Chapter 34: Playing With Matches

My hands shake as I awkwardly pen my name on the signature card. I really hope no one in Tiny Town notices what I’m doing here.

I am at a local bank, opening a checking account in my own name. Have you figured this out yet?

I have a dirty little secret I’ve been keeping from everyone. And I mean everyone.

I’ve never told a soul. Not my family. Not my friends. NO ONE knows about this.

You already know my secret, but you were told 29 chapters ago, so you may not remember. And my hands are shaking as I write today, could be the three cups of coffee I’ve downed, but this is also an extremely vulnerable area for me. I feel like I stripped down to take a shower, and I step in and shut the door, but the shower is really an elevator and the doors slide open to a sea of gaping faces ogling me like what the hell does she think she’s doing?

Remember wayyy back in Chapter 5 when I really didn’t want to get married?

It’s been 20 years now.

I still don’t want to be married. My feelings have not changed one bit, despite my greatest efforts. DH is a wonderful person, but I can not seem to become what he needs me to be. And yet I’m terrified of leaving, it goes against everything I’ve been taught, and I don’t want to hurt him. But I’m hurting him now anyway…and three churches deep in Tiny Town, we are known in this community as spiritual leaders. It would be scandalous. I just can’t. My mind goes in circles, an endlessly spinning if/then problem. There is no good answer to this logic puzzle, no algorithm that suddenly gives me six faces of solid colors on the cube.

Stay together for the kids. Live in different bedrooms. Live as roommates. Yeah, first of all, your kids already know more than you think they do. Always. I lived in mortal fear of my kids figuring out I was never in love with this man. Yeah, my daughter figured it out when she was FOUR. But also, there are a few things people gloss over with the roommates approach. Like why can’t you just be married without sex? Well, for one, the Bible teaches that you aren’t to withhold yourself from your partner, so that’s out, but also, it’s not about the sex. You either have a relationship in which you want to touch, or you don’t. You want to hold hands, or you don’t. You long to touch their hair, or you don’t. And I firmly believe if you once felt that way, it can often be rekindled, but what if there was never any wood in the first place?

The way I’ve described it to others is remember that guy who was really nice and really REALLY wanted to date you and you’re like I’m totally not interested but we can be friends? I married that guy. It was totally my fault for not being more adamant about what I wanted, but what did I know? I was barely 18 when I met him. Yeah… And in two decades, my feelings have not changed one bit. Oh, I tried. I prayed endless hours with weeping and yelling to God each day-WHY ISN’T THIS WORKING??! And I’m not kidding about pleading with God about this every single day I was married. It’s difficult to express how badly I wanted this marriage to work.

And here’s another bit of my deep, dark secret. Way back when, I committed to God that since my marriage wasn’t so great, I would just pour myself into ministry. That’ll fix it. So, folks, if you wonder why I worked so fucking hard in the church? There’s your painfully honest answer. It was because I made the church my spouse, and I really wasn’t too interested in going home, except to be with my beloved children, of course.

Did DH know? Of course he did, and I hated myself for recoiling at his advances but dammit, I was completely incapable of forcing my body to respond the way I should have, the way DH would have loved for me to respond. I can’t begin to explain to you how frustrating it is do be physically incapable of doing what you are being taught is the Right Thing To Do.

We have been through counseling, gone to countless marriage retreats, scheduled the prerequisite date nights and “romantic” getaways, tried to Laugh Your Way To A Better Marriage, which in my case became Fake My Way To A Better Marriage (Sorry, Mark Gungor, this shit doesn’t always work). This time, I’m the bad guy. For twenty years, I have been miserable and hiding it from everyone. Some who are close to me kind of scratch their heads at our relationship, they know something’s weird, but I must keep up appearances as a Good Christian Woman and walk the walk. Keep that Good Housekeeping seal of approval, yes, Monica, you’ve won the Godly Woman award. You go put that trophy on the mantle and let it gather dust like it’s supposed to and sit down and shut up. In the church, if you’re struggling with your marriage, they will support you and give you the rah rah sermons and help you out with counseling and such, but you are absolutely NOT permitted to end a marriage. It’s the one area in which you’re not allowed to say “I made a mistake.” Once you walk down that aisle you are done, roll credits, no sequels allowed, hey, do I know that key grip? And if you do leave, there’s hell to pay.

This is my elephant in the room, at all of these motivational-type events they will say if you could change one thing in your life, what would it be? And I know, I KNOW!! I’m jumping up and down in my classroom seat with my hand stuck as high as I can reach like Arnold Horshack, for the three of you who will get that joke. I’ve always known and it always will be I would not have walked down that damn aisle. Except I would have, because I would go through all of this twice over to get my kids. Excuse my shameless mom moment in which I say they are totally amazing and my two favorite people in the world. So here I am, and the kids are getting old enough where I’m thinking maybe just maybe I can escape this prison of a marriage and that’s why I find myself at a local bank in Tiny Town, looking over my shoulder and hoping to God this teller doesn’t know anyone at church while she helps me set up my own accounts. I feel like a half-baked Ninja attempting to pull off a heist, and if anyone finds out, I’m dead. The floor is lava, and there’s very little furniture in this room, no beds, not even an area rug to save my reprobate ass. I’m doomed. Yet it remains my first baby step for the elephant to escape the room at last.

This… is why it’s a problem that Pastor Almost is an Assembly of God pastor. The AG has a very strict stance on divorce, direct from their documents “disapproves of Christians divorcing for any cause except fornication and adultery” (Does anyone use the term “fornication” anymore?). If I get divorced, it will likely cost me my ministry career, in addition to all of the other difficulties involved in divorce, top two being my son and my daughter’s well being.

I would have gotten divorced immediately after my tear-stained parade down the aisle, but there was no way I could, that’s when I was full-blown UPC and couldn’t even trim my hair, much less leave my husband. I mean, there are sins, and there are SINS! Divorce is wrong. Always.

But I am unhappy enough…DONE enough and now I am taking some tentative steps to exit stage left, stretching out my toes to forbidden water…

A phone rings in a church office, bringing the call that will keep me married for five more years.

Dammit.