Beautiful Lies

Some kids dreamed about prom. I dreamed of escape.

The sounds of my childhood were usually doors slamming and voices yelling, always my cue to disappear. Before I could tie my shoes, I knew how to read the room and hear the words not said.

That kind of hypervigilance takes its toll. To this day, I'm always just a little bit 'braced' for whatever might come next.

I remember that same feeling in my stomach when I would hear certain footsteps in the hall or my name said in a certain way. That alone told me how my night was gonna go.

I remember rehearsing escapes I’d never make. Accepting apologies no one ever gave and coming up with mic-drop responses no one ever heard.

My bedroom was the safest place in the house (which isn't saying much). My mother had me keep a jar of peanut butter and saltines under my bed for when she wasn't home, so I wouldn’t have to come out and risk running into him.

Her first husband, the man responsible for my DNA and my nightmares.

She thought it was about his temper, which was partly true, but she didn’t know the whole story.

He made me his servant. His verbal punching bag. And behind closed doors, his dirty little secret.

He used guilt, fear, and shame to keep me quiet about the unspeakable things he did, always with threats of what might happen if I ever told anyone.

But then one day, I told someone.

It was a fourth-grade play, of all things, with a plot that was way too similar to my life, that gave me the courage to speak out. And that night, I said the things I wasn’t supposed to say to the people that I wasn’t supposed to say them to.

But even after he was gone, the damage remained.

I’ve always needed a little story to keep me motivated.

When I was little, I danced in front of my bedroom mirror, holding my Ambassador curling iron like a microphone and lip-syncing to Celine, Whitney, and Tina (ah, the '80s).

When I wasn’t rehearsing dance routines in our grimy little garage under an imaginary spotlight, I was memorizing movie lines.

Movies were predictable, where nothing bad ever happened unless the story called for it, but even then, they always had a happy ending.

They were what inspired my daydreams, because when your father's presence did more damage than his absence ever could, daydreaming was the only way to escape to a safer, better world.

When I was fourteen, I earned a spot in our state's top performing arts school. It was competitive, intense, and full of talent and drama.

I loved every moment of it. I was told I had real chops, maybe enough to make it.

But after graduation, while classmates headed off to LA, Juilliard, or some obscure theatre program in Europe, I stayed.

I let fear talk me out of the risk and called it being realistic. My family loved me enough to want to see me "safe" in steady work and a stable life. Deep down, I was just scared of being seen.

Part of me lives with that fear to this day.

I don’t blame anyone else for the choices I made, but I’d be lying if I said I never wondered what would’ve happened if I’d chosen differently.

Instead, I got married; I deeply regret everything about that marriage except the daughter it gave me.

I used to think the beautiful lies were the ones I made up as a kid to get through things. The more damaging ones came from my first husband.

Manipulation was his thing; he said allll the right things, and I believed him. I needed to.

I was barely 22 and didn't know anything about anything - especially the difference between a manchild and a man.

When we met, he was losing his sight, and I took that on as my responsibility. I mean, of course, I wanted to be 'the woman who stood beside her husband,' and I did, but I was also young, impatient by nature, and not the epitome of grace under pressure.

But I wanted to try, and taking on responsibility for him felt like a chance to prove I could.

He refused to learn Braille, so I read to him, put touch dots on appliances, and helped him learn how to use his cane.

To everyone else, it looked like he was becoming more independent. In private, I mothered him as he expected. So it wasn't his blindness that drove me away.

It was everything else.

For every sweet thing he said, there were red flags I ignored. I kept thinking that if I just kept trying harder, his promises would eventually come true.

I think it's pretty obvious that I didn't have much self-worth back then. I didn’t think I could do better. I wasn’t even sure I deserved better.

He wanted to be taken care of, and I needed to be needed. I wanted to be a good wife, a good mom, a good person; the kind of woman who just handles things.

So I handled things.

I handled his moods, his dog, his appointments, our daughter, our house, our jobs, and his insults. I got blamed when things fell apart and dismissed when I tried to fix them.

And every single time I threatened to leave, he’d promise to kill himself. And every single time, I believed him.

I begged him to come with me to couples therapy. He told me, “Going to therapy means admitting there's a problem.”

Which, ironically, might be the most honest thing he ever said. Because the truth was, he had no problems so long as he was being taken care of.

Meanwhile, I was fucking drowning.

I stopped imagining a life I actually wanted; I barely believed I was allowed to want it. Even then, I still thought that if I were strong and patient enough, I could make everything better anyway.

I was wrong, and so damn stubborn about it.

