I almost titled this one as Day 1 2.0. It is kind of that first day of the rest of our lives. To be quite honest, after the week that was, one could say it had to hit the 11th hour before we finally reached the turning point. One final battle had to be fought, and won. From the pits of despair, prayers were answered. I will write about, and maybe she will too, at a later point in time, because believe me when I write that things were straight out of a fantasy tale in regards to how things really happened. The bottom line is this: we are back together, happier and stronger than we could have ever been pre-separation. I feel like when I make her smile, its like the butterflies she got when we first started dating. As for myself, I don’t think I have ever been happier. I really don’t. All I want to do when I wake up and get out of bed is make sure my main goal for the day is how to make my wife and daughter feel safe, happy, and taken care of. Where was this person before, my wife asked me tonight while we sat on the porch listening to the rain begin to patter on the roof. I can’t honestly say for sure where I was for all of those years. Wasting my energy being angry and defiant I guess. I was not necessarily a bad person, but I definitely wasn’t capable of the things I am doing in my life right now. I will fight any battle for my family, and do everything in my power to keep them safe. The fact that I have help from our friends, and her REAL friends, makes all of this seem like a path we are both walking on, whereas a few days ago I was worried that path had been broken. We have made big changes. Its take it day by day, but when the day has unlimited wonderful potential, its hard to not be excited. That is the true joys of having a family with an amazing child and the absolute love of your life.

On my journey to the top of the world, we took an unplanned detour to probably the most remote city in North America. There is a Canadian province called the Northwest Territories that is enormous, yet sparsely populated due to the terrain and how far north it is. I do not know anyone who has ever been there, and hardly anyone who knows where this place is. The item in the photo is of a necklace I brought back from Yellowknife to give to my daughter. Along the final winding gravel highway to the city, there are several large versions of the stone charm on the necklace. They were markers built in ancient times by the natives. They each represent different things, but the ones we kept seeing were markers to show the way to one thing: home. Besides the sense of adventure that came along with just reaching Yellowknife, there is something that happened there that continued to haunt me up until this weekend. It was May 7th, 3 years to the day that I met my wife. I turned on my phone, which I had left off so that I would not speak to anyone, including Samm, during the entire trip. This was a journey to get away from everything in my life, and find some answers to questions about who I was as a person. So to communicate with anyone would have defeated the purpose of that I guess. But perhaps I took it to far on that day. A slew of text messages came pouring in when I turned the phone on. My wife was freaking out, terrified that I had left for good or that something had happened to me. The last one was from that day, and all it said was “I miss you”. I have always thought throughout the bad times and sad times of trying to fix things with her, what if I had responded? What if I said “I miss you too”. What if I said “honey I am ok just give me a week to get back home and we can work this out, I promise”. But I didn’t. I had been driving for over a week with only one night not slept in the car, sometimes in cold conditions. I turned the phone back off, closed the curtains and just collapsed into the hotel bed and passed out for 13 hours. Samm and I talk about that moment a lot, and Yellowknife has become an embodiment of sorts, not just a physical place far at the top of the world.

So there I was last week, late Thursday night, when the text came again, 3 months later. “I miss you”.  This time, I replied. And now shes coming home.

Unfortunately, on my long mad scramble to try and save my marriage, I lost a little bit of myself along the way. Yes, I did make some strides as a person, but I also ended up doing some things I said that I would never do. To try and save your soul mate, you might end up destroying yourself in the process if you aren’t careful. And then who are you saving? No one. I won’t get into the details, but I pretty much pushed every limit and boundary I thought I had put up in regards to certain things. I feel like shit. I haven’t slept well in over a month, save the few times I get to sleep in the same bed as my wife. I barely run anymore. I have only been to the gym twice in two weeks. I wanted to get my life back on track and my marriage fixed but I feel like its costing me my health and well being, and I need to seriously cut that off. I do not have an addictive personality. I can turn anything off. I just have to do it. And not to get carried away with this, most of this it 100% social. Its not like I am sitting alone, depressed and getting loaded. But I have always prided myself in being healthy, I just ran two ultra marathons this year for christs sakes. This behavior is kind of a slice of a larger issue: I am an addict, and my wife is my drug.

