The Relapse
T Minus 2.5 years
For a couple of weeks, Kurt really did try to love me the way I wanted him to. And I tried, too. We were both in therapy, I attended my recovery meetings for food and he was going to more of his own meetings. We weren’t fighting–we never fought. But fighting would have been better than the silence. I was dancing around the eggshells in our home, a big lump in my throat preventing me from saying anything. He was zoning out to the TV. He sat on the big couch each evening while I sat on the small one. He watched shows about people fishing for crabs in the freezing cold ocean and I read books about eating disorders on my phone, so he didn’t know what I was reading. Each night we sat in silence, distracting ourselves with the TV and the book, so we never had to ask the elephant between the two couches to please move.
I have always needed nine hours of sleep per night. Kurt, still high strung from years of drug abuse, needed only five or six hours. Each night, I would go to bed alone and turn on the fan, so the sounds of whatever he was discovering on the Discovery channel would not distract me. Hours later, he would come to bed and thrash around for a couple hours before moving back to the couch because he knew he was keeping me awake. Each morning, I would wake up alone to find him already gone surfing, or outside loading his work truck for the day. In the beginning of our relationship, we read a book together every morning. It had daily readings and a quick discussion question for couples. We had already read the entire book twice in our two years of living together. Each day, I looked forward to connecting with Kurt at this level. But around that time, his answers to the thoughtful questions started getting shallower and shorter, and eventually he didn’t have time to do the reading at all. The door to our “deeper” got shut, and I couldn’t find my way in. Probably because I was hiding just as many secretes as he was.
I was leading a yoga retreat in Baja, Mexico, thirty minutes south of the border. I was happy to have a weekend away from Kurt, and he seemed happy to go snowboarding in the local mountains away from me. Mexico has a way of shifting my energy. I returned from the trip spiritually refueled and ready for something bigger. I was ready to open a new chapter with Kurt, one in which I wasn’t so needed.
It was Mother’s Day Sunday when I returned. I was just in time to meet up with Kurt’s family to celebrate at his Mom’s house. Something wasn’t right when Kurt picked me up at the yoga studio. He seemed edgier than ever, borderline aggressive, for no reason at all. He shouted at cars in traffic, and cut me off to complain about something every time I tried to discuss the weekend. I stopped talking and sunk lower in the passenger seat.
We had traded cars for the weekend. I needed his truck to bring surfboards to Baja, and he needed my car with the snow chains for the mountains. A few days after I returned from the retreat, I was fueling my car and collecting car trash while I waited for the pump. I noticed a folded piece of paper on the passenger floor board. I opened it to find a receipt from a Motel 6 in Big Bear, California. It made no sense. Kurt’s best friends lived in Big Bear, and he always stayed with them when he went snowboarding. My heart raced. I stopped myself before my mind could make up any stories. I picked up the phone and called him. No answer. I called again. No answer. I texted him. No reply.
I knew it had been Kurt’s old habit to rent a sleazy motel room to get high in, because he told me about it. But it had been nearly seven years since the last time Kurt got high. I couldn’t let my mind go there. Was there another woman? I couldn’t let my mind go there either.
Hours passed. Kurt always responded promptly. I texted some of his friends and his mom. No one had seen him or heard from him. It was well past the time he normally came home. As much as I tried to stay calm, I could feel myself pushing down panic. Out of desperation, I called one of Kurt’s sober friends whom he had known since childhood. Brock, a 25-year sober alcoholic, picked up the phone. I explained the situation: Kurt was missing, I found a hotel receipt from last weekend, he should have been home hours ago.
“Okay,” he paused and sighed, “…I’m so sorry sweety. Kurt is getting high right now. This is what he does. Call a girlfriend to be with you. He’ll show up in a few days.”
I will not forget that moment, the moment my world shattered. I was driving. I was at the top of the hill heading down, on Narragansett street. It was evening, the sun was setting. I hit the brakes, pulled over the car, thanked Brock for his help, hung up the phone and watched my life fall apart.
