The Junky's Wife

Goodbye.

2009-06-07T22:31:00.005-04:00

I think I'm retiring this identity now. It has served me well, but I want to tell other stories.

If you have found this site and it has been helpful to you, I am happy. I am happy that my experiences with my husband's addiction have been useful.

And to anyone who might find it for the first time, please know that God is with you. In the most difficult times, I've been able to feel God's hand holding me, carrying me through.

I can offer no better advice than this from pg. 164 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous:

Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to Him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the Fellowship of the Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny.

May God bless you and keep you -- until then.
***

Read my blog from the beginning by starting here.

Follow the Junky's Wife on The Second Road.

Rolling with the Roller Coaster.

2009-05-20T18:56:00.003-04:00

I'm doing ok. It's kind of a miracle.

My husband spent the first night at home last night in about 10 days. Not because he wanted to or anything...it's not like he likes me or whatever. He just felt really sick and didn't have anywhere else to go.

I am his safe haven. I wish he were mine. Maybe one day, he will be.

I have found serenity in this situation. I cannot change my husband. I cannot even change his heart. His rejection of me is hard, and it makes me sad sometimes--I just don't believe it's really him rejecting me. It's him in his sickness, not him.

Every now and then, I see a tiny glimpse of my real husband. It's far away, like he's across a field, inside a house, behind a door. I can see him peeking through a tiny window. He's still there, just kind of trapped right now.

My love is patient, though. It is also kind. It forgives, protects, trusts, hopes, and always endures. I'll be waiting for him on the other side.

Prayer.

2009-05-12T13:01:00.002-04:00

Please, God, help me to let go of this situation with my husband. Please help me to remember that it is out of my control and no amount of crying, stalking, cajoling, or other manipulations will change his course of action. Help me to trust that he will change when he is ready to change.

God, please grant me some release from this anxiety. My stomach is churning, and I am having trouble concentrating on the work I need to do for myself. Please fill me with the energy and motivation to take care of myself.

Please help me with wisdom and discernment in this situation. Please help me to understand, to the extent that you would have me understand, what is going on with my husband right now. Please help me to see when it is time to get out of this marriage, and help me to exit with some kindness and grace. And if it is not your will for me to leave, please help me to see my husband through your eyes, God. Help me to see that he is a very sick man, and help me to respond to his sickness from a place of love. Gird me for the battle, God, and keep me strong. Please grant me the power to carry out your will and to discern what it is in the muck and mire of this situation.

Please, God, help my husband. I am not sure what kind of help he needs, but you are. Please protect him from the darkness that is encircling him right now, and help him to wake up to his true calling. He is a wonderful man underneath all of th effects of his sickness, and please, God, help him to see himself as I see him. Help him to recognize the sweetness and strength that is in side, and help him to utilize it to get himself out of the corner he's gotten backed into.

It is my greatest desire that my marriage work. More than anything in the world, I want my husband and I to grow together along spiritual lines, to get old together and to raise a family together. I want to sit by his bedside when he is an old man, and I want many, many more years of falling asleep in his arms. If it is your will, God, that he be removed from my life, please help me to release him. Help me to have faith in your plan for me, and please help my heart to heal.

Thank you, God, for giving me people to support me while I'm hurting and place I can go to feel safe. Thank you.

Amen.

Let's Try.

2009-05-07T23:36:00.003-04:00

My husband didn't come home last night. He showed up this morning at 7 a.m. I get lost between when he is bamboozling me and when we are having communication problems and when I am paranoid and when he's trying to hurt me on purpose and when I'm deliberately misunderstanding him because I like to feel the special pain I get when I'm being hurt by him. It's comfortable and easy there.

This part is the hardest part yet, I think. I am afraid of other women, and I think my husband might be enjoying me being afraid. We both feel like we owe each other a lot of hurting.

I made this site private because he's been reading a lot, and he is particularly upset about my posts about marriage counseling, which I understand. I should have considered how he might feel if he read my posts about our private counseling sessions. It wasn't my intention to hurt him, but I see how it happened. I don't really know what to do next about this stuff.

I needed to write tonight, though. My husband has been scaring me with the spectre of other women. Maybe he's actually screwing around with other women. I've been crazy and he's been crazy, and all this not coming home and not calling or leaving a note is a new trick that I'm not ready to learn. I am in a lot of pain, and I don't know how to make it stop.

That's not true. I know how to make it stop. I have tools now. I have a lot of people who love me and who will take care of me when I am hurting. It's going to take time and be hard, but I will get better. There will be a way out.

When he finally came home this evening, he said that he wants us both to commit to trying to respect each other's feelings more. I am glad he's noticing that my feelings are getting trounced, and I am happy to try to respect his feelings more as well. I keep asking him to tell me specific things I can do to be more supportive, and he's not able to tell me much. I asked him for a few specific things, like showing me physical affection, holding me when I'm having a hard time, and trying to control his anger from turning into an outburst, and in spite of how bad the last few days have been, he has been trying.

I love him. He's hurting me, and I love him. I want this to stop, but I'm not ready to stop it. I don't know where I lost my will to leave, but it's completely gone right now.

I'm doing the best I can, though. I only have a little work to do tomorrow, so I'm planning to sleep in, go to yoga, eat good things, take a warm bath, and go easy on myself. I'm having a rough time, and I got some good advice from my sponsor tonight about being kind to myself. I know how to take good care of me, and I'll put it to work tomorrow.

Insecure.

2009-05-04T12:34:00.005-04:00

I am feeling real insecure in my marriage right now. My husband and I had a lovely day together yesterday, but there are a lot of things that aren't right. I'm not right and he's not right, and we aren't able to communicate about it very well at all.

I feel like my heart is going to explode. I hate this feeling. I have therapy today and a meeting tonight, and I'm sitting at the prayer center I like right now. I'm trying to turn this stuff over, and I'm having a real hard time. I want to find someone to help me work through these things. Maybe I can find someone here to talk to me.

Prayers and other such white light welcome.

I Love...

2009-05-04T12:34:00.001-04:00

I love it when my husband puts his arm around me while we sleep.

My Prayer.

2009-04-30T02:36:00.003-04:00

Dear God,

Please help me. I am hurting. Please take this hurt away from me, and use it as a portal to come closer to you.

Please help me to see my marriage more clearly. Please help me to understand if there are more lessons for me to learn in this relationship, and give me the strength to sustain the hard times. Please strengthen my heart, God, if it is your will for me to leave my husband. I want to be with him, forever, and I will not have the strength to leave him on my own.

Please help my husband and I to see each other through your eyes and to treat each other the way you would want. Please help us to have patience with each other.

Please reveal to me my weaknesses and character defects. Help me to see where I am not submitting my life to your will for me, and increase my faith and my willingness to turn it all over, even my marriage. It is my most precious thing, and I am afraid of letting go. Please help me release it to you...all of it.

The Return.

2009-04-27T15:40:00.003-04:00

I spent Saturday night out of town with a girlfriend, and I came back home yesterday. I was a little worried, and I prayed all the way home about my return. My husband and I have established a stupid pattern for when we reunite after I go out of town. We hate each other. We treat each other like strangers, invaders, and enemies.

Before addiction undermined the deep current of affection and attraction that initially drew us together, we came back to each other after being away like lovers should. We were eager to see each other...passionate...affectionate. I would anticipate coming back home and falling into his arms and smothering him with kisses. Once the addiction started wreaking havoc on our relationship, though, it became different. I'd drag back home, stopping frequently to avoid the inevitable arrival at the scene of all the pain. It was liberating to get away from the dark cloud that hung heavy over my husband, and I hated coming back into it. I hated seeing him, and I hated that I knew shortly after I came in, he'd be distant and cold or angry or he'd ask me for things that I didn't want to give him.

On his side, even after the madness of active addiction stopped, he'd feel resentful that I had left him. He's chained to the methadone clinic, and it's been a long time since he's been able to go out of town. He's lonely, bored, and frustrated, and sometimes the one bit of relief he gets from the repetition of being home alone all day, trapped in his sick mind, is me. He's not always warm and fuzzy to me, but he does appreciate my presence and look forward to it. When I go away and am not around to take some of the weight off of his dark cloud, it makes him angry.

So we'd come back together, pissed off at each other before we'd even begun to interact in any real way at all.

Last night, though, I prayed that we would be able to see each other through God's eyes. I came in the door, and he rounded a corner away from me. I felt a surge of anger rise in me...he can't even say hello? I came to him, put my arms around him, and gave him a kiss. I felt his body melt against mine, and I felt his heart open to welcome me back home. "There's some dinner in the kitchen if you'd like some..." he said, tentatively.

My little gesture of affection allowed me to see his affection. Changing my own attitude, ignoring the voice that was asking me to see what is wrong with him above all that is right, opened my heart to all that was good.

PTSD and Me.

2009-04-21T18:29:00.002-04:00

Ahhh, therapy.

We met with our new marriage counselor today. Our previous one, who I'd come to trust and respect, had to go away on leave for a few months, and now we have a new one. It was interesting.

I completely melted down in the session. I had no idea it was going to happen, but it did. My husband was yelling. I was talking about being afraid, and he was telling me that I am not afraid of him and that I was misrepresenting the situation to make it seem like he's a bully. I was shaking and crying and unable to speak.

Apparently, I am recovering from trauma.

It's interesting.

These counselors seem to think that the traumatic incident must be in my childhood. There certainly was trauma in my childhood, but it doesn't quite seem true to me that the trauma that is rendering me speechless in marriage counseling comes from those instances. Those instances got me ready to be in a relationship with my husband, but the trauma I'm reeling from right now is the trauma that has come from this relationship. Living constantly in a state of fear and stress and doubt for a couple of years has made quite an impact on me. I'm working on recovering from it, and I know that my husband is, too; however, the marks are there. It's real, and it's going to take a lot of work on both of our parts to get through it. I know I've got it in me to push through to the other side, but I'm not sure that my husband has it in him. The counselor today observed the lack of empathy my husband had for my apparent fear.

Second Road.

2009-04-17T00:30:00.002-04:00

Hey folks!

Don't forget about The Second Road. You can see my posts over there here.

Unglued.

2009-04-17T00:01:00.003-04:00

My husband announced to me tonight that he's not going to go back to anymore meetings.

No explanation, really, other than that he thinks it's not the right thing to do. He said he's been ritualistically attending meetings and not believing in what he's hearing there. I'm not sure what he means, and I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say. I think he expected me to fight with him, but I didn't. I didn't know what kind of response he was looking for, and I'm not sure how I'm feeling about his announcement.

We have developed a really nice Thursday night ritual over the last few months. We've been consistently going to the meeting together, and we've been committed to hanging out with each other after. We make dinner and watch television and talk, and it's been something pleasant and consistent, and just the kind of thing that I need to be able to begin to develop some trust. I am upset that he is deciding to stop going to meetings, which means that he's now in effect cutting all ties with any semblance of recovery, but honestly I'm more upset that our special evening is canceled.

I'm also frustrated that he gives me a really hard time about how little time I spend with him, but then he opts out of many of the opportunities we have to spend together. It seems like his idea of spending time together is for me to stay home with him so he can sleep in front of me, ignore me to watch television, or yell at me.

I am afraid that he is coming unglued. He spends his days in bed, and his outburst this weekend has rendered me somewhat speechless to express my feelings. I am afraid. I'm afraid in every way, and I don't like to be afraid.

