It’s been 2 years since I officially told him I wanted a divorce.

When I asked him to leave after he destroyed my house, the initial arrangement was just that he would be staying at a buddy’s house. It took me 4 days to work up the nerve to give him the message (through the buddy, as I didn’t want contact with him at the time) that the separation needed to be made permanent.  The result of that Thursday night conversation left me, yet again, wondering if this would be the time he would finally kill us all.

I texted the buddy in the morning, after barely sleeping that night. I look back on all of this and just shake my head at my foolishness. I knew exactly what he was planning, and I allowed myself to be talked off a ledge and “let this play out”.

He asked to come over to get some things in order, and with his buddy close enough to step in if needed, I allowed it. While he was at my house, he asked if I wanted to be the one to disappear forever, or if I wanted him to. If I wanted to be the one to raise the kids, or if I would let him. I kept telling him it didn’t have to be this way. We could divorce like normal people divorce. It doesn’t have to be this dramatic. Nobody had to die. I wasn’t asking him to die, and I certainly didn’t want to die.

This wasn’t the first time he’d suggested ending a life at the suggestion of separating (and not the first time he talked suicide, but would always end it with “but I could never do that to my kids”). I found a text from a couple years before this incident two years ago where I was relaying a conversation to a friend:

“oh, also, he kept saying something about there are two easy ways out. Divorce, or suicide by either one of us. The first time he said it I was really confused that suicide would even be any sort of option. But then he said it a couple more times and I had to make him clarify as to whether or not he thought that I would actually commit suicide? Or if he was thinking about it? Especially because he keeps insisting that I am clinically depressed. He says he is not going to, but that it was just one of two ways out.  I assured him that it was not an option for me.”

The rest of the conversation in my dining room that day two years ago was him telling me that he had changed the life insurance policy. He told me that there would be people from the ATF that would come and “take care” of everything he left behind with his gun business. He asked me to give him three hours and he would disappear forever.

I left that day.  Spent the afternoon crying till the tears ran out.

But I didn’t call the police.

He got as far as putting his loaded ARs, magazines, and handguns in the trunk of his car, but thankfully his buddy convinced him to bring them back inside and lock them back up in his gun room before going back to the friend’s house, taking a bunch of meds, and passing out.

I have said it before, listed at the top of my regrets is the MANY times I should have called the police, but I didn’t. Sometimes I didn’t tell anyone.  Sometimes I called his friends. Sometimes I called our pastor.  But I didn’t call the police.

My fear when speaking out about my experience is that people will read it and think I am trying to drag his name through the mud, or air my dirty laundry.  PLEASE hear my heart when I say that this is not my intention. With every fiber of my being, my goal in speaking up and speaking out is so that other people will learn from me.  What not to do.  What to do.  I did a lot of things wrong in my marriage, and not reaching out for the appropriate kind of professional help could have cost me my (or his) life on more than one occasion.

If you are EVER afraid for your life or safety, or if someone you know is threatening to harm themselves, PLEASE call someone.  Call the police, call the domestic abuse hotline 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), call the suicide hotline 1-800-273-8255.  Call a trained professional.

There are so many things I hope people can learn from me, but this might be the one about which I speak the loudest: CALL FOR HELP.