled you. I am sorry I worried so much about what you thought about me. I should have not made you responsible for my happiness. I was wrong to expect you to make me feel worthy. It was never your job to give me what I should have been able to give my self," I said, clearly, decisively and as if my spirit herself were speaking.

Steven stretched his head back, looked from side to side, and said,

"You're nuts Lisa."

Chapter Four

Pressed pieces of spaghetti were dripping from Niccole's hair. Amanda's dainty fingers were rosy red and Max had stained his new white t-shirt with tomato sauce. None of those things irked me now like they had in the past. Thoughts raced through my mind like a swarm of bees, as I sat observing my small children delightfully enjoying the last bits of their meal.

I am quickly becoming aware of how many tender moments I have lost to dysfunctional thinking. Awareness is as bitter as it is soothing. I am not just the mouse with her tail caught in the trap. I am the trap, the cheese, and the observer of it all. I understand now how limited my ping pong ball sized awareness has always been, and I am struggling to integrate the consequences of my thinking. I know why I am where I am, and truer, I now humbly understand I am the creator of the stabbing reality I am observing in the moment.

Soon my children, Steven and I would be swept up like bits of unsuspecting pieces of sand on a shore. To take my family where I needed it to go, meant that the family we were needed to be destroyed. Divorce, like chemotherapy, harms for the sake of the good. My codependent life—the result of living in a skewed reality—shame based—and perfectionistic world must be leveled and cleared away in order for me to begin restructuring my mind. I am full of fear, but understand that without fear there is no courage. In my mind I hear my spirit urging me not to give up. I imagine what it is I would want my children to do if they were where I was now, and struggle not to get swept off of my feet by the swirling emotional undertow that is yanking at my limbs.

Chapter Five

Max, Amanda and I were standing in the playroom that leads to the garage. My babies, drenched in teary pajamas, and consumed with anxiety had followed Steven there. Their father didn't pack any of his things. As if my family and I had suddenly morphed onto a carcass littered battlefield, my mind searched for a place to protect my children from the assaults of this inconspicuous war. I felt powerless to shield them from the wounds they were suffering, as they witnessed their daddy walk out the door.

A vicious argument between Steven and our eleven-year old son Max had been the catalyst for his leaving that night, only a few short weeks after that spaghetti dinner. The spine tingling explosiveness between them had proven to be the straw that broke our family's fragile camels back.

That night started out like so many of the others. Drained emotionally and physically by the sharp sudden blows of my marriages demise, asthma and a jabbing migraine headache had followed me to bed. Confident that my inhaler was within my reach, I did my best to lay my beaten head onto my pillow, in hopes that the coming nights hours would not leave me gasping for air. As slumber began to fall, a sudden and cold jolt of adrenaline shocked my heart into a panicked rhythm.

"Die, daddy die. I want you to die."

The frustration in my eleven-year-old sons voice summoned me to my feet. I found Steven standing over Max, who was seated Indian style on the floor next to his bed.

"Go ahead. You wanna hit me, ya wanna hit me?" Steven was yelling, stooping down at Max, with the sound of blood dripping in his voice. Both of his fists were clenched.

I stood in the doorway of Max's bedroom and was horrified at the heart ringing vision in front of my eyes. My family was falling apart. And worse, I was alone in this perception. Steven couldn't see it. He had long forgotten all about our spaghetti dinner.

For months I had urged Steven to pay attention to what the animosity between he and I was doing to our children. I often asked that he not oppose me in front of them. I feared that our children would absorb the tension that was churning about in our home, and that eventually symptoms of our marital breakdown would surface in them in one form or in others. In my gut I sensed that Steven was taking much of his frustrations about our failing marriage out on our son, and that Max may have even been able to sense this was true. A proud little boy, our son, like his mother never liked being pushed around, and especially unfairly.

Reality grabbed a hold of my spine and demanded attention. I could no longer pretend that my children were not being affected by the tension between their father and I, even if Steven preferred to hold tomatoes in front of his eyes. By that time Steven and I had been arguing regularly. And if we weren't arguing, we were ignoring one another instead.

More than once our children had overheard Steven menace me with divorce. My attempts to communicate with the father of my children always ended with threats. Steven got angry whenever I attempted to express my desire to improve our marriage. And I got angry too. For many years my heart felt alone in a relationship built for two. Afraid the extra weight I had been carrying might eventually suffocate life from me soon, I was now convinced that a divorce was my only chance for survival. Asthma, migraine headaches, and unexplained rashes had made my body their homes.

Shortly before that explosive night, I had begun to notice how each of my children's moods changed whenever Steven came home. As if my children had heard the sounding of an alarm, and were now suddenly hypersensitive to their environments, my children were being changed by the changes in their home. I knew the moment I saw Steven leaning over Max things had gone too far. Evidence our family dynamic had gone rogue, I feared Max was suffocating too.

Without time to think, I jumped in between them, and pulled Max close. He was trembling from fear and I was sure grief too. This straw was not his fault, and I hoped with all of my heart that I would be able to convince my innocent son that whatever was happening in our home had nothing to do with him. His father and I, and the way we related to one another was ill, not him, not my little boy.

The oceans of emotions within me that I had for so long attempted to keep calm, barreled out of me like a tsunami that evening, as I held Max in my arms. This wasn't about the tuna fish can Max decided to open up that night, or about the fact that Steven was just frustrated that Max was hungry at that hour, or that Max was cranky and had answered his father back in a disrespectful way.

As Max and I fused into a crying ball Steven began to offer what seemed to be half-hearted apologies. Steven towered over my son and I. From above me and through my rain soaked eyes, and through Max's belly cries, I could hear Steven fumble with his words.

"Okay, Okay just relax. It's no big deal. Max your mom and I don't want you eating tuna fish late at night because you already had dinner. Stop crying now. I said I am sorry," he said. But as time ticked on, and neither Max nor I met Steven half way, Steven's disposition began to change.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from My Road Beyond The Codependent Divorceby Lisa A. Romano Copyright © 2012 by Lisa A. Romano. Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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