I've started my 30 day prayer ritual again that I learned from my Al-Anon sponsor. Her suggestion is that I pray for 30 days before I make any big decision in my life so that I can be sure that my decision has roots in a sound spiritual place. Instead of running away from my relationship with my husband when it gets difficult, I am to pray about what God's will is for me in this relationship. My urge to flee is strong right now. I don't want to go backwards, but I know that if I cut and run right now, I'll regret it. I love this man very much, and if our relationship is going to have to end, I need it to end with some grace.

I am tired, though, of this roller coaster. I want the reigns back on my own life. I am tired of living at effect, and I want to begin to grow and move forward again. It's hard to do when I'm constantly sidetracked because of my obsession with my husband.

I love him. I want him to go away. I want him to stay always.

When We Sleep.

2009-04-15T18:39:00.002-04:00

Ahhh!

I can't stop being too attracted to my husband to be able to set boundaries right. He's been being very sorry for being a jerk, and I've been too smitten with him to be able to talk about what happened between us this past weekend.

I spoke with my Al-Anon sponsor about it and about boundaries in general. I told her that so far, we'd not had much of an opportunity to talk because I'd been avoiding him except for when we sleep. She said that I should try to continue to avoid him except for when we sleep until he's been clean for a year. When I burst out laughing, she said that she's serious.

It's still funny.

It's interesting to watch someone who has been consumed by darkness for so long battling with himself as he's becoming more and more filled with light. It's interesting, but it hurts when he lashes out at me.

Unwired.

2009-04-14T12:16:00.002-04:00

My computer crashed this past weekend, and I've been debilitatingly unwired at a time when I could have used some cathartic writing. I've forgotten how to write in a notebook. It doesn't feel real to me anymore.

My husband had a tantrum on Easter Sunday. We were having a lovely morning, eating a breakfast together that he'd made and drinking coffee while sitting in our swing in the front yard. The sun was beautiful. The sky was beautiful. The air smelled great.

We were talking about the church service we were about to go to and the potluck we'd planned to attend later that day. We'd both been looking forward all week to the events, and the day was starting off so warm and easy.

I started talking about how I'd been considering going back to school, and how I'd thought of applying to a lot of different kinds of programs...maybe social work. Maybe for literature. Maybe divinity school...

He got upset at the idea of me going back to school, and he was very defensive. I'm not sure what the idea of me going to school brings up for him, but it all culminated in him screaming at me and punching a(nother) whole in the wall.

It's been a long time since I've seen that side of him, and it scares me. I am still kind of reeling.

I went to church by myself. He apologized later, and I appreciate his apology. It was sincere, and I realize that he's in the first throes of the first year of his recovery. He's doing well, considering how sick he's been. He's detoxing from methadone gradually, but it's rapid enough to affect his mood. I understand. I empathize. I appreciate that he apologizes...but I am still not sure that I am willing to live in a situation that can be so volatile. I am afraid of him when he is violent, and I don't think I have many more of these incidents left in me.

It was particularly hurtful because I can't find anything I could have done differently. Often when we have a fight, I can see that I have a part in it. I might have been harsh with my words or blamed him for something that isn't his. While nothing I could do will warrant a violent response, it at least helps me to understand how the situation escalated. On Easter morning, though, there was nothing I could have done differently. We were just talking, and he blew up without a reason that I can see.

I've been talking to all kinds of sponsors and friends and therapists about this stuff, though, and so I'm hoping that I will work it out. For now, I'm still ruminating.

The Gun.

2009-04-09T13:08:00.002-04:00

I spoke with my Al-Anon sponsor this morning, and I told her that things are going kind of shockingly well at my house. I am grateful for the peace that I'm finding, and I'm glad that I'm finding it, at least for now, without having to separate myself from my husband. In spite of how well things are working, however, I am frequently finding myself feeling as if I'm still braced for a blow. I am suspicious of the calm, and I'm sort of waiting for everything to blow up.

She told me a story she'd heard about soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after losing a limb. There were several reports of soldiers who had lost their limbs in battle while holding their guns with their fingers perched on the trigger. After losing their limbs, they still felt as if they were holding a gun, which made them jumpy. My sponsor told me that one way these soldiers' counselors helped them to lose the gun was to ask them to look in a mirror and picture themselves releasing the gun. After doing it repeatedly over some time, eventually they stopped feeling like they were about to shoot everyone around them.

I think I am still holding a gun in my phantom limb in ways. While everything in my life looks like it's going well, I wake up in the middle of the night fearing for my safety. I have flashes of panic and I'm sometimes suspicious of my husband.

Recovery serves for me as that mirror and that affirmation, that exhortation to let go of what isn't serving me anymore. If I keep working on my stuff, I believe that I'll drop the gun.

Just Swell.

2009-04-07T13:33:00.002-04:00

I don't have much to say about my life lately. It's all going well. It's all just swell.

There are things that could be better, of course. I could make some more money. My husband could get a job. I could work out some kinks in important family relationships.

But overall, I'm happy. I am in love with my husband, and I feel loved by him. I have great friends. I have wonderful tools, and I'm learning to take better care of myself every day. There are fun things on my horizon...friends visiting, weddings, events. I am looking forward to these things. I am even thinking that my husband might be able to participate...which is exciting. He's never had it together enough to be able to come with me to a wedding or to visit family, and the idea that he can be my real date, a real boy, is exciting to me.

I am happy. I am comfortable. Today, I have enough. Thank God.

This is Kind of Weird and Jesus-Freaky.

2009-03-31T19:47:00.002-04:00

Something happened to me last night.

My car was broken into. Someone shattered the passenger side window and stole my iPod. I hated to lose the iPod, but more than that, I hate having to pay to repair the window. I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to afford to do it until I get paid on the 15th, and I'd have to drive around with a plastic bag taped up where my window should be. It made me sad. I've lost lots of cool electronics in my husband's active using days. I felt pretty sorry for myself for losing more stuff. I felt sad that I can't have nice things. I was angry about having to drive around with a flapping plastic mess of a window.

Lately, I wake up frequently at 4:30 in the morning to fret. I fret with amazing clarity at this time of night, and sometimes I'll get up and write to alleviate my anxiety or to record what the things are I am thinking about. Last night, I woke up and immediately began fretting about my car window. I couldn't understand how it would happen. For years, I put myself in dangerous situation after dangerous situation. I'd be out at bars and nightclubs until the wee hours of the morning. I'd go home with strange men or bring strange men home with me. I was frequently drunk or high or in scary situation where I owed drug dealers money, but never once did I have consequences for this behavior. These days, I spend my time at work or at meetings. I'm in bed most nights by 11. I go to church and I pray and I meditate and I don't drink or do drugs. I'm working on my shit, and I'm taking good care of myself, and still--I'm experiencing the consequences of my poor decisions.

I got myself all worked up about karma and wondered when I'd get out of the barreling effects of my causes. I've done a lot of wrong in my life and made a lot of bad decisions, and I wondered when would it stop. When would I be able to stop paying for my mistakes?

In a voice that wasn't my own, I heard an answer:

Ask God to forgive you for your sins.

I laughed a little at the idea. It seemed kind of cheesy, but then I heard it again.

Ask God to forgive you for your sins if you want to escape from cause and effect.

It had never occurred to me before that I felt imprisoned by my karma, and I'd never really understood the beautiful way out that the Christian portal to God offered. I got out of bed and got on my knees and prayed: Please, God, forgive me for my sins. Please forgive the people who have hurt me for their sins.

Thank you, God, for taking my past and using it to teach me lessons, to make me into a better person. Thank you for your grace.

The next morning, I got up and felt much better about my car, my life, my consequences. Even better, I checked my banking information, and I'd gotten my income tax refund.

Weird, huh?

What Happened?

2009-03-25T19:33:00.002-04:00

I am still kind of amazed at how I lost my temper with my husband yesterday, and I'm trying to figure out how I slipped. I think there are a few things. Money is a big, big trigger for me, and it was a situation where I felt like he was being foolish with money that could have gone to bills. Also, I'd just checked out my finances and seen that I'm in a big old bind right now, and I am not expecting to be paid again until the 15th of next month. I was afraid, and to see him lackadaisically spending money made me furious.

But I don't understand what lead me to blow up so carelessly. I am generally really careful at keeping my tongue in line, and I said something really hurtful to my husband. Also, I set myself up for him to say hurtful things back to me, and I created a situation where I didn't get my needs met because he was too hurt and angry to be able to hear what was really going on.

I don't know why I slipped. I am a little obsessed with it.

In the end, though, it's been a good recovery for us. We had a good night after talking through it at marriage counseling, and it's a big deal for us to be able to get to the other side of a big fight without enduring hurt. I know, though, that there will be residual hurt on both of our parts for a while, and we don't need it in our relationship. There's enough residual hurt.

Why am I not perfect yet?

I Think I Got It.

2009-03-23T11:43:00.003-04:00

My husband got arrested last week. He's had a warrant for nearly a year now, and he's been anticipating the day that the cops would show up at our house and arrest him.

It was odd how well it all worked out. He'd just finished an odd job, and he had just enough money to bail himself out. He called the bail bondsman himself, and I didn't have to do anything except drive the money around for him.

I was sad and afraid for him, but mostly, I felt really good about everything. Even in the midst of it all, I was able to see that God's will was being done. This warrant was something he'd been putting off dealing with, and it has been a real impediment to his personal growth. Now, he is going to have to take care of it, and it all happened at a time when he had enough money and internal resources to deal with it. Also, it happened at a time when I was feeling pretty good in myself, and I was better able to deal with it. He was put into handcuffs in our front yard at 6:30, and at 7:00, I was at a Nar-Anon meeting with my sponsor and my friends, telling my story. It was perfect, or as perfect as such things could be.

His court date is next week, and I am hoping that he will get his probation reinstated now that he's clean and willing. Whatever happens, though, I am feeling pretty good about it. I'm in a good place, and I've truly turned this stuff over. All I can do in this situation is to take care of myself, pray, and to love him and support him to the best of my ability. Nothing else serves me, him, or anyone else.

Whatever.

2009-03-19T17:01:00.002-04:00

I am amazed of late by the things that fail to piss me off.

My husband finished another of his odd jobs today, and he got a pretty big paycheck. I am $500 short on our bills this month, so whatever contribution he makes to the bills will be a real big help. He called me a few minutes ago, and he's shopping. He said that since we have extra money, he wants to pick up a few things. He asked me about my shoe size, so apparently, he's also shopping for me.

Not too long ago, even if he'd sweetly said he was going to buy a few things for me, I would have been pissed by the idea of "extra money." There is no extra money unless he is planning to give me more than the $500 I'm short. I'm certain he's not.

In the end, I find it slightly annoying that he's making choices that I don't agree with about his money, but I'm still grateful that he's making better choices than he used to make. I'm hoping he'll help me out some, and I'll be grateful for whatever he contributes. He knows that the finances are pretty dire, as we are reaching the point where we are sometimes having utilities cut off, and I have told him recently that I am going to be $500 short this month. If he chooses to spend his money differently that I would spend mine, that's his choice.

My husband is kind of an ass with money, and I love him anyway. Getting upset about another bad series of decisions with money won't make him stop spending his money foolishly. It bugs me, but it's not a deal breaker--at least not today. It's certainly better than when he hid every dime he made from me to spend it all on heroin and cocaine.

So, when we get our power cut off at the end of the month, I'll smile at him in my new shoes and camp out by candlelight.

Roar.

2009-03-17T13:33:00.003-04:00

My husband.

Sigh.

Last night, he performed a long soliloquy about his mother and all her flaws as an addict. She blames other people for her problems. She is unhappy but isn't willing to take the steps to make herself happy. She refuses to see the extent to which her addiction has torn her life apart. She refuses to change. He wishes she would change. She works a bullshit program. She doesn't connect with God right. She should stop going to AA meetings because it isn't really for her. She already has the spirit of God in her, and so AA has nothing to offer her. She needs to go to jail. She doesn't understand the consequences of her behavior. She's selfish. She's ungrateful. She doesn't appreciate how hard his father works to support their family. She isn't like other addicts. She's exactly like other addicts.

