3. Second verse, a little bit louder, a little bit worse?

The only reason I finally asked my wife out was because her Mom worked so hard to get us together I finally wanted to get her to stop. I figured she was under as much pressure from Mom as I was - so I felt pretty confident I wouldn't get shot down asking her out.

We went out, much to my surprise, as I kissed her hand good-night, she said she wanted to do it again. After I figured out it was impolite to stand there with my jaw open, I smiled so big it must have taken up 3/4 of my face.

On date 3, she told me she knew I was the right man for her. I choked - literally.

Of course, months later when it came down to it, I told her I loved her - and she replied "thank you." I should have known then.

It wasn't until weeks later she said those words to me, but... after a year of dating, I asked her father's permission, and a few days later I asked her to marry me in front of her entire family on Christmas morning. We got married and for six years we were incredibly happy. No joke - we never had a single argument.... not one.

A year after our son was born, she told me she wanted to have breast augmentation. She didn't ask what I thought, she simply made an appointment and went. She went to the surgeon next door to her office. It messed with me. She made such a monumental decision without even asking me, and when I asked her to reconsider, she refused. Since she refused to reconsider, I asked if she would at least choose a female surgeon... she refused that, too.

I can honestly say (though reading it here may sound trivial) - the decisions she made hurt more than the divorce. At least with the divorce, I knew she was mentally ill and that is why she tried to hurt me. This? This was being done by someone who purportedly loved me - but so completely marginalized me that I knew I no longer mattered.

The week of the surgery, she told me if I said "no" then she wouldn't but that she wouldn't forgive me. I replied " You know, I've never believed a man should rule over his wife. I believe everything should be a joint decision - a 50-50 partnership. If you feel so strongly about this you ignore my pleas, it doesn't matter what I say now. If I say 'no' - then you'll hold it against me for the rest of our lives. If I say 'yes' - I'm afraid I'll be haunted by it for the rest of my life. I've share with you my fears, my weakness - it is your decision to make. All our decisions in life have consequences. I guess you have to decide what's best for you."

She went ahead with the surgery.

The consequences, as I predicted were immediate and long lasting. I had to endure many office visits watching some other guy touching my wife's breasts, squeezing them, cupping them, over and over and over. I'll say - they look wonderful. She looks (I'll say it again again) perfect from head to toe, but I thought she was before the surgery.

Here's the deal. Shortly after the surgery, her world came crashing down. I got a call from her asking me to come home telling me only that she had done something "bad... really, really bad." A 45 minute drive home gave me time to work up all sorts of scenarios and how I would react... I fully expected her to tell me she had an affair... and I knew I wasn't ready for that.

Turned out, she was caught forging prescriptions. Unknown to me, she was addicted to pain pills for more than a year (after our son's c-section birth.) Her employer was giving her all the scripts she wanted... in a quid pro quo arrangement. She tells me there was never anything physical - she simply filled prescriptions in her name for him on occassion. When she quit doing things for him, he quit prescribing for her. She stole his prescription pad and wrote her own.

They didn't prosecute. She went to a methadone clinic and stayed in treatment for about a year. Then she wasn't getting enough and began to doctor shop.

She managed to get enough pills from our local MD to OD in August. Imagine, if you will, a woman who takes a combination of narcotics and anti-nausea medication so she wont' throw the narcotics back up.

Imagine this woman takes 20x the prescription amount and then gets behind the wheel of the car with our 5 year old in the back seat. Imagine what it was like for me to get the call saying, "Mr. ___, this is John. I'm an EMT and your wife is, unconscious and convulsing. Your daughter is here, we'll take her with us in the ambulance." Since I was an hour and a half out of town, that was one long drive back.

Turns out, she was pretty good at conning MDs out of pain pills. She managed to hit several.
I stood by her, I held her hand through all of it. She got a new job, and did well for a while. Then she got back in her old patterns. She managed to cheat the new computerize system at the new office and again made her own prescriptions.

That was the second OD... the second time she had to be in ICU... and the second time I had to pay staggering medical bills because of her poor decisions.

She started a program - Celebrate Recovery - a religious based group for those fighting addictions. She started their 12 step program... less than a month later, I got a call from her employer telling me he had to fire her for stealing prescriptions.

When the world came down this time, she was writing her own prescriptions and stealing money. She was taking between 50 and 60 ten mg Lortabs a day. That would be enough to kill most folks - including me. She spread it around to multiple pharmacies hoping not to get caught, but finally Walgreen's stopped her.

She got caught trying to use a co-worker's drivers license she had stolen. In lieu of charges, she agreed to go hospitalization. In the hospital, she started smoking, a habit stopped before we dated 10 years before.

While she was in the hospital, I made amends for her, replacing the money I found out she stole, and apologizing to every one of our friends I knew she had hurt. Sadly, this had huge career implications for me.. her coworker is a good friend and former co-worker of mine. He is in another company now, but we have a rather small community of folks and I am now the guy who hears "oh, it was his wife..."

I learned from family members how she had stolen from my mom and my sister - and how she had gone through medicine cabinets of our friends when we went to kids birthday parties, etc.

Out of the hospital, she did well for a few weeks - and then bottomed out again. My mom caught her rummaging through her pills.

Then she began lying about smoking when I caught on...
When the pills dried up, she went to the liquor store and bought vodka...
She drank and drove....
She began taking other pills.
She OD'ed in February.
She lied and bought more liquor.
I took her keys away at the explicit instructions of our company counselor and with the complete agreement of her 12 step sponsor.

The OD
When she OD'ed in February, it was pretty scary. I came home to a quite house. I found my six year old daughter and three year old son on the counter in the kitchen where she was trying to make him something to eat. She said he was hungry and she "couldn't get Momma to wake up."

I turned the corner and saw a dead woman sprawled out in my son's floor. Her face was swollen, her tongue was hanging out the side of her mouth she wasn't moving, she wasn't breathing - she looked dead. As I took a step into the room, she inhaled - so at least I knew she was alive. Her eyes were rolled back in her head, but her eyelids were about 1/3 the way open. Her breathing was about 2 a minute - she would violently inhale in what sounded like a loud snore and exhale.. then nothing for 30 seconds.

Her shirt was pulled up over her left breast and her pants were unbuttoned and partially unzipped - and there was some question in my mind if she had been attacked. My six year old told me she knew "Mom was having trouble breathing so she loosened her pants and tried to raise her shirt, but her bra unhooked in back... and Mom was too big for her to roll over to help loosen it. " My six year old was trying to help her Mom breath during this OD and when she couldn't, she tried to fix supper for my 3 year old.

I called her parents and they came over. Her Dad came in the room and thought she was dead, just as I did. I asked her Mom to take the kids out so they didn't see this.. and she did. I strongly and vigorously ran my knuckles up and down her sternum trying to use pain to rouse her. I tried it several times and as we were preparing to take her to the ER (again) she finally roused with one knuckle applied to her sternum.

She looked .... weird. She was stoned out of her mind. She couldn't remember how many kids she had, what year it was, who the President was... she denied taking any medication or doing anything wrong.... but this time - this time I got her "stumblies" on tape.

I wanted her to see how she looked and how ridiculous her denials were.

We sat with her until she quit telling us the President was Bill Clinton... and after several hours, she cleared her mind and we had a long talk.

I can't tell you how disappointed I was to see her do something so stupid and leave the kids vulnerable.