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There is a quote attributed to Louis L’Amour that says, “There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.”

I keep that quote on my desk, and every morning I read it and say, “Louie, ain’t that the friggin’ truth.”

Sixteen years ago, the world I’d always trusted to be solid and good came crashing down on me. I had been engaged for about five days when I discovered that the man I loved had a substance abuse problem. Well, actually, I didn’t discover he had a substance abuse problem right then, I just learned that something was terribly wrong and making him scared to death.

It took a year of neurotic behavior, obsessive doctor visits, psychotherapy, extreme weight loss, multiple occasions of drug-use discovery and severe panic attacks until we both learned that his addiction was slowly killing our relationship—which by then had become a marriage.

Why did I marry my fiancé just as I was learning he had a substance abuse problem? First, I loved him. Second, I had never met an addict before and had no idea what I was in for. He didn’t seem like any addicts you see on TV: He went to work. He helped around the house. He was brilliant and funny. He was also tortured. And I was absolutely certain that I could love him enough to save him.

When he started to—what’s the clinical term? Oh yeah, freak out because he felt as if he was choking and became convinced that he had throat cancer, we saw the best ENT in Atlanta. He attributed the choking feeling to reflux and prescribed medication. Didn’t help. We saw an orthopedist who specialized in necks. Nothing there. We saw a chiropractor, a massage therapist and a psychiatrist renowned for treating anxiety-induced addiction. We took yoga and behavior-modification; we held hands and cried and went to couples therapy every week.

Pretty soon I realized I had a problem—I wasn’t able to separate myself from my husband. Whatever he was feeling, I was feeling, and soon my throat was closing up on me. Within months I, too, had dropped 10 pounds. I was having panic attacks like the one at Home Depot, huddled on the floor in an aisle while they paged my husband over the PA. This was not like me—responsible, confident, Type-A. I began going to therapy myself.

It was the worst first year of marriage I could imagine. It was the best thing that ever happened to me.

For 12 years, we did the codependent dance. My husband would stop doing drugs. He would make promises, and we would make progress. Then I would notice that something was off. I would ask if he was doing drugs, and he would tell me no. Then I would feel bad for thinking he was doing drugs. But the feeling wouldn’t go away, so I would ask again a week later. He would deny it, and I would feel bad again. And then, eventually, I would discover the drug use. Each time my husband lied, I would feel like Charlie Brown when Lucy promises not to take the football away. And each time, we would get extra help from our therapist and work to rebuild our relationship.

Over the next several years, I learned about my need to save people and my ability to feel what they were feeling. I learned what “enabling” meant and how excellent I was at it. I learned to forgive and love my husband and myself over and over again when trust was betrayed. And I began to think that maybe I didn’t want to do this anymore. But we had a son by now—a miracle in and of itself— and I could not imagine breaking up his family.

Things got worse before they got bitter. I fanned a flame of resentment that looked and acted remarkably like a wall around my heart. I didn’t want to love and forgive my husband again, because I didn’t want to get hurt again. I thought I’d just stay in this state of limbo forever. It wasn’t horrible. It wasn’t healthy, either.

And then one day, 13 years and 5,000 therapy sessions later, I discovered once again that my husband was using, and suddenly I saw the possibility of divorce from a totally different perspective. This time I didn’t think, “How can I do this to my son?” but rather, “How can I not do this for my son?”

There was nothing about this time that was any different from the many times before. Well, yes there was. Me. I was different. We separated in November. It was the end of everything. And that’s when it all really began.

Within two months, on his own accord, my husband checked himself into rehab. He worked hard and went to meetings and moved from rehab to a halfway house. My son and I visited, listened and shared stories and compassion. We attended meetings, supported his dad and learned how to live without him. It was the saddest time of our lives, yet I felt better than I had in years.

After a year of long talks, lots of tears and trying to hold onto our marriage, my husband and I decided to divorce. We took a deep breath, smiled shakily at each other and literally committed to create something different: a divorce on our terms, based on a strong, supportive friendship.

And we have. Believe me, it wasn’t always easy. But when things would get tense, one of us would inevitably weigh what was on the table with what lay ahead, and we’d remember that just about nothing was worth not being friends.

Once I told my ex that I was sorry, that all I had wanted to do was save him. He turned to me and said, “Maybe you did.”

My son’s dad is healthy now. He’s a thoughtful co-parent, a father who is more than just “present;” he’s involved. He stands by my side through the tough adolescent times, and I have to tell you, we are closer than we ever were when we were married.

Our family looks different now. There’s my ex, one of my best friends. There’s our son, remarkably well-adjusted—especially for an emerging adolescent—and naïvely unaware of how non-traditional this divorce is. And there’s my boyfriend, the proof of how far I’ve come in choosing partners; he is fully capable, does not need saving and lets me rest the world on his shoulders once in a while. On any given night you might see all of us hanging out, having dinner or celebrating something one of us accomplished. My friends and family are amazed; my dad thinks we’re crazy; and some of my acquaintances are probably appalled. But I think it’s a testament to the fact that just when you think everything is finished… that will be the beginning.

Ginger Emas is an Atlanta-based freelance writer who is glad she married her ex, because he is great to be in a divorce with. Her upcoming book, Back on Top: Fearless Dating after Divorce, is due this spring.