These speeches are hard to hear.

It makes me wonder, though, if he is serving as a mirror for me. When I am judging my husband for behavior that seems outrageous, I wonder if it's not sometimes a twist on behavior that I sometimes see in myself?

It Just Isn't Right.

2009-03-16T16:20:00.002-04:00

Something isn't. I don't know what, but I know it's something. It's been helpful to me to record this little, niggling sensations, so I wanted to record this one.

My husband seems suspicious of me, and it makes me suspicious of him and edgy. I left town this weekend to visit family, and he asked me accusatory questions about my schedule. I told him when I'd leave town and when I'd get back, and it made him angry that my response hadn't been in more detail. I am just visiting family, so there isn't much of a schedule involved. We ate things. We hung out. We talked about stuff. We played with the children and ate some more.

Today, I began some counseling to help me deal with the sexual abuse in my childhood. It's a very big step for me, and it's something I'm proud of doing. What I hope most that will come of this counseling is to find a way to learn to trust myself. When I have feelings about my relationship not being quite right, I am often deeply distrustful of myself. I don't trust him, but I don't trust me, either. I don't trust myself to know when he's telling the truth or to know when he's lying. I hope to get some clarity.

A Dent.

2009-03-11T20:58:00.002-04:00

We have done something awful to our home. It started with my husband having an idea. He wanted to move around some furniture. I tried to distract him from his idea, and it worked for a long while; however, eventually, he decided to start moving furniture around.

My husband has great ideas, but he has a hard time following through with them. He started moving the furniture around in our house, but he never quite finished. There are living room components in the bedroom and bedroom parts in the kitchen. Everything is in a constant state of discomfort and disarray, and it seems that we have finally given up. There is trash, dirty laundry, dishes...everything, everywhere. For a while, it drove me crazy. I don't care anymore. I think my antidepressants have taken the edge off nicely.

Much of the mess is my husband's. I have managed to keep my laundry from being everywhere like some kind of lunatic confetti. My mess includes books and papers, but it's a pretty isolated area where I've stacked the books, waiting for a bookshelf to emerge out of the wreckage. Because it is his mess, I am reluctant to begin dealing with it. It's one of the cardinal rules of recovery...never do for the addict what the addict can do for himself. This is a mess my husband has made, and it should be his to clean up.

However, it is disheartening to come home and see the wreckage. It makes me kind of sad and tired. He says every day that he's going to clean it up, and he doesn't. He doesn't even begin. In fact, it gets worse...more clothes go everywhere. More dishes pile up in odd places. It's pretty crazy.

So today, I made a dent in the mess. I started in a little corner and put away what I could. Some clothes went into a laundry basket. Some shoes went into a closet. Some trash went into the trash can outside. My husband was a bit upset with me for starting. He was worried I'd put his shoes in the closet in a wrong way...although the shoes were lying willy-nilly all over the house, underneath boxes and trash and crap, he was concerned that I might crush his flip flops underneath his boots by putting them away. I assured him that I'd not hurt them, and kept cleaning.

I worked for about 30 minutes, but it did make a little difference. If I work for 30 minutes or so a day for the next million years, maybe at the end of it there will be a real house there, like people live in instead of wild animals. We'll see.

Tiger Kills Man.

2009-03-09T22:26:00.003-04:00

I heard a news story on the radio a few mornings ago about a man who was killed by a Siberian tiger after trying to take a shortcut while hiking the Great Wall of China. Apparently, the man ignored warning signs about predatory animals, climbed several walls, and landed himself in the midst of the tiger's area in a wildlife park.

What a story!

My instant reaction, weirdly, was to feel kind of angry with my husband. I thought that it seemed like something he'd do...and I'd go right along with him.

"Come on! We'll take this shortcut!" he'd say.

"Oh, no. There were signs saying that there might be tigers," I'd tell him.

"Come on. Don't be lame. There's no tigers. I don't see any tigers. Do you see any tigers?"

"Well, no..."

"You're fucking crazy if you think I'm going to walk all the way around this park when we can just cut through right here. We'll be fine. I'm not scared of tigers. Why are you always so afraid? You should have faith! We'll be fine. Let's go!"

"Ok..."

Poor Chinese man. Poor decisions. I bet he had no idea that he was about to be eaten by a tiger. He really thought he'd be ok. I also bet that he had no idea that half a world away, some woman would rage quietly against her husband because of his decisions.

Cat Food.

2009-03-07T03:42:00.004-05:00

A Dream:

I'd been away in Florida vacationing with my family, and I'm excited to be back home and see my cat. The home I'm coming back to is the one of my childhood. I'd entrusted the care of my cat to a male cousin. I'd not told him to take care of the cat, but I'd been sure he would know he was supposed to take care of her anyway. I just knew he'd know it was a job I'd mentally delegated to him. I also kind of half-expected that he'd blow it, and then I'd be able to yell at him.

My family was unpacking the car, and I rushed up to the house to find my cat. To my horror, she was outside. My cat doesn't go outside, but there she was, offensively, awfully, independently outside! I was horrified.

I went closer to her, afraid to approach to eagerly lest she take off running. As I got closer, I realize she was very, very thin. Her breathing was labored. She seemed to be dying.

My cousin hadn't done his job! He must have known I'd wanted him to care for my cat! I'd clearly left the cat uncared for and decided very loudly inside myself that it was his job to care for her, yet he'd willfully left her unattended!

The bastard! The selfish, irresponsible bastard! He must not love me at all! (I must not be worthy of love.)

I decide the next most important thing to do is to tattle on my cousin, and I go looking for my mom. I also hope to bump into the cousin so that I might let him have it.

While I'm searching, I come across a lovely pink box of cat food. I remember that I should probably be feeding her as my first task, since lack of food is what had gotten her so sick in the first place. I open up the box and pour a few kibbles into a bowl for her. The kibbles are croutons, which I recognize from a salad I ate recently that was made by my Al-Anon sponsor. It's just the food she needs.

Cliff's Notes Version for the Dream-Interpretation Impaired:

So I've entrusted my most precious cat to an untrustworthy man, and forgotten even to tell him that it was his job to care for her. My deepest desires are to tell my mother about it and to yell at the untrustworthy man. I happen upon a box of the best bits of my sponsor's salad, and realize that she needs those particular croutons desperately.

I woke up a few minutes ago laughing at my prissy, fussy dream-mind's lack of sophistication and wild connections and couldn't wait to write it all down...so I'm done now, and signing off to go back to bed.

Confluence.

2009-03-06T21:13:00.002-05:00

"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase."

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

I'm trying to understand something. In my life, there has been a confluence of messages lately, and I want to know what they mean. I am praying for clarity.

It has something to do with being willing to take a risk, but it's a risk that doesn't sound so risky when I explain it to myself. Our marriage counselor keeps describing it as a risk...remaining in this marriage. Working things through. Trying.

And there is clearly a risk, as I've seen how bad things can get for both of us. My husband has been very sick in his addictions, and I've followed him right to the bottom. But that's not the risk that I keep finding, facing me, everywhere.

The risk is to be willing to be loving to the person I love most in the world.

It should be easy. It should be natural. It used to be, but it isn't anymore, or it wasn't. It's getting easier again, and it's getting easy quickly.

I bother myself when I can't be clear. I am chasing my tail with this stuff.

For weeks and weeks, my husband and I could not get along. We couldn't stop criticizing each other long enough to remember that we love each other very much. We became enemies, guarded and fearful and defensive, and we really were trapped in our mess. It's better now, suddenly, without much reason. I changed some things, and he changed some things. For a while, I thought it didn't matter that I'd changed some things, but I realize now that it just took him a little while to notice. It took me a while to notice his changes, too.

One of the lessons I keep learning is that it's not possible always to understand. I always want to understand. I want to know what's happening because I believe so much in the power of my mind. If I can figure stuff out, I can fix it. I can change the variables and rearrange the outcome.

But none of my machinations work. They never have. They take my energy, and that's all.

What has worked to make me happier, to make my relationship with my husband richer, and to make everything more peaceful in my life is loving kindness. When I come home, I talk to my husband. I smile at him. I give him a kiss and talk to him about my day. He tells me about his. I don't offer any opinions or suggestions about what he's done or what he should be doing. Things are the way they are. It's not my way. I love my husband anyway, and today, I want to be with him.

So maybe there's not a risk. Maybe I've finally found a fool-proof plan. Letting go and letting myself love the man I love...

It Is This Way.

2009-03-04T09:03:00.001-05:00

I think, maybe, for the first time ever, I am teetering on the edge of real acceptance.

I am not happy with my life as it is, but I am not fighting it anymore. It becomes easier to enjoy what is good when I stop fighting.

And fighting does not serve me or anyone else. My husband is a sick man, and he's working on himself to the best of his ability. Nothing I say or do will affect his recovery or lack of recovery. It's his. Mine is mine. I have to keep my hands off of his, offer feedback only when it's requested, and play the role of a loving, supportive wife. I am not his mother or his teacher or his sponsor. I am his wife, and my role is to be a partner...that's it. If I can't be a partner to him, then I can't be anything, and I should leave. I'm not ready to leave, so I only have one other option...and it's not unpleasant. The light I shine in my home gets reflected back at me through him. If I am angry and frustrated, I get anger and frustration back. If I am content and supportive, I get contentment and support back.

This information should not be new, and it isn't new, exactly. Often, I think I've got it, but then something happens, and I get it in a new way. I think re-working the steps is helping me in some subtle ways I didn't expect. I'm wrapping up the first step, and I think I'm having some first step epiphanies.

It is what it is, and that's all it's going to be. I can change the things I can, and that's only me.

Carrying the Message.

2009-03-02T15:02:00.002-05:00

I went with my Nar-Anon family last night to a small town a couple of counties away to help a fledgling Nar-Anon group get their very first meeting off the ground. My Nar-Anon sponsor, being our matriarch, lead the meeting, and we all told our stories of what we were like before, what happened, and how we've changed in recovery.

It really is an honor to be able to be a vessel for this message. I hope we helped someone who was there last night, but I know that we helped by bringing that little bit of light to people who are still suffering.

Who Am I Kidding?

2009-02-28T22:41:00.002-05:00

"No."

Our marriage counselor had just asked me if I'd choose my husband now. We'd met individually to talk over some of the last several weeks' events in our marriage and to talk about some of the dynamics she'd observed in our relationship. I'd been talking about how bad the past had been and my fears and hopes for the future, and she'd been encouraging me to think about what was happening--right now--in the present moment.

"If you can't be healthy and choose your husband now, you should get out of the relationship," she'd said.

"That's hard, but I don't think I would. I don't think that I'd choose him, now, if we didn't have such a past together and if I wasn't hoping that the future might be better."

"You've got some thinking to do."

I left her office with a head full of anxiety. I had a lot of things to think about, but I had gotten some clarity at least. I went to work, and after my class was over, I came home.

My husband met me at the door. He is such a beautiful man that it takes my breath sometimes, still. He took my hand, and we sat down together. He pulled my head against his heart, held me close and kissed me. I looked up into his eyes and laughed on the inside. Who have I been kidding?

I do choose him. Today. Always.

MAJOR DEPRESSIVE EPISODE.

2009-02-24T18:31:00.003-05:00

"MAJOR DEPRESSIVE EPISODE. RECURRENT CONDITION. SEVERE. Substance abuse. Mixed. In remission."

