No One’s Perfect

It’s so easy when someone dies to make them a saint. Sometimes, B. would put her dad on a pedestal, but I wouldn’t. I think you honor someone who has died by looking at them as a complete human, the good and the bad.

Relationships are complicated because we bring ourselves and our history when we become a couple. There are always adjustments to make in becoming “we.”

Mike had a lot of great traits. He was kind, compassionate, and supportive. He was much neater than I was, but we found a happy medium over time. We complimented each other with what we could do to maintain the house, inside and out. We were partners in parenting the kids as well. Although I was more patient in some ways, especially when they were little, Mike was always there to change and launder the girls’ cloth diapers, get up in the middle of the night to feed the babies, or deal with vomiting children.

Unfortunately, Mike suffered from addiction, which grew worse over time. It was not something that was there at the beginning of our marriage. However, the change was gradual, and I was dealing with something greater than me before I knew it. It started when the girls were a couple of years old. I was trying to juggle the unpredictable nature of addiction as well as being a wife and mother. My behavior was not always fantastic as I grappled with these new behaviors. Mike would get help on and off over the years, but it was always to appease me. Even a geographic relocation didn’t solve the problem.

After Mike’s death, I seesawed between anger and sadness. How could drugs and alcohol be more important than the kids and me? They were the third person in our relationship. Then I would be so sad because I missed him so much. The anger was sometimes easier to deal with because it felt more powerful when I was most vulnerable.

With the perspective of time, I have much more compassion for Mike and less anger. No one grows up thinking that they want to be an alcoholic or an addict. His depression and anxiety, coupled with physical pain, were contributing factors. Although I don’t miss dealing with the trials of addiction, I do miss the sweet parts of Mike. I’m grateful today that I can love him for who he was and what he brought into my life by seeing him as a complete person.