Sobriety, My Own Place, My Own Life

I hung on to my ex-husband longer than I should have. We were both wrong for each other from the beginning. Leaving him was the best thing to ever happen to me, and something I am the proudest of.

I had been living a nightmare of my own making for most of my life. I had been drinking heavily, in and out of mental institutions, living in a room in my parents’ house with no hope of ever moving out or making anything of my life. I spent nearly a decade online, before OnlyFans was a thing, giving myself freely to men online, not having any kind of respect for myself. Did I really think I could find a husband this way? Did I really think a man could save me from all of this pain?

Then I met my husband. We went through NYC like Bonnie and Clyde, him introducing me to crack by giving me the pipe in my mouth, (I would never touch it), and me drowning more and more in alcohol. Even though we shared a special moment in my favorite church, where God told him to ask me to marry him, it was the last bit of romance that would ever go on in our toxic relationship. From emotional abuse, physical fights over money for drugs, me leaving him a bunch of times and him threatening me with suicide so I took him back, and us committing many crimes in NYC, we fled to North Carolina to start a new life.

But it didn’t end there, it just got worse. He found a new group of people to get drugs from, my alcoholism got worse, and I was so deep in sin, that only thing left for God to do was send us both to jail to stop all the madness. I spent 10 months on the floor of a jail cell, still dreaming of him and sending messages to the officers to give to him for me. I still hung on, even after I got out and became homeless, having to find shelter in a rehab. I was always building for our future, visiting him in the psych ward after jail, trying to make a life with a man that wanted nothing more than look for crack the moment he got out. He tormented me every single day in our new apartment, after I tried to do things the right way and live sober. It all crumbled. He refused medication. His addiction raged. And somehow, by grace alone, I didn’t relapse. The old crack spots were boarded up. The temptation wasn’t there. That was God.

He became incoherent. I watched him dissolve like I once had. My parents, now in North Carolina, put him on a bus back to New York. They saved my life. I owe them everything.

The last time I saw him, my parents drove us to the bus depot. I was quiet the whole ride, watching the North Carolina roads blur into memory. He looked exhausted — thin, worn, not quite tethered to this world anymore — but there was still something in his eyes, those big brown eyes I had fallen in love with in the ward. We stood outside the Greyhound station, under a gray sky that couldn’t make up its mind. He reached for me, and I melted into him, holding on like it could somehow undo the damage. And then came the final kiss — slow, trembling, soaked in goodbye. I closed my eyes and tried to memorize everything: the shape of his mouth, the scent of his skin, the sadness in his breath.

His last words to me were, “We can try and make this work, right?”

And part of me — the part still haunted by our first kiss and that candlelit church — wanted to say yes.

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.

Even after he left, I kept in touch. I loved his mother — she made sure I had support even in jail, wrote me letters, and sent cards. She loved how much I loved her son. But it wasn’t enough.

He kept disappearing in New York, lost in the same cycles, same streets. And one day, I changed my number.

I grieved him like a death. Because I had buried so many parts of myself just to stay with him — my sobriety, my sanity, my dreams. And still, I would have stayed. That’s what heartbreak does to you. It confuses sacrifice with salvation. 

Because for all the chaos, for all the darkness — he loved me in a way no one else ever had. He made me feel beautiful when I had been discarded by so many. He gave me an adventure. He made me feel chosen.

All I ever wanted was to save him. But love is not salvation.

And sometimes, the kindest thing grace can do — is say goodbye.

I think of him still, when the nights are lonely — only because there were nights that he used to hold me when the mania or depression was just too much. He would stroke my forehead and lull me back to sleep. Mostly, it was the mornings when he kissed my forehead while I was still asleep.

If only he could have been what I hoped him to be. But you can’t change someone, you can’t even try. All you can do is pray for them, and hope God takes care of them. I pray for him to this day.

I moved on of course, and fell in love again, but it honestly hurts more than what I went through with my ex-husband. This time, this love showed me what it could be like to be loved completely and without addiction and toxicity – although I still got heartbroken in the end.

So what am I most proud of? Through all of that I’ve been through, I managed to keep my apartment, my sobriety, and most of all my piece of mind. I live my life alone and in peace, embracing my freedom and independence everytime.

To me that’s priceless.

Stay tuned.