If I could turn back the hands of time, I would say no to the marriage proposal that I  accepted.  Don’t get me wrong- I’m not saying that I wouldn’t have gotten married, because I love the idea of marriage and I’ve always wanted to be a wife. But I am saying that I wouldn’t have married my husband. That is my biggest regret in life. Choosing the wrong guy.

How many red flags did I ignore? Too many to count. I knew something was wrong early on.  The way he seemed to always be angry with me, always accusing me of cheating on him, to the point that he was having dreams about my infidelities that never existed. He would actually wake up pissed and would remain that way for at least half a day.

Yeah I saw the signs but, like many of us, I ignored them. You see, I thought that my sweet, sugary love and dedication would melt away his bitterness like butter once we were blissfully wedded. Boy was I wrong. Or as we say in the African-American community–I was molded, meaning that it didn’t turn out the way it was expected to. I was molded because my Lovie-Dovieness failed epically.

Marriage made it worse. Because the thing I didn’t notice early on was that he was controlling. I allowed him to control me in ways that I shouldn’t have, but I did – thinking that if I just let him have his way, there would be peace.  I learned the hard way that the Acquiescence-To-Keep-the-Peace beast is never satisfied. It wants more every time you feed it. And I fed it or years.  Until I ran out of food to give. When that happened, I left.

Fourteen depleted marital years later, and 3 years after I vacated, I learn that he’s battling Zollinger-Ellison Syndrome, a type of neuroendocrine cancer that has attacked his pancreas. I returned to this God forsaken place in 2017 to help him because you know, I didn’t want him to die alone, and wouldn’t you know?  Its 2019 and he’s still the biggest tool in the box. And he’s still alive.

My return yielded small battles in the beginning because he though we’d return to our previous father-daughter relationship where he controlled every move I made. But this time he was molded.  Because what he wasn’t counting on was that in the 3 years we had been separated that I became a fierce warrior that refused to feed that monster of his.  So he got quiet.

Now don’t get me wrong, I hate seeing him like this and at the same time, I sometimes find it difficult to feel sorry for him because although this experience has changed him in some ways, he hasn’t changed toward me.  Do I divorce him while he’s sick, or do I wait for the worst to happen? Either way my mind hasn’t changed about this marriage. I still want out.