The Morning I Thought My Husband Died

Tuesday morning. 7:34am. How do I remember the exact time?

I let go of the hows, whys, and whats a long time ago now.

A time that should mean nothing. A time that should pass like any other.

But I will never hear those numbers again without feeling something inside me tighten.

Because that was the moment my life split in half, before I even realised his was already split half with another girl.  

One second he was getting ready for work, after another night of no him not sleeping, in the lounge, snorting cocaine.

A man I once promised forever to who I didn’t recognise anymore. He repulsed me.

Then the next second he wasn’t a man at all but a body.

Convulsing. Blue faced. Foaming at the mouth.

Eyes rolled back like whatever was left of him had already left the earth.

People talk about trauma like it’s a thing you get over.

But they have never held their husband as his body tried to leave this world.

I remember the sound first, of him collapsing on the ground, the sound of his voice denying he needed an ambulance. But I chose to call them anyway. And as soon as he registered a paramedic on the phone the violent shaking began, the gurgling, the way his breath wasn’t breath but something I still cannot find the words for.

I remember my own scream being swallowed by the moment. I made no sound except to follow the directions of the paramedic.

I remember grabbing him, shaking him, begging a man who had already been slipping away from me long before this morning to please, please, please stay.

But nothing prepared me for the silence that came next.

The stillness. The weight.

His body went quiet in my arms in a way no living thing ever should.

And I felt it the unmistakable heaviness of a life that might have ended

in my hands.

In that split second, I carried the weight of what I thought was my dead husband.

All the lies. All the chaos. All the betrayal. All the sleepless nights.

All the moments I tried to save him from himself.

All the versions of me that loved him harder than he ever loved me or our marriage.

And I don’t know how to explain it to anyone who hasn’t lived it,

but grief and rage and terror can coexist in the exact same heartbeat.

I felt everything at once and nothing at all.

I thought he was gone.

I thought I had witnessed the ending.

I thought this was the moment

that would haunt me

for the rest of my life.

And then,

He took a breath.

A gasp that shattered the silence and dragged him back into a life he kept trying to escape.

And it all began again.

The reality of it was that this wasn’t a one-off tragedy but a symptom of a little boy unravelling into drug addiction. There was a second overdose after that and then every single day not knowing whether I would be seeing Jekyll or Hyde.

People think the trauma was the overdose. It wasn’t. It was the moment of quiet.

The moment where I thought it was finally over, for him, for me, for the years of hell I kept calling “marriage.”.

It was the moment I felt the weight of a man who had already broken me in more ways than death ever could.

The moment he came back wasn’t relief.

It was the beginning of the end.

I have healed so much since. I still sleep in the same room it happened and it never crosses my mind. I dug deep and did the inner healing work to get me there. I dug deep.

But that morning was the moment I realised the truth:

You can love someone with your whole heart and still lose yourself trying to keep them alive.

I invite you to read that again.

I didn’t know it then, but that was the day I began saving myself.

It was the day I checked out. He didn’t want to save himself? I was out.