When he went to prison, I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time.
Silence.
No walking on eggshells.
No monitoring his mood.
No bracing for impact.
I was exhausted.
Relieved.
And heartbroken.
Because as much as I was tired of surviving him, I still wanted my family to work. I had a son now. A little boy who deserved a father.
That’s what I told myself.
While he was in prison, I didn’t speak to him. I said I was done.
But somewhere along the way, the apologies came.
Tears.
Promises.
“I’ve changed.”
“I’m not drinking anymore.”
“I’ll never touch you like that again.”
And I believed him.
Not because I was foolish.
Because I was hopeful.
We got back together.
This time felt different. Purposeful. We both had jobs. He was steady. Calm. Present.
We got married at the courthouse.
Both of our families were against it.
But I thought love meant fighting for your marriage.
I had a second son.
And after his birth, the pattern returned.
Two beers became four.
Four became more.
More became uncountable.
He lost another good job to drinking.
I had held my job for years, but I started calling off — sometimes because of bruises, sometimes because he was too drunk to watch the kids.
The day everything shifted again was the day he showed up at my job drunk.
With our children.
He handed them to me.
Like I was supposed to figure it out.
My supervisor — God bless that woman — let me quit but said she would mark it as termination so I could collect unemployment. She told me to come back when I got things straightened out.
Even she saw what I was living.
On the way home, I was furious.
Not just at him.
At the danger.
At the recklessness.
At the fact that he drove drunk with my children and brought that chaos to my workplace.
We were on the highway going about 60 miles per hour.
He started accusing me again. Another imaginary man. Another storyline in his head.
And then he did something that made my heart drop into my stomach.
He put the car in reverse.
On a major highway.
With my children in the car.
I don’t even remember deciding.
I just reacted.
I hit him.
Not because I’m violent.
Because I was in survival mode.
He started bleeding and called the police — hoping I would go to jail.
I called them too.
I told them to meet me at my mother’s house.
When they heard what happened, he was the one who went to jail.
Again.
We broke up again.
And this time I told myself I was done for sure
Naomi Willow 🌿
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Unlearning & Becoming 
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