That's my diagnosis. It's interesting to see myself all spelled out like that, and to recognize the reality of how those words describe me. It was interesting to realize the "recurrent condition" part, and also the "severe." And, the "substance abuse" was unsettling...it's been so long since I've been that person--but my life is presently still in turmoil from the choices I made as an actively using person, years and years ago. No matter if I do drugs or not, my life and my choices still revolve around substance abuse.

If I'm not doing the drugs, I'm doing the addicts. Hah.

There's this pack of dogs that live in the cellar of my mind. They lunge and claw at the door, and generally, I can keep them quiet. Sometimes, though, every few years, I can't keep them out anymore.

I am now medicated, and feeling better with the promise of feeling better. My husband met me at the doctor's office, and it seemed to help him to be able to come and rescue me. It's helped us to be able to communicate with each other.

I went to see our marriage counselor by myself today. We talked about what has been going on, and we talked about the patterns that are emerging to try to determine if there are any we can break.

She asked me to think about myself, right now, and my husband, right now. I kept explaining how when I met him and fell in love with him, I was a very sick person in a very bad place...I am different now...and I don't think I would pick him off the street right now. I like to imagine that I would make better decisions about my relationships...and I believe that I would. However, I do love him, and I'm married to him, and he is like he is. Past me loved past him, and present me loves a possible future him...I am getting stuck, though, with present me and present him.

I have some accepting to do. And if I can't accept what I've got, then I've got to make some big moves.

I am glad, though, to have the promise of clarity that will come with some time on medication. My emotions are all jagged now, and I need some relief for myself before I can make any big decisions.

Lay Your Hands Over Me.

2009-02-21T23:58:00.003-05:00

Come to me now
And lay your hands over me
Even if it's a lie
Say it will be alright
And I shall believe
I'm broken in two
And I know you're on to me
That I only come home
When I'm so all alone
But I do believe...

-"I Shall Believe"

Tonight, I was very upset. I was crying, and I wished and wished for someone to come to me and comfort me. Most especially, I wished for my husband. He did not come.

For so many years of my life, I've been waiting for someone to show up who doesn't. I need to stop waiting, to find the love and loyalty within myself to comfort myself when I'm struggling.

I am depressed. I am going to go to see a doctor tomorrow. I can't keep doing this much longer. My thinking is crazy. I want to sleep. I want to get drunk. I think of ways to hurt myself. I am cycling through old patterns. I don't want to do this anymore, and I can't stop myself. I can't pray it out or meditate it out or meeting it out or yoga it out.

Addiction is a progressive, fatal disease. So is depression. I've been on and off anti-depressants for years, and I've been in and out of counseling since I was a teenager. I honestly believed that I'd found a way out of these cycles through recovery, but I think I've reached a wall I can't pass through on my own.

Tonight, as I cried and cried and cried and wished like hell for my husband to come to me, it felt so familiar, that deep desire to be picked up in someone's arms and told that I'm going to be ok. I wonder where this pattern is coming from...if there was some awful night when my mother was unable to comfort me, crying in my crib, and if I'm going to act this thing out until I find the trapdoor out of it.

I want my husband to come, pick me up, and change my diaper. I want him to hear me, see me. I want something from my outsides to fix my insides, and most especially, I want my husband to fix me. He's sick. He can't. I know these things to be true, but I think that now maybe I'm sick, too.

Black Chip Anniversary.

2009-02-20T20:30:00.003-05:00

Today is the second anniversary of the first time I found dirty syringes. I can't believe it's only been two years. It feels like two thousand years.

I wanted to write something poignant, but I'm too sad and tired. Here is what I wrote last year.

My Heart.

2009-02-18T14:24:00.002-05:00

I don't want my marriage to have to end. I don't want it. I don't want it. I don't want it. I want my husband to be well and be mine. I want for us to live a long, happy life together. I don't want to give him up, more than anything else, ever. He has my heart, and he takes it with him when we are apart.

I am also exhausted, and I don't want to keep living this way.

There is an easy solution. When my husband was attending meetings regularly, working with a sponsor, and putting his efforts into recovery, our relationship was healthy and growing. When he began to slack off, we began to bicker. Now that he's doing nothing, we barely speak. He's not going to make it on his own, and he's not going to go back to recovery until he's ready. It's the easiest, clearest solution to what is wrong with his life and with our relationship, and he won't take it. He knows the answer, and he won't do the work. It's the most frustrating thing I've ever experienced.

I really thought it was going to work this time.

I am going to meet with our marriage counselor individually next week to talk about setting boundaries around recovery. I need these boundaries to be able to live with him, but I am not able to set them. It doesn't feel safe when my husband isn't present. When we go to marriage counseling together, I have a hard time expressing my feelings and admitting my thoughts because I fear my husband's reactions, so it seemed like it might be helpful to go to her one-on-one and put all my issues out. A few days later, my husband and I will go for a joint session and see what happens.

It seems that the lesson God has for me these days is patience and perseverance. I'm restless for a way out of this pain, but no one has a quick one.

Over the last several days, my husband has been asleep for most of the day. It seems to me that he's really depressed, but he's not ready to admit that he's having a problem or to do anything about it. I don't understand how this is ever going to stop.

Faithful.

2009-02-16T16:47:00.002-05:00

My husband hasn't been to a meeting in over a week now, and his mental state is showing it. He has been obsessing about how he's pretty sure I'm being unfaithful to him, and he has all kinds of "evidence" that he keeps dragging out in front of me. His evidence includes such tell-tale signs as that I sometimes wear lipstick when I go to work and that people call me on my cell phone amongst various other, more embarrassing assertions.

I have participated in his madness by defending myself. One sure-fire way to get my crazy all riled up is to suggest that I might be a whore. All my favorite ways to hurt come up around sex and sexuality, and I find myself drowning in the quicksand of my past. It's easy to assume that I am an irretrievable whore, sexualized from the beginning. I don't even have to cheat on my husband to be cheating on my husband. Sex is seared into my flesh as sure as a brand.

I know that by defending myself, I begin to make it real...and while I don't want to make it real, I also want to comfort my husband, who is genuinely hurting because he believes that I've not been loyal. It's a sticky place to find myself.

Last night, as he was pawing over move "evidence," I said to him:

I am sorry if anything I have done has made you feel like I might have been unfaithful, but I have been loyal to you. I'm sorry that you're hurting, and it's never my intention to hurt you, but it's not good for me to continue to participate in this with you.

I hope the subject is closed.

I am sad for this man. He is very, very sick, and he's hurting, and so he's hurting me. I want it to stop now, and I am not sure how to stop it. I want out, but I want to leave with some clarity and some grace, and I'm not in a place to be able to leave that way yet.

I Need to Remember:

2009-02-15T00:21:00.000-05:00

"Defending ourselves by engaging in arguments with actively drinking or otherwise irrational people is as fruitless as donning armor to protect ourselves from a nuclear explosion."

-Courage to Change, June 3

My Codependent Granny.

2009-02-12T17:29:00.001-05:00

I've been missing my Grandma lately.

I think it's Al-Anon. There's a lot of adult children of alcoholics, which makes me think of my father, who is an adult child of an alcoholic himself. I'd never thought of how the family disease of addiction or alcoholism had run through the generations on my side of our family, as my husband's family is so spectacularly loud with addiction that it kind of drowns out the dull rumbling in my own.

My father's mother, who passed away a few years ago, was always my favorite Grandma. She was fun and funny, sweet and kind of sassy, and she thought I was the bee's knees.

It occurred to me last night that she is one of us. She never found her way to Al-Anon, but she lived with an active alcoholic for most of her adult life. My grandfather began drinking after he returned from World War II, and he died when I was a toddler from the effects of his disease. My father has a few particularly frightening stories of his father's alcoholic behavior.

I don't remember much of my grandfather. I do remember that he was a sweet man, if somewhat withdrawn. He never came to dinner when we went out to eat together. Looking back at this behavior through the lens of my own experience, I realize that he probably stayed home to drink alone. My father had refused to be around him with me if he was drinking, and he hid it well in my presence. I'm sure he took some relief in the absence of the family, but I remember as a little girl thinking that it was sad when he wouldn't come to dinner with the rest of us.

I was in my car today, and I was suddenly overwhelmed with sadness for my grandmother. Neither of my grandparents ever found recovery, and it occurred to me that my grandmother and I have something in common. She could have been a great friend to me at this point in my life, and I might have brought her some ideas about a better way to live.

Stepping Outside.

2009-02-11T15:51:00.002-05:00

It's a beautiful day. I'm sitting outside with my stepwork in a great, big rocking chair, feeling the beautiful breeze.

Life is good.

I Want Out.

2009-02-09T17:32:00.002-05:00

I wonder if I'm depressed. Maybe I need to be medicated.

My husband sat me down this morning and told me that while he knows that he's made a lot of progress in himself over the last few months, he also realizes that he hasn't done enough to begin to repair our relationship. I appreciate that he recognizes that I'm still struggling and not getting many of my needs met in our present living situation, and I'm glad that he's taking on our relationship as an issue.

But this evening, as I was going to volunteer at the prayer center where we both signed on to work, he decided not to come with me. As I was walking out the door, I told him I'd be home around 7:30 to pick him up for the meeting that we both attend on Monday nights, and he said he'd decided not to go to this meeting anymore.

I feel like I keep letting things go and letting things go. He originally was doing 90 meetings in 90 days, which was why I let him come back to live with me after he got out of the hospital. Now, he's cut back his meeting attendance to 4 meetings a week. It bothered me that he wasn't keeping his commitment to me, but I'd let it go because it seemed like it was a really good thing that he's attending 4 meetings a week. He seemed to be in a pretty good routine, and I figured I should stay out of his recovery.

If he's cutting out this meeting, though, I'm sure that there will be more to come. I know this pattern. I don't want it to happen, and I don't know what I want to do.

I set a boundary: He could be a part of my life if he was in recovery. While he is doing a good job of not using drugs, he's not doing much else that I can see. He promises me that all kinds of wonderful things are happening inside of him, but what I see is the same thing I've seen for a long time. He's on the couch a lot. He naps. It's different now because sometimes he's on the couch with the Bible or the Big Book, and he writes in a journal and prays. Frequently, he calls his parents and fights with them about how they're not recovering right. He has lots of opinions about their program.

From my point of view, he's working everyone's program but his own.

I hate it that I feel like I know where this is going. My husband on his own doesn't do very well. He's strung together some wonderful clean time over these last months, and it was because of his involvement in AA. He's not graduated, and he's going to come unglued if he keeps this pattern up. I've done this before with him, and I don't want to do it again.

My instinct is to cut and run, now, before it gets bad. My new Al-Anon sponsor discourages me from making rash, quick decisions based on my fears, and while I know she's right, I also know that I owe it to myself never again to live the way I lived for much too long. I won't do it. I don't want even to walk up to the brink of it and peek over. I want out, now.

Sex. Prayer. Flight.

2009-02-03T22:13:00.003-05:00

For a while, when my husband first came back home from the hospital, our disappeared sex life was back. We were like normal married people who love each other. It was a glorious thing.

A few weeks ago, though, it started to wane again. At our last marriage counseling session, we discussed the crisis of our parent-child relationship and how we need to find some creative ways to over come it. The day after that session, my husband had watched Dr. Phil.

Yes. He watched Dr. Phil.

He said to me, recounting the wisdom he'd gained on Dr. Phil:

There was this couple on the show today, and they had a parent-child relationship. It wasn't because the man was a big fuck-up or anything. It was more because the wife was kind of needy and controlling. She was upset because they weren't having sex, and Dr. Phil told her that it was obvious why they weren't having sex. No man wants to have sex with his mom.

