True Story
When Enough is Enough — How Much More of Her Did She Need to Change to Fix Them?
Abby sat at the kitchen table, head in hands, eyes closed, brows scrunched. She was trying to decide whether to cry or scream. Both seemed pointless. She didn’t want to fall prey to self-pity but sometimes that’s all there was, and she figured she was entitled to a little every once in a while. It was okay to display weakness on occasion; she was human, after all.
She was alone in the house. She could hear the revving of a car engine very far away and a squirrel chittering in a tree in the backyard. This was home. She enjoyed her alone time, but she had been having a lot of it lately and, quite frankly, she was lonely.
Always the Bad Guy
Sam, her husband, was at work like he was every day. He used to be her best friend. It remained that way until about three years ago when, at some point, they digressed to little more than roommates. Financial issues could have contributed to the beginning of the decline but ultimately it came down to the kids and their views on how to parent them. They had a blended family and different ideas of how to raise kids. This involved discipline.
With his passivity, this had fallen primarily on her shoulders for the previous five years. He had a son and a daughter. She had a single daughter. Sam and she came from significantly different backgrounds, and it had become all too apparent to Abby that being the bad guy was how the rest of their time with the kids was going to be. He vehemently disagreed that he did not discipline his kids or that he was passively making her be the bad guy.
Before their decline about three years ago, they were a team. They talked. They collaborated. They made decisions together. They laughed. They loved. They made lots of love, despite Sam’s sexual issues from the very beginning of their relationship.
They fought so hard to be together. He risked so much and fought so hard to be with her. She wanted to inject him into her veins. There was a deep passion they shared. They shared everything.
She wanted to have no secrets from him so she would know that when he chose to love her, he wouldn’t be naïve to all the bad that came with the good. She had a jaded past, full of infidelity. She needed him to be fully aware of all that.
So, she let him read all her journals she had been writing since she was 14 years old. She needed him in her mind so he would be aware of who it was he was risking everything for.

The Fairy Tale
Over the past year, her life had become full of what used to be and how things were and how things were supposed to be. She had started seeing a therapist to work through some very deep-seated flaws within herself in hopes that this would freshen Sam’s view of her.
Perhaps he would start taking unsolicited candid photos of her throughout the days and tell her how beautiful and sexy she was. Perhaps he would see whatever it was that he wanted to see, and it would make him want her again.
Her days were full of regrets and memories because that’s all she had left to hold onto. She remembered telling him at the start that she was looking forward to their boring life together where they were comfortable doing the mundane daily things in life. That’s when she would know for sure that this fairy tale was real. It’s easy enough to believe it when everything is fresh and new.
Well, here it was eight years later, and some days felt like purgatory. The fairy tale was long gone. She no longer wanted the boring; she wanted that fairy tale back.
Her thoughts racing, she decided instead to loudly groan to an empty house. She pushed her chair back from the table forcefully and verbally told herself to put her big girl pants on and keep going. She had waited so long for him to come back to her. She was still waiting for him to make all those changes he had been talking about for years; acknowledging those things he recognized he needed to change like being more assertive, being consistent, not procrastinating, and engaging in more foreplay.
To the outsider, his mere acknowledgment was such a significant accomplishment and proof that he was the loving spouse who wanted to make things work. But she had heard these things countless times in their years together and knew that it was all talk and no action.
He Was Always Right
She had chosen to not verbally admit things she needed to change. She just changed. And she kept changing. Every teaching opportunity that he failed to utilize; each time he let his kids disrespect him and, in turn, her; each time she rushed to jump in the shower with him and he quickly avoided her by abruptly finishing and hopping out; each month that went by with no priority to get his ED meds — she died a little more inside. She lost a little more hope.
She had dug so deep and exercised the utmost self-control in keeping the peace around the house for the sake of the family, just like he wanted; to have to prove her value as a lifelong companion; to forego her own pride and pure dignity for some value that he held so dear to his heart, yet she didn’t share.
