A Promise That Haunted

This is in response to a prompt by Sophia, which I was alerted to by a wonderful, heartfelt piece by Kayleigh Thorpe and her asking me if I was going to attempt it:

Write about a promise you broke to someone close to you. How did it play out?

I wasn’t going to write anything, as one thing immediately came to mind and it was something that caused me issues for years, by not talking about it.

That is no longer an issue, but did I want to put it out here? I thought about not doing it, but it’s always good to occasionally get these things out again, lest they sneak up on you and try and pull you back into the dark places you found yourself in previously.

Speaking or writing about it gives me an element of control of how it sits in my mind, so with that said, here’s my response to the prompt:

I don’t often write about my previous marriages. I’m pretty good at putting things like that right behind me and out of mind these days, concentrating primarily on the present, though admittedly the past has proved fertile ground for some of my poetry.

This prompt had me thinking though, and takes me back at first to 2006, when I met the person who would become my first wife.

I’ll not use names here, but hopefully the story comes across as intended and does the prompt justice.

I used to regularly visit my best friend in Hamburg, Germany (you can read about that and more, in my piece, ‘Daniel and Me’ from last October).

After he and his girlfriend had split up, he moved to the USA for a year on a temporary work role, but as I still got on well with his ex and his young son, I still maintained regular trips, there.

On one of those trips, on a night out, I met a girl, who worked for my friends ex-girlfriend and her family.

Over subsequent trips we saw more of each other, and the relationship was progressing as these things do, but the only sticking point was the fact that she was only on a working visa from Georgia (the Eastern European country, not the US State) and this would have an impact on carrying on the relationship past the following year.

I was still flying to Hamburg regularly and seeing both her and my other friends there and was enquiring with legal entities both there and at home as to whether there were any conditions under which her visa could be extended, things like work/offers of work were in place, but ultimately we were told that the only real way for her to stay and also for her to travel to the UK would be to get married.

This wasn’t something that was part of my thought process, so soon into the relationship, but I did love her and was constantly thinking about her and working out patterns at work that would allow me to spend the maximum time with her, so, although rather hastily, I proposed, and was able to make it a little romantic on a Ferris wheel at the travelling Hamburg DOM (pronounced ‘dome’) funfair that was in town in late 2006.

When she accepted, we embraced, and it was there that I made a promise which I repeated the following year, “you know, I’ll always be here, I’ll always protect you”.

We looked into what were the best options were and considered just the two of us going to Tønder in Denmark, but some of the paperwork and hoops needed to jump through meant that it would be better/just as time consuming arranging something at home, and so we planned something for June 2007.

There followed various other meetings with registry officials and legal officers both at home in the UK and in Tbilisi, Georgia.

I had flown out there a couple of times to meet her family, and despite language barriers, we all seemed to get on (as someone that at that point enjoyed a drink, though wasn’t on the cusp yet of any fully-fledged issues with it, their hospitality, which Georgians are renowned for, coupled with the fact that everyone was in somewhat celebratory mood with the news, meant that wherever we went, be it morning, afternoon or night, we were greeted with generous amounts of their delicious red wine, which was always welcome).

As someone non-religious, visiting a country where Orthodox Christianity is prevalent and highly influential, that was a bit of a surprise, but I wouldn’t expect anyone to give up their beliefs and so tried to gain some understanding of it, and when we got married, a small service in my hometown, in June 2007, as planned, my local Church of England church, where the service took place, kindly incorporated some of those elements into the service.

At its completion, as we made our way back through the guests and outside for photographs, I leant in and whispered the same promise made back in Hamburg on that Ferris wheel, “I’ll always protect you”.

I am not going to do a deep dive on the ins-and outs of the year that followed, but everything seemed to move along smoothly, we were getting along well, and although we largely conversed in German, she was undertaking courses in English and had a job, all was well and feeling settled.

Our first anniversary approached in early June 2008, and we had a small celebration with friends and family.

However, on the evening of 21^st June 2020 (a date that sticks in my mind, as I remember I was half watching the Russian football team upset Holland in Euro 2008, when it occurred), all that changed.

Out of what was a pretty normal conversation about something like our weekly plans, my wife, almost casually admitted she didn’t think it was working and wanted to return back home (though due to her family views on marriages not surviving/the religious aspects of that), she would look to relocate elsewhere.

This obviously hit me as though I’d been shot. I couldn’t work out what had gone wrong. Was there something I had missed, not been attentive enough? Was there someone else?