My husband's words hurt me, and not too long ago, they would have sent me into a tailspin. I would have accepted all the responsibility for our disappearing sex life, and I would have forgotten that our sex life disappeared exactly when my husband started relying on a heavy dose of opiates to get through his day.

This time, I wasn't willing to accept the responsibility for something that isn't mine. Also, his words drew my attention to something about my husband. I don't want to have sex with a child. Neediness and dependency and an inability to take care of oneself isn't sexy. His use of the parent-child dynamic in this way made me look at him differently, and I haven't quite been able to unscrew my vision of him since.

I don't want to fall out of love with him. I don't want to. I really, really don't. I'm not sure if that's what's happening, but if my sexual desire and the premise of our lovely sex life is removed from the marital equation, there isn't much left. I have hope that the housekeeping he's in the process of doing in recovery will eventually translate to benefits for the relationship, but I'm not sure that I have the patience any longer to stick it out.

This time of year is hard. There are some important anniversaries for us in the coming weeks, and over the last couple of years, these anniversaries have been marred by his addiction. Last year at this time, things were very, very bad, and I am not sure that my reactions to him aren't somehow skewed by the smell of the weather, the color of the sky, and my emotional memory of how it felt the last time things looked this way outside.

On the advice of my new Al-Anon sponsor, I am praying, on my knees, every morning and night for clarity in this relationship...I ask God to show me if it is God's will for me to continue to be in this marriage and to give me the tools and resources necessary to support my husband and myself in recovery; I ask if it is God's will for me to get out of the relationship, that I be shown a clear path. I ask God to remove the scales from my eyes, the biases of desire and judgment and fear and resentment and to show me, truly, what it is I'm meant to do with my life in this relationship.

I keep having these dreams where I'm flying. Sometimes, I'm flying a kind of dilapidated old airplane that I've found abandoned on the street near my parents' house. One time, it was a wheelbarrow; if I ran fast enough, I could make it take air, and I could steer around. Each time I have this dream, there is someone telling me to come back down. Stop flying. Hit the ground. Don't imagine other possibilities. Stay low, always.

I don't want to anymore.

Roar.

2009-02-02T13:45:00.003-05:00

My husband and I have finally gotten over the stupid hump from last week, which is a good thing. Having the same fight again and again makes me really, really tired and bored.

I am stewing over new things, though. There is an interminable project that he hasn't finished yet that he's been working on for six months. He'll get a decent amount of money when he finishes it. The last two days have been beautiful, and he's not gone to work on the project.

I'm trying to let it go and detach from the outcome. If he doesn't want to work, he won't have methadone money. The problem, though, is that he's choosing not to work at a time when we could really use the money for bills. I don't have any freelance work right now, and I don't know how I'm going to make it. He just yelled down at me from the bed, where he's napping, that it's going to rain this afternoon, so he can't work. I know, though, that all he has left to do on this project is to paint the interior part of a screened porch, and he's said several times that he could paint it even on a rainy day.

I hate these situations where it's mine, but it's not mine. I want to detach and let him deal with his consequences, but the consequences aren't just his.

I'm also impatient with myself. He's doing well with recovery, and being a grown-up financially is one of the last areas recovery touches (or so I hear). It's all new, and I can't expect him to fix all his character defects in a few months. I'm just so very tired of carrying all this weight by myself, and I can't seem to get heard about how dire the financial situation is. He seems to be expecting me to take care of it, like I always do, and honestly, I think I'm out of options. I've stretched everything as far as it can go, and now there isn't much left. I don't know what's going to happen, and I'm afraid.

I also know that at some point, my self-esteem is going to improve to a degree that I won't be willing to support a grown man who is capable of supporting himself anymore. It makes me unhappy with myself to keep taking care of him. I don't enjoy it, and it makes me lose respect for him. He can find another way, and he won't. He insists that he's looking for a job, but at the same time, he's not looked at all in a few months. He's open to the idea of a job, if one were to come to our house and get him, but he's not actively pursuing it.

I don't want to feel like I'm in this thing alone, and if I am in it alone, then I'd rather not carry dead weight. It's not a deal breaker today, but it's not going to be long before it will be. It makes me sad to see what's on the horizon and to know it's so preventable.

Dear Husband,

2009-01-28T14:01:00.004-05:00

"Here's what I think, Mr. Wind-Up Bird," said May Kasahara. "Everybody's born with some different thing at the core of their existence. And that thing, whatever it is, becomes like a heat source that runs each person from the inside. I have one too, of course. Like everybody else. But sometimes it gets out of hand. It swells or shrinks inside me, and it shakes me up. What I'd really like to do is find a way to communicate that feeling to another person. But I can't seem to do it. They just don't get it. Of course, the problem could be that I'm not explaining it very well, but I think it's because they're not listening very well. They pretend to be listening, but they're not, really. So I get worked up sometimes, and I do some crazy things."

-Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

It makes me very sad that I'm feeling compelled to write letters to you again. When I'm wanting to write to you, it means that I'm feeling like it's impossible to find you, like you're lost to me. I see you there. I see your body. I see your face. I see your eyes, hurting. But I can't see you, and I'm sure you can't see me. I see someone who is hurting me. You see someone who is hurting you. We don't see each other, and it makes it worse.

I don't know how to move past this part, but I hope that we can. More than anything, I want our marriage. I want it in my guts. I want it all over me on the outside and all the way down in the deepest most inside part of me. I want our life together to work, and I spend every day in fear that I'm losing you.

After talking to each other this morning, I left the house and started thinking about all the things we said and how much we keep hurting each other. I don't want to hurt you, and I don't think you want to hurt me, but we can't seem to stop. It's like our words leave our mouths and change, and what we meant to say falls away before it reaches the other. All that's left is a cold, hard thing, sharp-edged. It's all pain, fear, shame, guilt. It's awful, and it has to stop.

I wonder what is the other option, and I wonder how we'll find it. There has to be another way. There must be a way to make this relationship possible. I love you. You love me. We're both hurting, and we're both feeling alone. It doesn't make sense that we should feel this way when we spend every day and night together. It doesn't make sense to hurt separately when we could drop the walls and fall into each other's arms.

What if we both stopped considering separation as a possibility? What if we decided, together, that it's not possible not to be together, and it's not possible to keep doing this anymore. What if we decided that from this day forward, we were going to give this relationship everything we've got...that we were both going to make sure that each day, we both did our very best to regard one another with loving kindness, compassion, and the deep affection that keeps us tied together in spite of all the pain we've experienced? I am willing to try.

I love you, and I'm sorry for my part in all of this.

Your Wife.

It Bewilders Me He Doesn't See Me.

2009-01-27T22:55:00.002-05:00

We had a long, hard bout of marriage counseling today. I think we brought up some issues that are important to both of us, but I don't feel like much got resolved.

It is hard for me to understand what happens when my husband isn't able to hear me or see me. When he is present, he is so very present. When he is not, he's not. I've never had this experience before of being so thoroughly understood and so thoroughly misunderstood, and it really confuses me when he's not there. When I'm telling what's happening to me, and he's checked out and unresponsive, I get a little crazy. I don't want to accept the reality of who he is and where he is, and so I start grasping at straws.

I recognized today that I suspect he feels the same way...that he wishes there were a way to reach me. I'm sure there are times when he wants to find the part of me that loves him most and regards him as positively as possible, and it's just not available. I don't know how we can learn to call those parts of ourselves up when we need them, but I'm willing to try.

Thinking about Him.

2009-01-26T18:29:00.003-05:00

I'm feeling sad for my husband today. He's still in a really bad place, and I'm not sure why or what is going on. I wish I could help him or stop him, and I can't.

My guess is that he's feeling pretty upset with his inability to provide for himself. I also think he feels vulnerable by being so dependent on me. He has convinced himself that I mean him harm. He believes that because he's hurt me so deeply in the past that I must want to hurt him back. It's not true. I don't want to hurt him. I want him to get better. I want him to be happy, and I want to be happy with him. I want him to be happy and comfortable and safe beyond what is probably helpful to him...my instinct is to protect him from every bump and bruise, even the ones he needs to experience to learn to stop repeating the same behaviors again and again.

We have marriage counseling tomorrow, and I'm glad. I want to talk to him about whatever is going on with him, but I am afraid. I am tired of being afraid, and I want to talk to him about being afraid. I think there's time for new boundaries, and I'm glad to have a third party to help us sort through it all.

I want to think about other things. I can't. I can't stop thinking about him.

Yes. I Mean, No.

2009-01-23T15:58:00.006-05:00

Last night, my husband and I took a lovely bath together. We used fancy bath salts I'd gotten for Christmas, and everything was warm and beautiful. He washed my back, soaping and scratching and making me feel wonderful, and when he was done, I lay with my head on his chest, listening to his heart beat. He asked me if it would be alright if he prayed, and I said it was OK. He prayed for his recovery, for his family, for me, for our marriage. I closed my eyes and heard his heart. Its beat was true and steady. I felt warm and safe.

Moments like those mean so much, and they remind me of why I stay, why I kept staying through the ugliest times of his addiction. I knew there was a kind, loving, beautiful man underneath all that acting out, using, lying...I knew it was possible for us to be together and to love each other. I knew, in fact, that nothing in the world should be easier than for two people who love each other passionately to live together and make each other happy...I knew that recovery was possible for us, separately and together.

We went to the movies last night after our meeting. I hadn't wanted to go, as I am not sure how I'm going to make the money that I have stretch over the next few months. I haven't had a freelance writing gig in a few weeks now, and the one regular check that I can count on is about $800 short of what I need to cover my basic monthly expenses. My husband had been asking and asking me to rent him a movie, and when his sister called to see if we wanted to go to the discount movie theater with her, I said "Yes" when I meant "No." I said "Yes" because he'd asked several times, and I was afraid of his reaction if I said "No." I was afraid of losing the closeness I felt to him after our lovely bath and his sweet prayer. We went, we spent about $20, we saw his sister, and it was a good time. I'd thought that it would mean he'd stop asking for a movie, and I thought it would all work out, maybe...it always all works out with my finances.

This morning, though, as we were getting dressed, he said he wanted to rent a movie tonight. He thought it would be nice to watch a movie together after the AA speaker meeting we usually attend on Friday nights. Again, instead of saying, "No, I can't afford to spend any more money on things that aren't necessary," I said "OK." Apparently, the way I said "OK" revealed my hesitancy, and he asked me, "Are you sure? Are you sure you want to?" I said, "Well, really, I don't want to. I am worried about money, and we just went out last night."

And he threw a great big fit. He yelled at me. It scared me. I cried a lot. Before it got to the part where he was yelling really big, I tried to explain the finances to him. I told him how much I made and how much I had to spend and that I was sorry, but that every dollar counts right now. Hearing the financial details seemed to make him even more furious. He said, "The money is tight, but that's not why you won't rent a movie. You won't rent a movie because you don't want to do things that will make me happy."

And I thought, he's actually partly right. I don't want to rent a movie for him. I won't spend money on frivolous things for myself, so I don't think it's right for me to do it for him. So I said, "You know, you're right. I've been saying 'Yes' when I mean 'No' a lot lately, and I'm sorry. I really resent it when I buy you little luxuries that I won't buy for myself, and I probably shouldn't do that anymore."

Next, his argument shifted. The movie hadn't been a frivolous thing for him...it was a frivolous thing for us. It was something he'd wanted so that we could have some time together doing something fun. That was when he started yelling a lot, and I kind of retreated into myself. I went into the bathroom and locked the door, sat on the floor, while he stomped around and yelled.