His way was always the right way and she wondered if he had ever, in his superior intellect, actually considered that maybe he was the wrong one and he should give credence to what she had to say. All this done at her own expense; her own volition. Yet he had made his daughter clean her room one time and then continued to let her punish him by just not coming to visit anymore. The thought disgusted Abby. She had to constantly push it out of her mind, or she would go mad.
It was the very first morning of the Hawaii vacation that was supposed to be family-building while also helping to connect them romantically once again. She had been trepidatious yet hopeful, all the same, as they had made reservations. After hours of flight delays, they were all exhausted by the time they finally got there and laid down to sleep.
Abby woke up peacefully, no stressors clouding her mind, positivity coursing through her veins with visions of romantic sunsets and tans and pictures of them together again. She smiled at the thought of having what once was once more. She laid on Sam’s chest as the sun peeked through the blinds, smelling his always pleasant smell, adoring all of him she had left to adore, putting all the past behind her for that moment in time.
Abandon All Hope
She kissed his neck. He didn’t respond. Her heart sank. “I feel as though my adoration is merely one-sided,” she said. “What are you thinking about?”
“I’m thinking about the tension during this trip,” he stared at the ceiling. “I’m thinking of how I’m supposed to make any of this for just us while juggling with it being for the family. I’m thinking of how you adamantly refuse to get up in the mornings to do anything with the family. I’m thinking of how I’m supposed to want to do anything for just us when you don’t want to participate in family activities to make this a great vacation for everyone.”
“Throughout all this counseling and work, I’ve been asked ‘without the kids in the picture, is there still something there to work on?’” she started to cry. “You have insisted the whole time that you do believe there is something worth fighting for. It is so obvious that you don’t really believe that, or you would be focusing on making us better. You sure didn’t have a hard time separating us from family when we were first together.”
He opened his mouth to speak but quickly closed it. He had no argument with that one. He wanted her so badly at that time that he would have given anything in the world to have her. This was directly contradictory to what he now claimed. How could he expect her to want anything different now. He acted like her expectations were unreasonable, but she merely expected the same things she had always expected. It was him that had changed.
Maybe he was expressing all his pent-up regrets for putting his kids to the side for his newfound love. The timing of their decline would indicate the timing when he stopped sleeping in with her in the mornings claiming he had already sacrificed so much time with his kids for her.
That would have been 3–4 years ago, she thought. That’s when things went sour. That’s when motivation was lost, and rules were changed without collaboration. That’s when they died.
“You clearly don’t understand that ‘us’ being good is key to the ‘family’ being good,” he said.
Tears of hopelessness and anger spilled down her cheeks. “Don’t you understand we have to work on us before we can work on the family. I am not ‘all about the family’ and I never have been. I don’t know who you think you married but I am not that person. When exactly do you intend on working on us?”
Her heart was a gaping wound. Her hopes for at least a semi-great start were crushed. She was once again reminded of what different planes they were on. They once rode the same wave, in tune with each other. They were now two distinctly different entities. While she lay there full of adoration and hope, he lay there in conflict with himself over events that hadn’t even taken place. He hadn’t even given her a chance before expressing his disappointment.
He was so full of doubt and remembrance of past family vacations that he viewed as scarred simply because she refused to get up at the crack-ass of dawn to start all the fun daily festivities. Her reluctance to rise early had never once destroyed a single family vacation. The kids had a blast every time they went on vacation. They frequently expressed good memories of various trips. Memories they had made with each other. Not memories of Abby not wanting to get out of bed before 9.
Sam prided himself on being non-judgmental, but he judged people more than anyone else she knew. He held people, especially his kids and Abby, to almost unreasonable expectations with the guise of making them want to “always strive for better.” Sounded reasonable enough. She shared that with him but only up to a certain point. She also took into account the human factor and human nature.
His rationalization and minimization of her ideas and ideals did nothing more than minimize her as a person. This was a regular play for him. His passive aggressiveness coming out full force. He was so scrutinizing, so critical. He accused her of having “unreasonable” expectations. Their definitions of “reason” were very different.
