I knew it would end in divorce. I married him anyway.

Happily married doesn’t exist when you are with an alcoholic. I knew that — but I still tried.

I didn’t cry out of happiness when he proposed. I didn’t cry at our wedding (and I cry at every wedding). I didn’t even want to write/say vows. So we didn’t.

Throughout our engagement I remember thinking, we can always get divorced. But every time I had that thought, I pushed it away, and tried to have a positive attitude — somehow I was going to make this work.

Why did I marry a man I didn’t love? It’s a question I still have yet to answer. But the whole process did make me stronger and helped me to eventually love deeper. I also learned about forgiveness. Not of him, but of myself.

The thing about being married to an alcoholic is that you never know what will happen next. Throughout the lies, the anger, the tears, and the abuse, I somehow remained strong enough to continue on with him, to believe in him. What finally pushed me over the edge was the scene I came home to one Monday afternoon, while he was in charge of our 8 month old daughter.

It was 3:30 in the afternoon and I was coming home from a long day of teaching middle school. I pulled up in front of our rented suburban house with the red front door (I loved this red door). I pushed it open, and stopped dead. You know that feeling when adrenalin kicks in? When your skin starts tingling all over your body? It starts with your neck and gradually radiates to your head, through your arms, and down to your toes. Your stomach clenches with fear. This was the feeling I had when I walked through that red door.

The first thing to reach my senses was the blaring stereo. The subwoofer shook the house. Nirvana had never sounded like such an assault before. In front of me was a wall where we hung our coats. To the right, the living room. To the left, a hallway with entry to the kitchen. I peered in to the kitchen. There sat my husband, at the dining table that was littered with snacks and food wrappers.

I looked at his face and I knew immediately. He was black-out drunk. I went to the living room and turned off the the stereo. Where the hell was my daughter?

With the radio silenced, I heard her. Crying. Loudly. From the back of the house.

I walked down the hallway and toward my daughter’s room. She sat on the floor, wailing — a pudgy, frightened little thing: naked except for a diaper. Her baby gate was crooked and barely on the door jamb. If she would have leaned against it she would have fallen through to the hallway floor. I moved the gate and pulled her up into my arms. I scanned the room and spotted two dirty diapers on the low table in her room, within her reach. Then I smelled the dirty diaper she was wearing.

I changed and calmed her. I walked back toward the kitchen, my rage building. But I also felt an odd sense of calm because I knew that my daughter was ok.

He was still at the table, eyes glazed and half open. His body slouched and loose. He had found a jar of pureed chilis from the fridge and had it spread on sandwich bread. He told me he thought it was black beans and proceeded to laugh and look incredulous about the fact that it was chilis and it had burned the fuck out of his mouth. This enraged me — he could have easily fed it to our daughter.

I confronted him — calmly, so I wouldn’t scare the baby.

And then he became belligerent. He cursed at me. Called me a cunt, a bitch, and a whore.

I honestly can’t remember what happened next. My mind is blank. I know that he later passed out on our bed.

What I do remember was the sense of relief that came over me. This was it. This was my moment. I was finally done. I was finally free. It wasn’t me he wronged this time. It was our child. I could finally ask for a divorce and not feel guilty that I hadn’t tried hard enough to save a marriage that I should never have gotten into in the first place. And I was so happy.

I still can’t explain why I married him. I wasn’t in love with him and I never was. It’s possible that I was just very insecure and thought that this was as good as I could get. That this would be my only chance at marriage.

I was abused by him emotionally, verbally, and physically. And the people who hear my story tell me about the power of forgiveness. How forgiving those that have wronged you can set you “free”. I don’t think that I can ever forgive him. Besides, it wasn’t him I had to forgive. It was myself. For marrying someone I didn’t love and bringing a child into the world with an alcoholic. Wayne Dyer said it best: Forgive yourself and welcome love back into your life.

I have forgiven myself. And I have moved on and I love more deeply now than I ever have.