The Dark Time
For several days (3? 5?) MrS lies on the floor. I get up, I go to work (barely functioning). I call, he doesn't answer. I come home. He is still there, still on the dog blanket, still in his coat. I sit by him and cry, I try to talk to him; I question, he answers: “I don't know,” “I don't care,” “Go away.”. Each day I am terrified that I will come home and he will be gone (or dead).
After some days I get him to talk somewhat. “I don't know if I can stay in this house.” “I don't know if I can sleep in that bed.” He tells me that he finds his happiness in life in making me happy, that if he can't “make” me happy then he should leave so I can find happiness with Dude, or someone. He says that he doesn't know if he can love me anymore.. (He says this, but I don't believe it.***) I make a promise to myself, if, a year from now, he doesn't want to be married, I will let him go without a fight. If, after a year of giving it my everything he still feels that he is an impediment to my happiness rather than a fundamental part if it then I will have failed him truly.
After a while Dude starts calling – first MrS, and then me. He starts leaving messages – are we okay? He is thinking of coming around the house to check on us. MrS tells me to call him and tell him to stop (actually to “die in fire after developing ass-cancer and contracting tertiary syphilis”). I call Dude and convey the message, I tell him that MrS is in a very bad place and I don't know what is going to happen – when/if this situation is going to be fixable.
I manage to convince MrS to get off the floor and out of his coat and into our bed. Day after day he lies there and stares at the ceiling or cries silently. After a while I convince him to eat. We start to talk. I wonder if it would help if he increased the dose of his anti-depressant medication. It turns out that he actually stopped taking it (unbeknownst to me) altogether a few months prior. He agrees to restart his medication.
Gradually, either time or the medication begins to work. He gets up. He eats. We talk – sometimes. I bring up counseling (for him, for me, for us) – he doesn't see how that can help, if he can't "make" me happy then we are irrevocably broken. I ask him to talk to his friend, Dude - “He's not my friend.” I drop it. Our lives gradually resume some semblance of normalcy tinged with sadness. Dude emails me at one point - “Are you okay?/Is MrS okay?/What is going on?” - I delete the email without responding and tell MrS.
About a month or so into this I run into Dude in a public parking lot in town. He tells me he misses us – he had a dream about MrS the other night. He broke up with CrazyGirl and got back together with her again. He doesn't know what to tell her or his grandmother about why he is not hanging out with us anymore. He is sad. We talk for about 10 minutes and I tell him that MrS is showing signs of getting better but I don't know if reconciliation is possible but that I don't think that it can come from me. And that I am sorry. I tell MrS that I ran into Dude and that he misses us.
I don't know that there is anything more I can do.
******
***Through all of this, I KNOW that he loves me, I have never once doubted it, even during this darkest time. He may have lost the certainty for a bit, but I, actually, never did. It took a long time for me to believe it in the first place, that love existed, that MrS felt it for me. But once he convinced me, once I believed him.... I believed him for always. Even if he left our marriage, I believe that he would still love me. I believe that he still loves every person he has ever really loved, I don't think that he can withdraw his love, once given.