Dirty Messy Love

We’re living in Sicily, Italy. The people and tight knit helpful community, the pizza, the new friends, the culture, the pizza, the bakeries, the espresso… the pizza. It is magnificent.

The first year here has been the best our marriage has ever seen. From my point of view. We’re parenting the most adorable and wildly remarkable daughters in the world, having fun, habitually exercising, cooking together, selling food to the masses together, going on trips, our sex life is spectacular, coordinating and hosting visitors coming from the states, meeting new people all the time, water balloon fights in the hot Italian sun, just, an epic life.

This is all compared to a heaping mess of existence before we left. Way too much alcohol far too often, knock down drag out screaming matches, purses being flung over the fence to avert drunk driving, erroneously blaming me for moving the family to Italy and being pissed about it (what??), fights with friends, fights with family, just, a terrible time.

Thirteen months in Sicily and eight years into our marriage, we’re standing in the kitchen doing dishes after a delicious family meal. We’re laughing and smiling and talking. I look over at her. At my wife. And damnit if I don’t love our life together. I see happiness. I see hard work finally paying off. I see a warm, bright future. Together.

“Wow, ya know, we’re doin pretty damn good I think. This has really been the best year of our marriage ever.”

I stand there contemplating and imagining. Fleshing out ideas in my head about proposing to her again. Setting a vow renewal ceremony and reception for our 10yr anniversary with all our friends and family since we never got one before. Do it right. Give her everything she’s always deserved. I was ready and started planning all of it. Even started brainstorming ideas with my friends.

It was as if my outward acknowledgement of how good we were doing started the clock on a nuclear bomb that went off the very next week. Our lives exploded in slow motion over the next eighteen months. Alcohol and toxic friends and disappearing for days on end were all again rampant. The kids would ask where their mommy was.

I decided I was done. I didn’t know how to be done and still keep our babies safe. I just, stopped. No more affection other than to keep up aesthetics and the illusion, sex life dwindled to next to nil, parenting got much more difficult, just living the zombie life.

You asked me multiple times if you ruined us. If you ruined our marriage. I couldn’t tell you the truth of how I felt. I didn’t want to hurt you. I didn’t want to hurt our kids. So I lied. I just said no. I just kept reassuring you that everything was fine. We only had six months before my next year long deployment. I didn’t see a possible way to mend or dissolve anything in just six months. So I just tried to make you happy enough to be the best mom you could be for the next year while I was gone again.

And you were up to the task! You were gung-ho! Ready to prove you were better and done with all that bullshit. Ready to prove me right since I only showed you complete faith in your abilities.

What else could I do?

It would be four more years living half alive, pretending everything is fine, until everything came to a head and our world as we knew it collapsed around us.