She had recently been back to her home country for a small family event that I couldn’t attend due to work reasons. Had something occurred there?

We talked over the days that followed and she assured me that it was nothing like that and alluded to her having been to church more whilst there and the general reason or the nearest firm reason given was that God had told her that this wasn’t right.

For close to the next month, I tried to make sense of it whilst offering ways to try and make it work. I’d located orthodox Christian churches in London, and offered to come along and try and get involved, if that would help and she wanted to be more closely aligned with her faith, but responses became more and more monotone and it was increasingly hard to even have a conversation of any type at all with dialogue only coming from me.

I was eager for more time to make it work, but was convinced to let her go, when I returned from work one night to find her crying, but wearing a jacket on a hot July day.

After being met with the usual silence, she slowly lifted the arm of her jacket to reveal a gash along her wrist that looked like a red eye carved into it. As wide and about as deep as surface-level could get without being catastrophic. Thankful that she seemingly could only find something like a bread knife to make her attempt and not something with a keener blade, I got her quickly to a hospital, bandaged-up, assessed and going through all the questions that sort of thing brings from professionals regarding mental health. Her overwhelming response to questions though was to say she just wanted to go home.

My thoughts afterward were just to quit fighting for it and to acquiesce. As much as I wanted the marriage to work, I didn’t want those types of consequences arising from it, I’d promised to protect her, and maybe that was how I would at least keep that promise in the circumstances.

So a Sunday shortly afterwards, my Dad and I took her up to London, to meet a relative who would put her up for a day or two before her flight back (not a story for now, but there was a slight altercation with said relative down the road alongside the Traitor’s Gate pub by Tower Hill, which is the closest I feel I may have ever come to being murdered), we parted, and that was it….or so I thought.

I went back home, sat in a bar, drinking, watching the Wimbledon tennis final as my favourite player, Roger Federer was defeated by Rafa Nadal, and tried to work out how I would tell friends and family (apart from my parents and best friend, I’d kept most of it just between us) and would plan looking at solicitors for impending divorce.

I got a message to say that my wife had landed back in Tbilisi a few days later and then not much else. I dragged my heels on moving forward with the legal side in those first few weeks, feeling that it would be an ultimate admission of failure on that front, likely feeling sorry for myself too.

Then just a few weeks later in August 2008, the short-lived outbreak of war between Russia and Georgia happened.

I’d started loosely coming to terms with the fact that the marriage was over, but I certainly didn’t want her in the middle of war. When it first started, I called her, and offered a flight back to the UK, but she was adamant to stay, despite my pleading.

A day or so after I tried again. I reminded her of my promise, and this time there was the sound of gunfire and shelling in the background, the reception on the call kept cutting out.

She wasn’t sure if she could get to the main airport in Tbilisi, or if flights were even being allowed to leave, but we managed to work something out with her being able to cross into Turkey (I believe), for a flight to Italy, before then arranging one back to the UK.

She was back, temporarily. I said she was welcome with my family and I until things settled and again floated that if she wanted to make it work, that was still an option. Our initial marriage visa for her ran until June 2009, so in terms of her legally being able to stay as my wife, before we could apply for a more permanent residential status, we still had time.

After the war proved short-lived and she had been able to check-in with her family and friends back home we settled into not quite what it was before she had voiced that she wanted the marriage to end, but something better than that last month. She was more talkative, we could laugh and we continued like this. She picked up her old job again, and by around February 2009, said to me that maybe we could try again, but she may need to take things very slow. I agreed, relieved, though with a head still spinning by the events of the previous half-year or more.

Then suddenly, just days later, her mind changed again, and the silence and lack of engagement again commenced. This time I think I was angry as much as sad and helped her get going again. Not wanting the heartache of the back and forth, as well as wishing to avoid any issues that would possibly lead to self-harm again, I arranged for a flight back to Georgia for her, dropped her at the airport and said goodbye for the final time.

When we parted, there was no dramatic ‘I love yous’ on my part, no pleading. A much as I wanted it to work, it was now plainly beyond that, and I still, really had no other real explanation as to what had gone wrong, other than God not approving (I didn’t get a reason as to why that was, despite my probing). I did say though, before she left, that if there was anything she hadn’t told me, I could still help, still protect her. As far as I knew, the plan was for her to go home for a couple of months and then live with friends elsewhere, where she could then relay from distance to her family news of our marriage dissolving, far from the looks and feeling of shame she expected.

