Broken Promises

I made a promise eight months ago.  I promised to never say divorce, never threaten, never mention, never imply.  A month ago, I broke that promise.  A month ago, my husband and I hit a point where things just couldn't continue without consequences and I was done.  I was ready to leave.

It is not an easy promise to break, but I am not a terrible person lording divorce over my husbands head.  He broke his promises too.  He broke every single one, every day for eight months.  Every. Single. One.

Eight months ago I left.  I left without knowing if I would come back.  But I did.  My husband left my suitcase in our bedroom so that he could remember what was at stake.  He promised we were in it together.  I was to be included in his treatment.  He was to continue treatment and not quite like he threatened to.  We were going to come up with plans on how to handle his triggers together and we were going to work together to figure out what some of his triggers were.

None of those things happened.

I am not being included in any part of his life.  We continued down the same path of denial, exclusion and indifference.  And I broke.  I am broken.

I feel defeated.  I feel lost.  I feel utterly pained that I can't help if he won't allow me and include me, but he refuses.

Broken promises are not things I take lightly and now I have broken a big one.  A massive one.  And he is angry and holding it against me in everything he does.

We will work through this just like anything else.  He understands that he can't continue his pattern if he wants to stay married.  He understands that just saying, "I'll try" isn't good enough anymore.  And he understands that I am trying to help, but can't if he won't let me.

I would like to be optimistic.  I would like to say this is us moving into a whole new place.  But these are promises I've heard before.  And because I've heard them all before, I want to believe, rather than do.

Broken promises are very damaging.  My broke promise has damaged a lot in just that one act.  His have damaged our life after so many years of them.  And now, I am left wondering if this trail of broken promises we seem to be following will ever end.  Will we ever be in a place to be working together?

Can we move forward and finally be partners?  Sometimes I think we have too many broken promises to be able to.