My Story

L. Cannon

As a part of my life experience, this story begins in 1980 when I married my third husband.  I already had two failed marriages and was determined that this one would be different. I had a five-year-old son at the time of our marriage. Three years into the marriage, I had my second son.

In the beginning, I was happy and enjoyed being a stay-at-home mom. Looking back on those years, I now recognize many red flags that went unnoticed or were dismissed from my mind as unimportant. I knew nothing about alcoholism or domestic violence.

I was still fighting my giants I had brought into the marriage. But, as we always do, I had great expectations of a long marriage with happiness and grandchildren on our laps as we sat in our matching rocking chairs on the porch of our lovely home. That dream eventually turned into a nightmare.

As time passed, he became more successful in his career. I knew that he would drink alcohol. In the beginning, I would even have a drink or two with him from time to time, with no idea what was ahead.  After 5 or 6 years, he was away from home long hours and I knew he was drinking more and more.

During this time, I gave my heart and life to the Lord Jesus Christ and was even more determined, with His help, to make my marriage work.  I realized now that my marriage was a big mistake. But now, in the midst of it all, I trusted Jesus to do what I couldn’t do which was to change my husband.

As the years went by, his drinking became worse and worse. He would try to hide it as now he was drinking daily. He never hit me and physical abuse was never the problem. However, he became very verbally, emotionally, and psychologically abusive, especially when drinking, which, by now, was day and night. I hated it, but I was financially unable to leave and I just couldn’t seem to give up.  My children witnessed much of this, and there were altercations from time to time. I had a younger son, who was now 8 years old.

He kept spiraling down into a life of ungodliness and began to get up at night so he could drink and watch porn. He became sexually abusive.  I would pray, fast and try to trust the Lord, but many times I would get angry and fight back not knowing how I could bear to live this way any longer. During the last few years, I found out that he had been unfaithful to me many, many times.  I felt like I was barely hanging on with bloody fingernails! My oldest son had married and was on his own.  My middle son had joined the army. Only my younger son was still at home with me and was old enough to see what was going on. It was a sad and miserable place to live.

I had for years experienced such distrust, bitterness, resentment and anger. But, in the midst of it all, I saw, time after time, how God had intervened in many situations and had given my husband numerous opportunities to change and gave me grace to endure. He would seem to respond from time to time, but not for long and not for real. He would go right back as if nothing had happened. We got counseling, he attended AA for a short while and I attended Al-Anon, but it made no impact on him.

In our twenty-first year of marriage, I began to pray for the Lord to release me from this relationship. My son, now 13, began to have health problems. He would get sick and couldn’t eat. I took him to the doctor who, after exams and tests, asked how our home life was. I gave her a brief description and she said my son was physically fine, but his problems were due to stress. I knew at that point; I had to do something and make a change.

As I continued to pray, I soon realized that I no longer felt tied to this alcoholic abuser. The Lord had released me and I began to make a plan for our escape. The Lord literally orchestrated the entire move! He met all our needs, financial and otherwise. I found a small basement apartment.

I had recently gone back to college (at age 50, but that’s another God story!) and had a part-time job. Things moved quickly. I began packing during the long hours he was gone. One day, the plan became a reality. My friend came with a U-Haul truck after he left for work one morning and we took only enough to use in our little apartment. I left behind a 4-bedroom house that I loved and the majority of my belongings collected over twenty-three years of marriage. I felt no remorse and no ties to any of it! We were finally free! Of course, his lies and accusations began to fly about why I left, but I didn’t care anymore.

From that very day, my son no longer had any health issues. I felt I had done all I could do to honor my vows with determination to make the marriage work. I had warned him many times that I would leave, but he didn’t believe me. With one last ditch effort, I had left him a letter and told him that if he would stop drinking, seek help and counseling on his own, I would consider starting over. But, he would have to prove that he had stopped and we would just start dating and for long enough for me to be sure he had changed even if it took years. I gave him six months to show he was trying. We had very little contact during that time except for an occasional drunken phone call.  At the end of the six months, I called him and asked what he had done toward recovery and could he prove it to me.  His drunken response was, “I don’t have to prove a damn thing to you.” My reply was, “You’re absolutely right.” I started divorce proceedings the following week.

That was twenty-one years ago.  He continued to drink and carouse.  He recently died with lung cancer and was still drinking right up to the end.  What a sad, wasted life……………….