Where is My Smile?

Today marks his fourteenth of sobriety. It also marks fourteen days since my smile disappeared. I am not sure where it went, and I’ve spent some time looking for it. Surrogate smiles, the fake kind, as natural as a halloween mask, grace my face at work, or when he looks sad because I am not happy, but the real smile remains MIA. I thought perhaps the bait of a Friday night alone would lure the smile back, but apparently not. Generally, my spirit flies positively, upward, glass half full and all that. My spirit seems a bit waterlogged by passing thunderstorms of late. Hopefully time will dry the damper, and my smile will come home. I miss it.

Since dwelling on the negative only serves to banish said smile further, I focus more now on the things associated with peace. For two years, since the glimmer of possibility of addiction first flitted through our lives, I distrusted our wedding bands, and recent events transformed distrust to flat out loathing. They represent what could have been, what I thought was real, a faux marriage based only on lies, not love, on self loathing, not mutual respect. That marriage isn’t dead, as it never lived to begin with. His wedding band touched whores. It rested on his hand screaming a plea of fidelity while typing away search after search for women online. It touched him as he pleasured himself, while turning me away, wondering why he had no sex drive, completely unaware that I failed to meet his needs, as any real relationship would.

Since the Angie episode over two years ago, I requested new wedding bands, preferably for our tenth anniversary, and a new proposal so I knew he wanted me and no one else. He claimed to be ‘on it’ but never followed through. Now I understand why. He just wasn’t that into me. He was into his addiction. Well, our marriage now sits in limbo, neither married nor divorced, just there. He is my roommate. I don’t feel married any more. The horrible rings from a false marriage sitting on my hand and his just turned my stomach every time I saw them.

So, needing some time alone, some time covered in saw dust, I asked him for his wedding band and went to the shop. He didn’t want to take his wedding band off, saying he never takes it off, that he likes it on his hand. Too bad, I need it. Using calipers and some scrap oak from another project, I turned two new wedding bands on the lathe and dipped them in waterproof finish. No. Not wedding bands. I can’t call them that. They are Recovery Rings. Temporary rings to take the place of those that make me sick. Someday, as he heals, if he is certain that he truly wants me, he will propose again. Someday, I will have the opportunity to answer yes or no, knowing what I know now, eyes open, his darkest secrets in my awareness. If he asked me today, I would have to say no. I think he knows that. Thankfully, he does not press me for promises I can not give. I only promise him time, support, love, and hope. Funny I get crap at work for staying and they don’t seem to understand how far gone I already am.

I know that this is a time of pain, but with pain can come new growth and healing. My goal is to heal, to forgive, and hopefully he will heal as well. I hope that in the coming months to years, my ‘no’ will change to ‘yes’. I think it will. I truly love him. I just need to know that the crazy train has left the station without him on it.

I believe that my smile will come back too. She is just on vacation, sleeping, hibernating, taking a break lest she deepen the smile lines already budding on my face. She is giving the rest of me time to be aware and to heal. To be mindful and objective.

It will be ok.