I'm trying really, really hard to own my part here, but it just seems like he is acting like a child. He wants to see a movie, and I can't afford to get it for him, and so he's throwing a huge hissy fit. I'm tired of this pattern, and I want a way out of it. What I see is that I need to say "NO" every time I mean it, as every time I say "YES," thinking I'm buying myself a way out of his yelling and tantruming, I'm actually kind of feeding the beast. I don't like that my choices are either to give him what he wants and resent it, don't and deal with his tantrum, or stop living with him. I want another option, and I can't see it yet.

Walls.

2009-01-21T13:29:00.002-05:00

I'm building new walls. I'm not sure why.

I feel a cooling in my emotions toward my husband. I love him. I don't doubt that I love him...I'm just less excited about the prospect of him entering recovery.

Secretly, there is a part of me that wishes I'd never let him come back home. I am afraid that the risk of him being home with me outweighs the benefit.

I never want to hurt the ways I've been hurting--never, ever again. I never want to feel those things. I am afraid of moving backwards, and I have no guarantee against it.

I guess, also, that the new sheen of his recovery is wearing off. His going to a meeting almost every day is less exciting than it was, so now what I see is a man who doesn't do much for 23 hours of the day, but does the right thing for 1 hour. I want a real partner, and he's a long way from being a real partner again.

I don't know.

It is what it is, though. He's at home, and mostly doing well. I can't stand listening to him when he's battling himself, arguing out loud about whether or not the AA program is really for him, and half-plotting to find something different, insisting he never promised me anything more than 90 meetings in 90 days. I've seen what it looks like when he does something different, and I don't want to participate in that anymore. I won't.

I guess I see new boundary setting on the horizon, and I'm tired from holding up the boundaries I've already got. If he does decide to drop out of AA after he finishes 90 meetings in 90 days, will I continue to live with him? What if he continues with his recovery, but also continues with his unemloyment? Where will I stop?

I have to trust in the process, and trust that I'll get myself out when it's the right time. I just hope that I'll do it ahead of the hurting. I've been extraordinarily hard-headed about this relationship, and I hope I don't wait until I'm burned before I get out next time.

Trauma.

2009-01-14T18:17:00.003-05:00

"Sometimes a breakdown can be the beginning of a kind of breakthrough, a way of living in advance through a trauma that prepares you for a radical transformation."

-Cherie Moraga

I learned something new about myself in marriage counseling yesterday.

My husband and I were trying to process what has been happening between us over the last few days. Mostly, he was being big and loud, shouting about how I think he's stupid because he likes football and how I make him feel like shit and how it's not fair and how I'm out to get him and on and on, big and loud. I looked out the window and fought back a rising feeling of panic.

The counselor asked him to stop for a few minutes and to look at me. She asked him to describe what he saw. He said, "She looks to me like she's probably realizing she's wrong." The counselor asked him again to describe what he saw. "She looks like she's shaking. I don't know. She always looks like that." Our counselor kept pushing, and finally, he said, "She looks scared."

I had a hard time expressing myself, but "scared" is an apt word to describe what I was feeling. Shaky, afraid, confused, and unsure of what I needed to feel better.

The counselor then began to talk to us about trauma and the ways people react after a traumatic incident. It's not the first time I've heard my reactions to various events in my life as post-traumatic. In my first therapy, when I was about 18 years old, we talked about the trauma of surviving sexual abuse and the trauma of surviving the various situations I'd gotten myself into while acting out in response to the sexual abuse. After September 11th, I talked to a therapist for a bit about my weird responses. For months afterward, I was afraid of blimps, low-flying airplanes, loud noises...I'd startle easily, and I felt a little separated from myself. Now, I'm talking through trauma again, and finding some clarity in understanding my responses to my husband's behavior.

He is doing well, still. Recovery is new, and he's afraid and kind of a mess and unsure of how to deal with the emotions he's been blotting out for years. Sometimes, he doesn't know what to do with himself, and he kind of boils over. When I see that happening, I retreat into primal fear. I am very, very afraid of him yelling, walking around and seeming too big in the room. I am afraid of him going away by starting to use again--going away into his addict. I am afraid of his behavior being so awful that I have to make him go away. I am living in fear of the past coming back, and stumbling over my own psychological patterns. When things are big and terrifying, I have some well-worn patterns of emotional retreat, and I go there quickly.

It's interesting, but identifying the reaction, giving it a name, helped me to see what was happening better, and it also gave my husband an opportunity to hear me and see what was happening. I got some empathy from him, and I think we might both be better able to handle these situations better in the future. Good stuff.

No.

2009-01-12T19:02:00.003-05:00

My husband had a fantastic outburst of his addict today, and it seems the root of the evil was that I wouldn't buy him a soda because I wasn't sure if I had enough money in my account. I'm down to pennies until I get paid, and that makes my husband MAD.

It made him so mad that he realized he's only been going to these AA meetings to make me happy. It's just something he's doing to please me because he loves me, and also because I'm controlling. And it's good for him, but he's only doing it for me. And he never agreed to get a sponsor. And he's been wasting his time. He should be going to church or looking for a job instead of attending all these meetings I make him go to, even though he understands I make him go because I love him and it's good for him. It doesn't matter anyway, though, because God has cured him of addiction, and the AA people don't understand that God can cure you of anything if He wants to, and God has taken away his desire to use drugs. And he could quit methadone if he wanted to, but he won't because he told me that he wouldn't, so it's just another way I'm keeping him from achieving his full potential. I'm holding him back spiritually.

He said all these things REALLY LOUD.

I pointed out that there was still some time left in his busy day of doing nothing, and that I'd be glad to give him a ride to church if he wanted to go. He'd gotten some phone numbers about his church's addiction treatment program the last time he attended, and he'd never called them back. I also suggested that he might have some time to look for a job in the 23 hours each day when he's not in a meeting.

It was VERY bitchy of me to have noticed that there are 23 other hours in the days that he goes to meetings, which isn't even every day. He doesn't understand how I can go to my meetings and buy into the "program" language about how addiction is a disease and have so little compassion for him. He's sick, he has a disease, and he can't be expected to go to meetings and attend church and get a job all at the same time.

It was at this point in his rant that things became clearer for me. He'd just told me he was cured of his addiction, but now, he was back to being very, very sick in his addiction, and somehow, all of it was my fault for not understanding. I realized that I was trying to understand and empathize with his desire to wear a tinfoil hat, and that I needed to stop and back out of the situation. I left and went to yoga.

The worst part, though, is that he failed to use any of the tools he's been acquiring in all these meetings. He didn't call his sponsor. He didn't pray. He didn't call a program friend. He called his mom, and he's spending the night with his parents. While I am glad to have him out of the house for the evening, I am sad that he made a choice that will likely result in him using. Maybe it won't, but based on his behavior today, it seems way, way likely.

I wasn't happy being separated from him, but I was doing it, and I was getting more and more comfortable as time passed. I'm so sad that he's coming unglued now, and I wish that it wouldn't happen. I got a lot of hope out of the month that he put together of really, really working on himself, and I don't want to move backwards.

We have a marriage counseling appointment tomorrow, and I hope he shows up. If he does, we'll certainly have a lot to talk about. I need to get clear for myself on what I need, what is my baseline. I can't live like that anymore.

Tonight's Lesson.

2009-01-11T01:17:00.003-05:00

OK, after an hour or so of sobbing, I did some meditating and praying and figured out what I'm meant to learn from my husband's selfish behavior tonight:

I have to stop orbiting him. I know I need to stop orbiting him, as it always ends badly. He's not a stable planet. He's a collapsing star, and apt to turn to a black hole. It's dumb to make that the weight in my life, and I ought to have learned that lesson by now. To continue to make plans based on his word, his promises, or his commitment is to set myself up for disappointment. It's denial. I want badly for him to be completely better, and it's silly for me to expect him to do things the right way all the time.
I have to take care of myself, and I need to remember that my meetings, yoga, meditation, and friends are a priority. My husband is a priority as well, and it's ok for me to want to spend time with him, but it's not ok for me to get waylaid from the other things that ground me and give me strength.
It is ok for me to have reactions to his bad behavior, and I actually have handled this evening quite well. He did something selfish and stupid, and it hurt my feelings. I dealt with it without indicting him, and I have a plan for a safe place to talk to him when, hopefully, he'll be more receptive than he could be tonight.

In the end, he is doing really well, and so am I. This is new territory for both of us, and it's not going to go along perfectly. We've both slipped a little today, and hopefully, we'll both get it back together.

To Wives.

2009-01-10T20:34:00.002-05:00

"When resentful thoughts come, try to pause and count your blessings. After all, your family is reunited, alcohol is no longer a problem, and you and your husband are working together toward an undreamed-of future."

-The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

That's what I needed to hear. Someone on one of my latest Second Road post asked me if I'd read the chapters of the Big Book about the family, and so I got the book to read the chapters "To Wives" and "The Family Afterward."

There's a bit we read at the end of our Nar-Anon meetings that came from the "Wives" chapter, and it's one of my favorites. It brought tears to my eyes to see it here: "We want to leave you with the feeling that no situation is too difficult and no unhappiness too great to be overcome."

Faith.

2009-01-09T16:38:00.002-05:00

I'm working the second step today with my sponsees. I'm excited. I am finding, lately, that I need some regr0unding in the God steps.

Faith has never come easy to me, and I'm exploring why. I don't have faith in anything. I don't have faith in God, or at least I don't easily trust. I have to beat my head against whatever it is I'm fighting for a long, long time, and when I prove to myself thoroughly well that I can't do whatever it is on my own, I put my faith in God as a last resort. What a better life I would have if I could put that faith first!

I don't have faith in myself. I don't believe that I am capable, and I don't believe that I have the life that I want. Just last night, I was in my bathtub, crying quietly like I do, thinking about all the plans I'd had for myself that I hadn't yet fulfilled. I thought that by this point in my life, I'd be a successful writer. I thought I'd be teaching. I thought I'd have a home of my own and a family. For some reason, it seems like I haven't accomplished those things, even though I've actually accomplished every single one of them, just not in the way I'd thought I would. I earn my living teaching and writing. I am married to the love of my life, and we're finding our way in spite of some big setbacks early on. We have a house that's charming as hell when we can manage to keep it together. I don't know why none of this seemed like enough, but I know that a part of my perception of failure is that I don't believe I am capable of fulfilling my own desires.

I don't know why. I've shown myself again and again that I can come through for myself. I've also been shown again and again that God will take care of what I can't do for myself. I've never missed a mortgage payment in these last two years I've been paying the bills without help, and it really doesn't make sense that I've been able to pull it off...it's been loaves and fishes, multiplying.

So in spite of evidence, which shouldn't be necessary anyway with faith, I still struggle with faith.

I'm going to keep pushing on, though...because I think I do have a mustard seed. I think I have faith, if nothing else, in the process, and I believe that I can change this stuff...

Triggered.

2009-01-06T22:29:00.002-05:00

There was a newcomer at our meeting tonight, and man, it really fucked with the cozy head space I'd carved for myself out of my husband's new recovery. She'd found a syringe, a spoon, and she'd done all the crazy, investigative things you do when you first figure out that someone you love is using. As she described the stuff she'd found and the places where she'd found it, my response was physical. Visceral. I could imagine reaching in the closet, sticking my hand above the door, and feeling the syringe...knowing what it was before you knew what it was.

She was very concerned with getting sure that it wasn't heroin...she seemed to hope that it was pain pills somehow consumed through a syringe as a superior alternative to heroin. I remember the first night I found a syringe and how I'd hoped and hoped that it would be anything besides heroin. I'm not sure why. I'd already seen that my husband could go to some pretty scary places with pain pills, so I don't know why heroin seemed so dire.