Time moved on, I held myself together enough to get a divorce process moving. I was arranging her parts over text, though after a few months the number disconnected.

The address I had divorce paperwork sent to didn’t seem to get them returned. Where I could, I got some of the paperwork signed, scanned and returned by email and then that line of communication went dead too. The divorce went through on some sort of legality where even the legal people that had been able to contact her, were not able to, but we were enough of a way down the line that it eventually got done (a lot of that part is blurry to be, but I ended up with decrees nisi and absolute, so it was done).

I think that from that point on was probably when my relationship with alcohol markedly changed. Whereas previously I’d go out for work drinks with colleagues and leave when the earliest ones did, I would now hang with the ones that were there until closing.

Sometimes I wouldn’t be around anyone. Just in bars and pubs, listening to music, playing the stereotypical heartbroken drunk, whilst simultaneously trying to go through my mind over what could have gone wrong, what had I done? Was it just the culture and language differences, that come with it that were too much? Was there someone else? Was it truly as she said, something she felt that God had told her?

Even as over time the love that was there faded, there was still my promise, nagging at me beneath the beer, beneath the spirits. Just because love fades, does it mean that you shouldn’t care? But how can you protect someone, when you have no contact details or a clue as to where they are?

Eventually I ascertained that they were likely to be in Sweden, whilst not wanting to pry, her bank statements kept coming to me, and they were linked to my account, and so not wanting to be responsible for any debt that she may have accrued, I took a look at them, and noticed that all the withdrawals/payments were to banks in Sweden.

I closed the account down and life moved on. Though something in me had shifted and not for the better.

Drink became my go-to. Whenever any thoughts about the whole situation came up, and it wasn’t long before I found that it was pretty effective at taking me away from any problems that life threw up (or so I thought).

I became pretty functional with it, navigating my way into another relationship that lead to marriage, though this was again shortl-lived, probably because I had jumped in before healing properly from the first one, and secondly because I was increasingly drinking more heavily.

Still, after that I felt more clear headed, I met someone else, and though we are still together today (and coming up to our first wedding anniversary next month, after 11 years together) I still couldn’t shake the drinking, all initially pretty much kicked off by thoughts of that initial promise (there were other things involved too, but for the purpose of this essay, I’ll stick to that, as it was a major part).

It didn’t initially impact the relationship that much, we went to lots of gigs and festivals, where booze would normally be a given anyway. I was getting on well at work (which I could use to deflect from my own drinking by pointing out that those I worked with largely all liked and partook in lunchtime and afterwork drinks.

Sometimes though, thoughts of that promise and the ex-wife I made it to came back to me. Not in a way that I missed her romantically, but more in the fact that I had said something that I considered important, in that I would be there to protect her, and didn’t even know where she was. The whole thing had driven her to a place where she couldn’t even be with her family, and I felt that it was all on me.

It was also apparent that some of her friends/family weren’t aware of the situation even over ten years later. I received a call from a German number from a Georgian-accented voice, asking if she was available to chat. I think I just replied that she doesn’t live here anymore.

At this point (probably long before), although I didn’t realise it, alcohol had ceased to be my friend. It caused those thought to redouble in my head, reiterating that I’d been part of turning someone’s life to shit, someone I once loved. It also told me that I’d best drink more to help me forget it.

The drinking kept going on, and, as is the way of these things, relationships with both my girlfriend and my family became strained because of it.

My attempts at covering that I was drinking so regularly were now largely seen through and arguments more regularly ensued.

A bright speck of light that appeared here was that we found out we were to become parents, and for a while, that caused me to ease up a little, try to straighten myself out.

I was still having a few drinks after work, though trying to limit it. It wasn’t perfect, but I thought it was improving. Then one day whilst drinking, I got a phone call.

I can’t quite remember the exact phrasing which is odd as my recall of things like this, even allowing for all the booze, is usually quite good, but it was another German number (I always tended to answer them as I could never be sure if it was my best friend or others that I knew in Germany, having changed their number). It was the similar Georgian-German accent. A female voice. Something along the lines of “she’s dead, you should have made it work or at least been on the end of a rope too”.

For most people, those words may be hurtful and upsetting at the very least. For someone teetering on the precipice and losing a battle with alcohol, it’s calamitous.

The promise was broken. Forever.

A life snuffed out. My fault.

Words echoing round my head, which I immediately spent the evening drowning out, with beer and whiskey.