I went to college while working full-time and running our home, still convinced I could fix it all and make a better life for us.

But instead of being supportive, he got suspicious.
“You’re just going to school so you can find someone better and leave me,” he said.

Le sigh.
More red flags than a matador parade, and still I stayed.

You ever wish you could go back in time and just…smack the stupid right out of yourself? I do.

But I stayed; I was still too deep in denial to understand that my hopes were actively being used against me.

I remember one particular day really clearly: I was driving, fighting heavy traffic, and running through my mental to-do list like I always did.

My husband had already called me several times that morning to check in, making sure I wasn’t doing anything he wouldn't approve of.

God forbid I have a moment to myself or talk to someone who wasn’t him.

The irony was that I was swamped with responsibilities he refused to share. I barely had time to breathe, let alone cheat (which I wouldn't have done anyway).

And all of a sudden, it hit me:

This is it.
This is my life.

Nothing was ever going to change. The arguments, the loneliness, and the nonstop grind of taking care of everything would look exactly the same when I was fifty as they did right then.

That terrified me.

A few weeks after that, I was at a business lunch when someone said, "So, tell me about yourself."

I sat there, stumped, because I had nothing. I had no idea what to say.

I had no identity that didn’t involve taking care of someone else. I wasn’t a happy wife. I didn’t even feel like a whole person.

I was a utility.

That's when I decided it was time to actually leave - and mean it this time.

I knew I wasn't going to make it through another round of tears and guilt, so I detached. I deliberately stopped engaging and reacting to everything he said.

I stopped trying to make him understand me; I no longer cared if he did.

He noticed immediately, of course, and accused me of not loving him anymore.

I mean, he wasn't wrong. I hadn't loved him for a long time. By then, all I felt toward him was resentment, and then guilt for being resentful.

That guilt is what kept us together as long as it did.

"I don’t want to be in this marriage anymore," I told him, my voice flat. I couldn't even pretend to be sad about it.

And that's when he suggested therapy.

Too little, too late.

Of course, the first thing he asked was "Is there someone else?" As if he couldn’t imagine that he might be the reason I was done.

And despite everything, I still struggled with the decision. I had taken my vows seriously, and I hung in far longer than I should have, trying to fix something that never should have been.

And when nothing else he said worked this time, he made those same, tired old threats of killing himself. But all that did was piss me right off.

I finally saw it for what it was: a last-ditch attempt at control.

So I called his bluff.

Was I harsh? Maybe. But I'd spent over a decade ignoring red flags, taking his abuse, and feeling guilty for wanting out of a marriage to a 'helpless' blind man.

So judge me if you will, but in that moment, I didn't care what he did.

Don't worry, he’s still very much alive.
Probably still waiting on that Oscar.

After we separated, his family left me voicemails calling me selfish and yelling about who was going to take care of him now, like I was the hired help or something.

The truth is, they knew what they'd raised, and it took less than a week for them to get sick of dealing with it.

But I had a daughter watching all of this, and I wasn't about to let her grow up thinking that this was what love looked like.

That was non-negotiable.

I thought the divorce would be the end of it, but it wasn't, at first.

Even after it was final, he kept calling just to keep access to me. For a while, I let him.

Part of me wanted him to see how much better I was doing (I wasn't).

Another part wanted him to finally acknowledge me. I had zero interest in getting back together; I just needed that validation.

Codependency is a bitch to get over, after all.

But eventually, I remember thinking, “Didn’t I pay a lot of money to not have to deal with this anymore?”

I realized the divorce hadn't magically fixed my problems. I had to set boundaries and actually keep them. And once I did, I found myself wanting more from life again.

I didn’t even know what I liked anymore, so I tried new things, even things that felt ridiculous and I completely sucked at.

I didn't care; I felt so far behind, and I was in a mad rush to catch up on a life I hadn't gotten to fully live yet.

The goals that still make me nervous are the ones I focus on now. When I was eighteen, I’d internalized this idea that big, ambitious dreams were for better people - thinner, prettier, richer, smarter people.

But now, when I think I can’t possibly do this, I ask myself one question:

“What if I can?”

Because I'm always going to be that girl with the curling iron microphone, a head full of big dreams, and zero clues.

I still don't know what the hell I'm doing half the time; the ugly truth is, I'm still afraid my best efforts won't amount to much in the grand scheme of things.

But that girl believed in audacious, wonderful things. Stranger things have happened, and if it doesn't work out for me, it won't be because I didn't work like hell for it.

Some beautiful lies are worth believing in.

Heather Papovich is the voice behind Unfinished Business. She's seen some things. She'll tell you about them.