“I realized while I was away I married you just because I thought you’d make a good officer’s wife. I never loved you. I’m leaving.”

He said those words the night he returned from Vietnam.

When he had first stepped off the plane I threw my arms around him in love and in profound relief that he was alive and whole and that finally now we could resume our life together with our precious little daughters.

But he stiffened at my touch. My heart sank. I knew in that instant what I could never allow as a possibility … until he said those awful words.

When we got home he began playing Vietnamese music.

I did not know, then, that the music he was playing was Vietnamese love songs. I did not know then that he had left behind a Vietnamese woman whom he did love and who was expecting his child. But when he said those terrible words, I suddenly faced the pounding truth that he might not love me and that he did want out. I was devastated.

I could not make sense of what was happening. It had been a very long and difficult year of waiting and worrying everyday about his safety, with every newscast and newspaper report, with every unidentified car that stopped in front of the house. I had cared for our two young daughters and dreamt long about our future together as a family once he returned. I could not absorb the enormity of what he was saying.

So I begged him to stay with me. For a few days, he did. I wept. I vomited. I could not sleep. Then one day I saw in his eyes that he did not love me. He was staying out of pity. I told him to go.

That’s when fear and panic told me that I could not survive this pain. There was only one way out: to take my life.

But what about my children? Who would care for them? There was no one I trusted to love and care for them as I did. We would have to die together.

I am profoundly grateful today that I never went beyond those wild thoughts. My love for my daughters made the idea of harming them impossible. So I went on. I survived.

I built a good life with my daughters. I found a good home, went to work, put myself through college. It was not easy, but I managed. Eventually I met a man who did love me and loves me still…after 37 years.

I do not forget the pain of that time. It taught me compassion. I cannot judge a woman for whom the idea of not being able to survive the crushing loss of her love and her dream of happiness moves from thought to desperate action.

But taking the lives of her children too!? Well, I’ve had that notion. I’ve also had fortuitous biology and brain chemistry, family support, a relatively stable family history, adequate financial security, and a decently paid profession. I’ve had many things going for me. But I did have that notion.

I did not act on that notion. I would never condone acting on it in any way. However, for 40+ years, I have known what it is like to have dwelled there just long enough...