They never quite were silenced though.

I was struggling to navigate my way through this and also the ongoing changes in my life. I should have sat and spoken about it with someone, but I let the drink take full control.

Somehow, despite being inebriated, I managed to negotiate a mortgage/buy a house, interview for a new job and not miss any pre-birth appointments (even if my girlfriend advised me that she could smell the alcohol on me).

The birth of my daughter in 2018 snapped me out of it temporarily. A couple of weeks of paternity leave and then the immediate return to work saw me floating on the joy of being a Dad and I didn’t actually touch a drop.

Then one day, walking from work to the train station, I was listening to music and ‘People Ain’t No Good’ by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds came on.

Something sparked in my head, making me question if I’m any good. Having an argument in my head, which naturally I immediately tried to wash away with six or seven cans on the 50-minute journey home.

Then the alcohol started causing my brain to debate with itself further.

Am I good? How could I be? I promised to keep someone safe and they’re now dead.

It was 12 years ago. I had no way of reaching them. Nothing you could realistically do.

Fuck that, don’t try getting out of it that way. What good is your word on big things like that, if you can’t keep it….you have a baby now, are you going to let her down that badly too?

I answered that question by pretty much letting her and everyone else down for the rest of the year. Drinking myself into oblivion, letting the booze tell me I couldn’t be trusted with adults, let alone children.

Standing on train platforms, as the train pulled in, not quite having it in me to jump, preferring instead to see if I could just possibly drink sufficiently that maybe I’d just one day not wake up.

I think in a moment after an argument with someone (maybe my girlfriend, maybe my Dad, possibly both), I was in the house, alone. Looking at the photos on my phone from my daughter’s birth.

I sat there crying, knowing I was broken, but thinking that perhaps, even if I had let someone down before, that it didn’t have to be that way again. My little girl needed me, but I wasn’t sure how to get myself out of the hole I was in.

As if to prove that point, I wiped my eyes, got up and headed out to the off license to buy a box of beer to see me through the night.

I had planted a seed in my head though. I wanted to be better. Now I had to work out how to do it.

It still took a couple of months, multiple fuck-ups and almost ruining our first Christmas with our daughter, before I pulled myself round for that period and put together a plan, heading into January 2019.

From a pub toilet, I managed to call a facility I could take myself to for a short time and arranged a stay there. I spoke to a guy in the States from a Foo Fighters fan group on Facebook (whom I’d met in London a couple of times) and knew that he’d had alcohol issues but managed sobriety for a couple of decades, and that chat helped a great deal.

So, 12^th January 2019, I took myself off somewhere, not fully convinced I’d be able to shake off the hold that alcohol had on me, armed only with some clothes and an ipod full of Mark Lanegan tracks.

The first day I was there, after an initial assessment, I sat and thought ‘at least people can see I have had a go’. Thinking along the lines of ‘at least if I slip back to it I can say I’ve tried’.

For some reason, something there clicked in my brain. I didn’t want to say that I’ve tried, I wanted to actually try.

I made another promise. To myself, but also, silently, to my daughter, to my girlfriend. The promise was just to try.

That’s what I did. I went to all the sessions. I’m not a natural talker or raconteur. My voice is weird and I tend to drone, but part of trying was to put that to one side and talk. About myself, my issues, about the broken promise that continued to haunt and lead me to liquid-filled ruin.

I thought beforehand that all that stuff was bullshit to be honest, but it turned out it actually helped. Not just getting it out, but hearing from others, some from completely different walks of life, but who had still wound up there because of what haunts them. In some cases, there were broken promises involved there, too.

I realised that the promise I was torturing myself with, had long-ago become one that wasn’t meant to be kept, and as much as the booze led me to torture myself with thoughts of blood on my hand. I realised, when looking with sober eyes, that something like that was completely out of my control.

I sit here now, over seven years later, still keeping my promise that I made to myself, still having abstained from alcohol since then.

My girlfriend of 11 years became my wife last year, it’s our first wedding anniversary next month. My daughter is approaching eight years old. We have the challenges that everyone faces in life, we bicker occasionally, but on the whole we are happy, enjoying each other’s company and family life.

I no longer feel defined by an impossible-to-keep promise. I just remind myself of the second one I made, seven years ago, just to try, and that seems to be working out well.

My writing and subscriptions are currently free, though writing does take time, especially when balancing work and family life. If you enjoy the work and wish to buy me a tea however, please use the button above.