I guess it's because it was dire. Heroin changed everything. He could get himself back from a bender with pain pills, but he got a lot more lost in heroin.

I guess, though, that in the end, it was what had to happen. He had to reach a place where he couldn't get himself back so that he'd find what he's finding now...the fellowship of other addicts, finding their ways back to themselves. And I had to be there with him, every step of the way, to find my own way back to myself.

He and his sponsor have been marching along, meeting together pretty rigorously. He's diligently doing his homework, calling his sponsor, and attending his meetings. I couldn't manage him better myself, which is a little shocking. I like to think that I can manage him more perfectly than he can manage himself, of course.

He attended a meeting recently that was a step study, focusing on the fifth step. He is suddenly quite anxious about having to tell his secrets, to face them out loud. He woke up several times last night having nightmares about stuff that he says he doesn't want to talk about but that he knows he'll have to talk about soon.

Fun.

I guess it takes some big demons to chase you to heroin.

I know, though, that I wasn't going to stop running until I figured out what was chasing me. Working the steps, more than anything else I've ever done in my life, has helped me to put words to my experiences, and I trust in this process. I trust it will help him as it has helped me, and I'm excited to watch him unfold.

World's Sexiest Husband.

2009-01-04T22:43:00.002-05:00

Tonight, my husband read aloud to me from the AA Big Book. His sponsor had asked him to read the first chapter, "The Doctor's Opinion," before their chat today, and he asked if I'd like to read with him. He read the first chapter, and then I read "Bill's Story" to him. When we were done, he went and called his sponsor.

I don't know if I've ever seen anything sexier than my husband doing his AA homework and calling his sponsor. I plan to reward him generously.

AAnother WAAy.

2009-01-03T21:30:00.003-05:00

My husband found a sponsor! They are hanging out right now. He heard him speak at an AA meeting a few weeks ago, and he thought he was smart and funny. He kept staring at the guy last night, and finally approached him and asked him to be his sponsor.

I think he might have come off as a little insane, having been put through the wringer with the sponsorship business lately. He spilled his guts about methadone without mentioning that he was looking for a sponsor or why he was talking to him, and he probably scared the guy.

In the end, once the prospective sponsor figured out that he was being asked to be a sponsor, he agreed. He told him that the methadone is between him and his doctor, and that he'd be glad to take him through the steps. It's the most exciting thing, ever.

Dear Narcotics Anonymous,

2009-01-02T19:44:00.002-05:00

It seems like I might have learned my lesson by now about having expectations about addicts' behavior, but I haven't.

Or really, I think it was the steps I had put my faith in, especially that 12th step. And also maybe the 5th tradition. I thought that if someone was struggling with a drug problem and came to Narcotics Anonymous, that person would find help.

My husband recently was turned down by the fourth sponsor he's asked to guide him through the steps, again because of the methadone mess. He left the meeting, got in the car, and cried. "I can't believe that not even the drug addicts will have me," he said. "Even the drug addicts think that I'm a piece of shit. I'm an outsider, even here."

I'm really frustrated for him. I'm trying not to get into his business, but I can't let it go. He is seeking help, and he's not getting it. Everyone he asks to sponsor him insults him and denigrates his commitment to getting better, and it's discouraging. I am afraid for him. These folks are trying to save their lives, and I believe that the kind of attitude he is facing could cost a life.

I understand that there is a conflict with methadone. I understand the complications...I really do. So does my husband. However, I do not understand why my husband can't have a sponsor to support him through the process of getting off methadone. I don't understand why no one is willing to answer his phone calls and talk to him about the program while he's ready and willing to listen. I don't understand what good can come of denying someone who is asking for help.

It's like if I denied a newcomer at a Nar-Anon meeting because she hadn't yet left her husband. Or maybe if I refused to sponsor someone because she sometimes still enables. It doesn't make sense.

The guidance and support of a sponsor while he is going through the long, painstaking process of detoxing from methadone would be priceless. I am having a hard time with all kinds of aspects of this mess...what lesson is God trying to teach him? To teach me?

And what else is he supposed to do? His latest plan is to go to every N.A. meeting in our town, to tell his story, and to keep going until he finds someone who will sponsor him. If he doesn't find anyone, he says he'll quit going. It scares me that he might quit and that this window might close before he has a chance to get better, but I understand his frustration. I hope he finds the right person or the right group.

A Good Girl.

2008-12-28T20:37:00.003-05:00

I just realized something: I'm a good girl.

I don't drink. I don't have sex with strangers. I don't do drugs. I do all this yoga and meditation and praying. I go to meetings about it.

If nothing else comes of my adventures in being married to a heroin addict, I've been molded into a good woman. I'm hard-working, self-reliant, spiritual, moral, and proactive about it all.

I have spent my life being a bad girl, or at least since around early adolescence. I didn't like rules, anybody's. I became one of those kids who sat in the back of the class. I cut class. I got high. I cursed. I was friends with the bad kids when I had friends at all; often, I was too bad or crazy or bitchy to have friends.

Today, I have good friends. Good people who genuinely love me and who I love...I have God in my life, and I begin and end every day by taking some time to re-center myself in my spirituality. I think about what's right and what's wrong when I'm making a decision instead of just doing whatever feels good or what seems easiest (as I've learned that the easy-seeming, feel-good way usually is the harder way in the long run).

I am finding balance, too, in putting other people first. For me, compassion and empathy have been all-or-nothing...either I make myself into a doormat or I make someone else into a doormat. These days, I am better able to show compassion in healthy, productive ways, for myself and for others.

I never thought I'd be this person, and I'm so, so grateful to be a good girl.

Spin.

2008-12-24T14:54:00.003-05:00

I've left my husband for the first time since he's been out of the hospital to go spend time with family. I'll be back with him tomorrow night. This brief separation has reaffirmed for me how awfully attached I am.

I am struggling with first step stuff. I believe that I am keeping my husband sober. It would seem that all the ample evidence I've collected over the last few years that it is not possible for me to keep my husband clean would be enough for me, but apparently, it's not. Apparently, I am powerless over my husband when he's using, but once he gets clean, I believe that I am the magic glue holding his sobriety together. I'm the clean troll guarding the bridge to his sanity, warding off fiendish mothers and Mexican drug dealers. My love is the anti-heroin, and without it, my husband is certain to fall into disrepair.

It's particularly hard because he doesn't have a phone anymore, so I can't expect to hear from him. If I do talk to him, it will be due to a fluke, and probably due to a scary one, like that his mother dropped by to investigate his methadone take-homes.

He has fed this beast of mine as well. He's told me that he appreciates how much time I've been willing to spend with him while this recovery stuff is new because it keeps him safe.

Sigh. It makes my control-loving heart skip a beat.

I wish my mind-control powers worked long distance. I wonder how many times I have to work through the steps to get state-wide mind control?

He has been doing really, really well, though, and I can take comfort in it. He has a higher power who has taken good care of him in spite of my husband's best efforts to destroy himself, and I trust that if he isn't done researching his first step yet, he's getting closer.

Something really nice happened as I was leaving yesterday...or maybe it didn't properly happen. I felt something nice. I didn't want to leave him. I've forgotten what that feels like, not wanting to leave. A part of it was my fear of losing my delusion of control and being too far away to monitor him properly, but most of it was that he's back. He's really, really back. He's not perfect, but he's the man I fell in love with instead of his evil twin, almost all the time.

He's been talking a lot about how he's going to feed what's good in himself and starve the rest, shrink it away and keep it in a little cage. One day, his addict will be a mousey little thing, and we'll pull it out to laugh while it spins in its pointless wheel. Maybe one day. Today, though, it's a long way from funny for me.

I'm a Terrible Boss.

2008-12-21T22:31:00.003-05:00

I've realized something this week after I had a bit of a meltdown from forgetting to take a day off for weeks and weeks and weeks. I realized I'd gone at least 15 days without taking a full day off, and also, the economy has several of my clients putting me off when it comes time to pay me for my work. Last week, I had to pursue my pay from four separate gigs. One check was lost in the mail, and I had to order a replacement. The rest were late to varying degrees. I found myself working and working and working, responding to emails from folks hounding me about deadlines, with absolutely no money in my checking account to show for it. I ran around collecting money, hauling my laptop with me and writing whenever I had a minute to stop and open it up, until I felt like I couldn't speak English anymore.

I'm a terrible boss.

Being self-employed, I have no one to blame for my horrendous work conditions but my own self. I wake up early and work. I work all night. Sometimes, I don't give myself a lunch break. I won't give myself health insurance, and I won't pay myself for as many hours as I work. I underestimate my worth and set my hourly rate too low. I over-commit myself. I won't let me have a day off.

I had to go on strike this week to get me to give myself a day off. I decided on Thursday night, when I was staring at a document and fighting off tears because the words had stopped making sense, that I had to step away from the work. I closed the computer at 6:30 on Thursday night, went to my meeting, and didn't open it again until Saturday afternoon. I went to yoga on Friday for the first time in two weeks. I slept in. I cleaned my house. I went to an art gallery with my husband. It was wonderful.

I've got to remember to be as regimented about taking a day off, at least one full day every week, as I am about working. I am my own slave, and I don't work well when I'm exhausted. I've realized that I've not gone a day without writing in years. Years. If I've not been writing for work, I've been writing for pleasure. I don't want to kill that part of me, and I'm starting to see that it needs a break now and then.

So listen, Self, I'm not going to take this treatment anymore. I'm going to demand a reasonable schedule, enough sleep, yoga a few times a week, and regular meals. I'm going to go to meetings, and I'm going to stop working past 8PM. I'm going to say "No" sometimes, and I'm going to set deadlines that work for me. If people don't pay me for the work I do, I'm going to stop working for them until they do...and if the work is late, I'm not going to sweat the deadline. And that's final.

Fried.

2008-12-18T12:02:00.004-05:00

I am fried. I'm not writing well. It's sucky.

I have a huge project that I'm trying to finish that was due on Monday, and it's been eating my brains. I have decided that today, I'm going to work on other projects and let the big, soul-sucking one lie for a bit. I hope this helps.

I'm not sleeping well. I'm not going to yoga. I'm not doing much besides sitting in front of my laptop in a questionable state of sanitation, writing.

One thing I have been doing in the midst of it all is keeping up my meditation practice, and it has served me well. Having a few minutes to be quiet and to notice my state has helped me to stay aware and to recognize that I'm doing a bad job at meeting my own most important needs. I have had a few experiences this week in meditation that have been powerful, and one last night has given me some insight into the way I'm working.

God gave me a gift with words, and I honor that gift when I use it well. It serves me; it is how I make my living. It is how I serve others. It is how I soothe myself when I'm struggling. However, when I exploit it like I'm doing right now, I don't honor that gift. I've got to learn to slow down and take my time to avoid exploiting this skill. I need to nurture it so that I can use it to nurture me.

Life is Good.

2008-12-15T14:28:00.002-05:00

It's a beautiful day. My husband and I are sitting together at a coffee shop. I'm working. He's writing in a step workbook. I can't stop smiling.

It is kind of a miracle to me the difference it makes that he's trying. He told me this morning about a slip. His mother gave him two hydrocodone pills a few weeks ago, and he took them. It doesn't matter to me. I feel none of the panic and none of the urge to flee that I've been feeling.

I'd suspected that all it would take for me to forgive him and be able to move forward with our life and our marriage was a concerted effort on his part to make his recovery a priority. Today, it's enough. I can't swear that a year from now I'll feel the same way, that attending a meeting every day and diligently avoiding the people, places, and things that he finds triggering will counterbalance his unemployment, financial tomfoolery, or other life-skills where he often falters...but today, it's enough. The air is warm on my skin. I'm doing work I love. It's enough.

