My Own Judgment to Fall

Any minute now he’s going to wake up. I’ll hear the bathroom door open and close and I’ll know he’s awake and it will start all over again today. He’s completely unaware of the fear, the tears the depression and the anxiety that he evokes. What it is he thinks I can’t even imagine.

There it is. The gentle slam that starts the day.

She went to bed a half an hour ago. She tries to go to bed right before he gets up so that she can avoid as much time with him herself as possible. She thinks her hours are just “screwy” like mine. But I can see her following in my footsteps to avoid him. She spends almost all of her waking hours either waiting on him or listening to him talk about what he’s reading in the bible, or in here with me, avoiding the rest of the house. Because that’s his domain, his to rule and command. She’s completely unaware of what she’s doing. She loves him completely and can never understand why he says and does such things. She tells me she is sorry for him. “He must be suffering so much inside to be like this.” I’ve heard her tell him I needed her so that she could get away from him.

I try to stay silent. I try so hard. But I fail. God will judge me someday. While I’ve never told her I wanted her free of him. She knows I do. She knows I think God is unfair to demand adultery the only escape from an abusive marriage.

Then again, if she had married anyone else, they would have told her to send me to the curb long ago.

For this I wait for my own judgment to fall. I’m not one of these that think the “get out of hell” card is played equally for everyone. I believe while forgiveness may be freely granted, so too will retributions be issued out liberally and without respect to position. No more tears, is not a shampoo for bad behavior in eternity. And, I know there is fault here of my own. But I find perverse pleasure in knowing that just because he’s forgiven doesn’t mean God won’t hold him accountable in the hereafter.