I took Cali to the playground today. It was lightly raining and there was no other kids there, but she didn’t mind. She is usually kind of shy because she is pretty small for her age. Once she makes a friend, they are pretty much inseparable though. Since Cal was born, taking her to the playground has always been a kind of happy yet sad experience for me. I see other parents, other couples laughing and watching their children play, it makes me feel envious. But I love to see my daughter smile and having fun with other children, its great because I don’t get to see her at her school except for rare occasions. But every time I take her to the playground, usually being the one at Uptown Station, I find myself wishing I was there with Samm and Cali. We have always had such different schedules it was always hard enough when we were on good terms. As we go forward and try to heal our little family, I am going to make playground visits as a trio a top priority. No more sitting on that brick wall watching the children play feeling the tendrils of depression seeping into my brain. All three of us deserve to have each other there, none of us should miss out on that kind of happiness.

So today was when it was finally her turn to show me something. The funny thing is, it’s her that was really being shown the truth about things. Let me just back up a second and relay some of the classy things that this other “boy” had to say to me. When I first found out about this bullshit, I sent him a text asking him to leave my family alone and that we were still married. His response? A rant worthy of a 16 year old. I was called a “dead beat dad” and an alcoholic loser who mistreats women. Yes. Sounds like he has me pinned. Oh, I was also told that because of me, my daughter would be on a stripper pole by her 18th birthday. I received plenty of other hateful, profanity filled text messages, and my mother in law even got one sent to her saying all kinds of horrible shit. Yes a real knight in shining armor we have here. So the whole world got to see what a piece of shit this guy really was, it was time for one final person to see things for what they really were.

I showed up to take her to work and that was when we had agreed to tell this guy it was over and to leave us alone. The message she sent him stated that we were getting back together and that she was giving her family a chance. She asked that he not speak to her anymore and even threw in a few kind statements like “thanks for being there for me when things were difficult in my life”. I am not an unreasonable person, and despite how little I think of this person, I respected that my wife at one point considered him a friend. But when the grass is cut, the snakes will show. The response was at this point, typical. Profanity. Belittlement. It was kind of scary to see how a 39 year old “man” of his age flew off the handle when presented with any sort of backlash to what he wanted. He told her to fuck off, me to fuck off, that we “deserved each other”, and that my wife was “daft” to be stupid enough to get back with me, and to never contact him again. He threw in a real comedy line, saying he was done “dealing with children”. That’s rich. Thanks for doing EXACTLY what I said you would do, and being the person I always KNEW that you were. It takes a real fucking loser to knowingly try and break up a family, so no one should be surprised this is how that kind of person would act. I even sent him a letter last week, respectfully and politely asking that he please leave my wife alone and that we were spending a ton of time together as a family trying to fix things. I included all of my Facebook photo albums (hard for that many pictures to lie!) and kept everything in the letter civil. No response. Figures. He didn’t care whatsoever that she was trying to fix things with me.

Oh, and the last thing he said yesterday was that if he ever saw me at a show he would “beat my ass and laugh”. Ok.

It was a really bad day today. The only good that came out of it was that I feel like I am nearing some sense of closure with all of this shit. It was time for an ultimatum and I now had every right to make one. Nothing was going to be the same ever again. For better or worse. What do you do when someone who has lied constantly gives you their word? You should probably say sorry and just walk away. Which I actually tried to do last night. Each time she grabbed my hand and said “No.” She loves me. I do think she cares about our marriage enough that she doesn’t want it to vanish permanently. But you can’t have your cake and eat it to. I don’t deserve that. Cali doesn’t deserve that. No one in this fucked up world deserves that.

Sigh. The problem with this entire thing is this: no matter how upset we get over things, no matter what we say to each other, within 30 mins we are sitting next to one another, going forward. Which is what happened last night. Smoking and drinking, going for a drive, and playing with our dogs. Ended the night giving her literally the best massage I have ever given in my entire life, for an hour and a half. A shit day that still ended with me curled up in bed with my arm around her waist. Its gonna hurt. Big time. But because some petulant child wont fuck off and leave my family the hell alone, I might be broken for a long time coming. I’m not saying I can predict the future and say without a doubt that we can live happily ever after. BUT what I am standing by, because of the changes I have made and the efforts to save my family, that it deserves a FAIR and HONEST chance.