Complete helplessness feels a lot like a big wipe out. It’s black and cold and you don’t know what way is up. You choke and fight for life, but there is nothing or no one to fight against, so you fight yourself, making matters worse, increasing the length and severity of the beat down.
I returned to our empty home after the conversation with Brock. Utterly helpless, I wanted to control something, anything. First I ate, I ate everything, until I was sick. Then, energized by vomiting–the ability to control my body when I felt so out of control–I had an idea. I knew how to find him. I knew the password for his iTunes account. I could log into the computer and trace his phone using the “Find my iPhone” feature.
I traced him to a grimy motel a few miles away. I called my friend, Kelsey. She was always up for some drama. She was also the only friend I knew would keep my secret and never judge me. Kelsey suggested we go get him. She came to pick me up, and we followed the GPS location. Sure enough, we spotted his truck in the parking lot. The hotel clerk would not give me the room number, so we waited outside the building. I have no idea what we were waiting for or what we hoped to find or what we were going to do when we found it. I just knew that doing something felt better than feeling everything. I didn’t want to feel anything.
“All this drama is giving ME anxiety,” Kelsey said as she pulled out a cigarette and lit up.
“Give me one of those!”
I had never really smoked much and it had been years since my last cigarette. The first drag made me sick to my stomach. And it felt good.
The next day, I couldn’t trace Kurt’s phone anymore; it must have died. Searching for control, I broke into his online bank account using his password and transferred all of his money into his savings account, so he couldn’t access cash at an ATM nor purchase another night at a hotel. My emotions ran wild. I tried teaching a couple of yoga classes. I was able to shut down my world for sixty minutes and pop into teacher world. The classes were mechanical and riged. They sucked. I called a sub for my evening class. I made plans to meet some business associates for a networking event at a brewery that evening. I couldn’t allow myself to feel any of this, so I would pretend it wasn’t happening. As the day wore on and I distanced myself from my emotions, a new feeling came over me, one of relief. I felt this feeling once before, when I caught my first husband with porn for the final time and knew I had an excuse to leave him. I would feel it once more later, when a business coach would tell me it was time to sell TriPower Yoga. Kurt’s words came back to me.
“If I ever relapse, promise me you will leave me. Promise.”
This was it, my ticket out.
I walked into the brewery that evening and made up my mind. I was out, it was over. Whenever he did come back, I was leaving.
Twenty minutes into my networking meeting, my phone buzzed. It was Kurt. I stepped outside to take the call.
“I relapsed.” He was crying.
“I know.” I started crying too. Go away stupid tears!
“I’m so embarrassed, I don’t want you to see me like this.”
“Come home now,” My will melted at the sound of his voice, “Come home. Please, come home!”
By the time I met him at home, it was late. He had a six pack with him to help him come down from the drug high. I had never seen him drink. I kissed him. He tasted like beer. He tasted like all my exes before him. He wanted to call a drug counselor whom we both knew. He and Kurt used to serve together on a board at a recovery facility. Kurt wanted to check himself in. We called, and the counselor said he would be right over. The two of them talked while I listened with folded arms and a straight back. Kurt said he hated what he had just done and he never wanted to do it again. The counselor turned to me and asked what I wanted to do.
“I’m out. I’m filling for divorce tomorrow.”
My announcement rendered both of them speechless. Neither of them had met this woman before. This woman was strong and had a voice. She had never been heard before. The counselor urged me to give Kurt thirty days. But Melanie-with-balls said no way.
Kurt looked at me, his water-blue eyes glistening with tears, and begged me to give him thirty days. I heard Melanie, Kurt’s wife, agree. Thirty days. Then I was out. The part of me that didn’t know how to speak hoped he wouldn’t make it. That part of me was tired, and had given up months ago.
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*some names have been changed to protect privacy
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