Oil and Water
His criticism was often expressed as silence which left her doubting herself and feeling worthless. His ideas were always so much more rational. I mean, who would disagree that a family vacation should be “about the family”? That’s “all” he would be saying, discounting any additional information she would offer such as the fact that it should be about them TOO and that both could be accomplished without sacrificing the other. He had somehow separated these things in his mind but verbalized them as being critical to the overall success of the family. If things didn’t line up with his way of thinking, they must be wrong. They just didn’t compute within his genius mind.
He used to compliment her ways, telling her they “challenged “him. That challenge ended years ago when perhaps he discovered she wasn’t as “deep” as maybe he thought she was. She was convinced that he had this vision in his head of how their life, their family, was going to be. She was worth his sacrifice at the start because it would result in the outcome he intended to achieve.
On the first night in Hawaii, for someone so unconcerned about making it a family vacation, Abby sure did spend hours scheduling their week. She stayed up doing what Sam had insisted he would do — plan their stay. He had scheduled one event for everyone but had made no attempt at actually putting together the 6-day agenda to lay out their activities. Activities that would include ALL of them. Why did she do this? Was it to prove herself to Sam or for a genuine concern in making this a memorable vacation for everyone? She felt both but despised the idea that she had to prove herself to anyone, especially Sam.
Had he brought her rings with the intent of asking for her hand back? She hoped but didn’t expect it. He didn’t even get his ED meds in time for their vacation so they could be intimate. She felt her youth was wasting away. Should she just start over with someone new? Someone who actually wanted her?
Abby and Sam argued almost the entire vacation over one thing or another. Any attempts at happiness were forced. New Year’s Eve rolled around, and they departed together with her daughter and his son to her daughter’s dad’s house for fireworks and the new year.
They started arguing before they got in the car because Abby simply didn’t hear something Sam had said. This was a common occurrence as her hearing wasn’t all that great, he always spoke so quietly, and there were echoes in the parking garage. She had Auditory Processing Disorder and could not always process speech with the presence of external stimuli. He knew this.
As soon as all four car doors were closed, Abby told him she would just let Ken know they would stop and get McDs on the way because his son would eat everything they had at the small party. The latter part of the statement was said quietly but apparently not quietly enough for Sam so he blew up at her asking her if she could say it any louder. She said she absolutely could and thus the argument continued.
I n the cramped quarters of the Jeep, Sam’s son yelled for them to stop arguing and to “shut the fuck up.” Abby became livid and corrected him and told him he had not earned the authority to say such things to them and told Sam if he didn’t correct his son and back her on that then he could turn the car back around and take her back to the resort which he promptly did.
So, Abby spent New Years 2019 on the back patio of a hotel in Hawaii without even seeing a single firework or hearing one tune of Auld Lang Syne on the beautiful island. Foreshadowing of the “brand new” life that awaited them.
She had been so hopeful. Had tried so hard. Had put so much effort into making this thing work but it just wasn’t in the cards. He saw no need to change and simply couldn’t discipline his own kid for the sake of THEM. Not even this one time. It wasn’t her that ruined their vacation. He held all the cards. He was never going to change. She died yet a little more.
She was too wired to sleep so she colored on an app on her iPad. Still dressed up sexy with nowhere to go. She didn’t want to share his kiss or feel his touch unless he actually made some effort to change. She had rather be alone.

She did miss her baby girl though and regretted not spending New Years with her. That probably hurt her little girl and she messaged her and said she was sorry, but she shouldn’t have to deal with that anymore. Her daughter had not responded but had read her messages, so she wasn’t sure exactly what to think about it. Maybe she was mad at her. She knew of their problems, and she knew her mom hadn’t been happy for quite some time. She also knew that she was the primary reason that Abby had stayed with Sam for so long. Otherwise, Abby would have walked away years ago.

I t’s incredibly hard to walk away from one’s fourth marriage. To know one has failed that many times in life. But this one wasn’t her fault. She knew that. She was unfaithful to all her others but not to Sam. She was faithful to him to this bitter end. He just refused to let go of the past and focus on the future and to make changes in himself that needed to be made.
It was not okay for his son to tell her to shut the fuck up and him not correcting it told her all she needed to know. It was definitely over this time. He was willing to take her back to the hotel to spend new year’s alone. He was willing to let her walk away. That’s all she needed to know.