Detachment 102

2008-12-12T17:31:00.003-05:00

My husband went to the new clinic today, and they told him that as long as he will participate in 2 of their group therapy sessions each week, they'll continue to dose him regardless of the amount of money he has. The director of the program said that they will let him know with plenty of advance notice if they are going to have to cut him off for any reason, and that they will work with him for as long as they can.

I'm really, really happy for him. It's like a window has opened in his life. I'm glad to find at least one person working in the substance abuse treatment field in our city who is interested in helping someone.

He is struggling, and I am struggling with how he is struggling. I'm in his business in all kinds of unhealthy ways. I'm thinking that I'm going to have to go back to the steps to learn how to deal with my husband when he's on a healthier path.

Apparently, I've graduated from God's course in Detaching from my Addict Husband 101, and God has signed me up for Detaching from my Recovering Husband: 102. Yay. I get to learn new hard things.

I'm feeling a little overwhelmed in every area of my life. I've been helping my husband out too much and succumbing to his every whim. He is weak and sick and needy, and I will stay home from my yoga classes to sit with him and make sure he's ok. I've expressed to him several times that I am not going to be able to fulfill his every need, but I do want to be here for him while he's in this transition.

I am so proud of him. I have never seen him stick to something for this long. He's been to a meeting every day since he got out of the hospital. It's not an eternity, but it's a major step for my husband. He has real struggles with following through on his commitments, and he's doing it this time. And just like when we were first married, I am letting my world shrink around him. I'm letting him be my best friend, my lover, my god, my source of entertainment and validation and humor and everything. My new struggle is how to continue growing and living my own life, even when he's doing well.

If I've learned anything about myself in this process, though, it's that I'm persistent in seeking out my truth. I have some character defects, but I also have some real strengths. I won't stop looking for my own peace, and I'll find my way.

Hope?

2008-12-11T15:17:00.002-05:00

My husband spoke with someone at a different methadone clinic in town today, and it seems like they might be willing to work with him while his Medicaid application is in process. I'm not sure what they will do, but it's a state-run facility instead of a for-profit one like he's going to now, so maybe they will be gentler with the fees.

I'm feeling hopeful that they will be able to help him out. He's feeling pretty hopeless.

His mother dropped by the house today. She thought he'd be getting some take-home bottles of methadone, and she wanted him to give her one. He's lost his take-home privileges because of his hospital stay, so he's off his regular schedule.

It makes me so, so angry. He doesn't have any extra methadone. He's facing a real crisis about his ability to access his medicine, and she thinks she needs some of it? Because she wants to get high? So he should be sick?

Fucking addicts.

I have a lot of things brewing, but I don't know what to say about them all. I'm overwhelmed, but I'm grateful that there's at least a crack in a window for my husband.

Hopeless.

2008-12-09T14:32:00.006-05:00

My husband is struggling today, and he needs it to be my fault. He was telling me how he's having a lot of using dreams, and that he'd been having cravings today that were hard to handle. I don't have an answer for him, as I'm not an addict. I can't be his sponsor, and he wants me to be able to give him the kind of feedback that a sponsor would. It creates a situation where no matter what I say or do, I'm going to be wrong. If I make suggestions, they will be wrong. If I don't, I'll be cold-hearted. I can't handle it.

We had our first day of marriage counseling today, and the counselor mentioned the hierarchy of needs, and how it's hard to work on our relationship when some of his basic needs are not being met. It's true.

I'm so afraid. He seemed to be doing so well for a little while, and he's still trying to do well. I am afraid that it will be too difficult and he will give up. Getting out of the hole he's dug for himself will not be easy, and he doesn't stick with things that aren't easy. I don't want to lose him, but I can't live with him using.

I don't want to live in a world where there isn't help for somebody like my husband. I know he's backed himself into this corner, but he's trying hard to get out of it, and everywhere he turns, there's a brick wall. He tried to talk to someone at N.A. last night to ask about sponsorship, and the guy told him he could continue coming to meetings, but that he should sit quietly until he's off methadone. He said he wouldn't be willing to sponsor him until he's off methadone, and he shouldn't work the steps until he's done detoxing. It will take at least 2 years for my husband to get off methadone. He won't last two more years without some kind of sponsorship.

Everything is like that for him...wherever he reaches out for help, he gets turned away. It's horrible to watch. He screws himself, but he gets screwed, too. He's not in a place to handle that kind of frustration well, so he takes it out on me. It's not fair, but I understand where it's coming from.

This situation feels so hopeless and scary. I want to help him, and I can't. I'm proud of him for trying to help himself, but there's not much hope for relief for him, and I'm afraid of what will happen if something doesn't give...if he doesn't find a way to make sure that he will be able to get his methadone regularly AND to find a sponsor or a homegroup that will help him deal with his issues, he's going to fall apart. He needs a job. He needs a sponsor. He's willing and ready for both, and there isn't one.

Who is this man, and what have you done with my husband?

2008-12-08T18:53:00.002-05:00

This meeting-attending, honest man is making me kind of uncomfortable. I don't know how to deal with him.

I love him, and I'm afraid of him. What if he goes away?

Besotted.

2008-12-05T09:41:00.002-05:00

I've tried to get you out of my head but I can't seem to get you out of my flesh. I think about your body day and night. When I try to read it's you I'm reading. When I sit down to eat it's you I'm eating. When he touches me I think about you. I'm a middle-aged happily married woman and all I can see is your face. What have you done to me?

-Jeanette Winterson,Written on the Body

I've quoted this bit of Jeanette Winterson here before, I'm sure. A friend of mine sent it to me at the time when I was between marriages, running amok between and among possible lives. I identified with that single-minded obsession she describes, and I'd forgotten how it felt until lately.

I am thoroughly besotted with my husband. I'm exhausted in this lackadaisical, satiated way. All I want to do is be near him.

He's a mess, but he's a self-aware, present, loving mess, and he's doing the best he can, which is more than I ever expected. I've missed him. We were separated for almost a month before his hospitalization, and before the separation, he'd not been present in this way for a long time. I think it's been since August, really, that I've seen this side of him. That's a lot of months.

I'm going on with my life against my will. I want to stop everything and pay attention to my husband only. I want to stay home in bed with him and rub his back and kiss his face and tell him he's going to be ok.

I want to enjoy him, while he's here, without letting down my guard too much, without worrying about the future. I'm having a hard time letting myself fully wake up to these pleasant, present moments because the past and the future are so scary.

He's been to three meetings in three days. It's a big deal. He's sometimes crazy, but when he says things that are hurtful or when he's hyper-sensitive in that maddening addict way, he calls himself on it. He's trying to take clean up the messes he's made, slowly but surely. It's all good stuff, and it scares me, and it fills me with hope.

Best of all, though, is he is mine. He's a mess and he's my mess. We sleep all wrapped together like vines. I wish there was nothing else to do in the world. I wish that vines would come up out of the ground and grow over us, fold us into the ground.

Perfection.

2008-12-03T09:49:00.004-05:00

I have a student who is teaching me a lesson about perfectionism.

She struggles with writing, both at the conceptual and sentence levels; however, she's a bright young woman with some interesting ideas, which are good ingredients for a strong writer.

"What if I compared Hurricane Katrina and September 11th?" she asked when it was time to write a compare and contrast essay. I thought it was a good idea, but I encouraged her to focus on a few points to keep it from being too sprawling for the small-scale essay I'd required. She went off and wrote an essay that was pretty interesting, but needed some more analysis and a bit of polishing. I wrote some comments and asked her a few questions to help her get the analytical wheels turning, and gave it back. When she revised the essay, she had deleted everything she'd written previously and written an entirely new essay, this time proving that Hurricane Katrina and September 11th were similar because they were national tragedies but different because one was natural and the other was man-made. She'd taken away all the nuances in her argument about race and class and produced a poorly written essay on a silly topic. She repeated this process throughout the semester with every essay, so finally we had a meeting to talk it over.

She said she'd felt like she'd made too much of a mess of her first drafts, so she rewrote them on easier topics for the second and third. Instead of processing through her mistakes and polishing up the raw material into something powerful, she'd tear it all down and rebuild on a smaller scale. If she couldn't write a perfect essay in one attempt, she felt like she never could. It was too hard. She gave up.

I offered her an analogy. "If you're styling your hair, and there is a piece that is sticking up, do you shave your head?"

"No."

"You smooth that piece down, right?"

"Yes."

"That's what's happening with this essay. You've got a few little things that need to be smoothed over and finessed. You've shaved your essay's head."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry. I understand."

I understand too well. There are many times in my life when I'm afraid to attempt something because I believe I will fail. I see my husband, too, struggling with his attempts to get clean. It seems too hard, too big, and too much. If he slips, he figures he should just give up. Fuck it all.

There's something I'm learning here...I'm not sure what it is exactly, but my student has been helping me sort through some of my own struggles, and I'm grateful to her for the lesson.

Prayer and Meditation.

2008-12-01T09:53:00.002-05:00

I have been focusing on meditation after having a really wonderful experience meditating a few weeks ago, but I have had less success with being able to pray. I have had a few different kinds of prayers over the last few years while struggling with my reactions to my husband's addiction. Most often, my prayers are centered around the themes, "Help me! Help me! Help me!" or "Please help my husband!" Sometimes, I have prayed in gratitude when I've broken through some barrier, and after working the steps the first time, my prayers have frequently reworded the 11th step..."God, please show me your will for me and give me the power to carry it out."

Last night, though, I recognized something new...

When I pray, it can function similarly to my meditation. When I sit to meditate, I am trying to quiet my mind, and the way I quiet it is to bring awareness to my thoughts. If I start to have a sexual thought about my husband, I can label it as "desire," and come back to my breath, my mantra, my center. If I have a thought about a resentment, I can label it as "aversion," and again return to quiet. Once I shine some awareness on my thoughts, they tend to dissipate, and I find some peace and stillness within myself.

If I apply these same principles to prayer, then, I can shine a light of awareness outside myself. I found myself praying last night, and the thoughts that came to my mind were all extensions of loving kindness to people who I love. I thought of my husband, and I brought my attention to hoping that he is able to follow God's path for him, and that the path will include some healing. I thought of certain members of my family and friends, and I bathed them with similar loving wishes. I thought of my students, and I wished them success in finishing the semester and hoped God would guide them to breakthroughs in their work. It felt so good that I even thought of some the people I like least in the world, and wished them peace and a softening of the rough edges of life.

I've heard many times that meditation is listening to God and prayer is talking to God, which was a helpful starting place...but this new understanding of meditation as an inward-facing concentration of loving kindness and prayer as an outward-facing concentration of that same energy helped me understand it all in a new way. I'm excited.

In God's Hands

2008-11-28T17:03:00.002-05:00

I've posted another update at The Second Road. In all the crazy, I've gotten behind in my obligations to post over there, so I'm catching up. I plan to be back to my regularly scheduled blogging next week.

Online Step Study: The First Step

2008-11-26T00:20:00.002-05:00

I'm working on a new website for people interested in working the steps online, and I'd love some feedback. I'm putting together the content for the first step right now. If you've worked the steps and you have something to say about the experience that you'd be willing to share on my new site, which I hope will go live around the first of the year, please leave it in a comment here. I'll return the favor with a link if you'd like, and it's sure to plant excellent karmic seeds!

Thank you all.

2008-11-25T23:57:00.001-05:00

Thanks to everyone who has sent me kind messages after this weekend's mess.

You can read an update at The Second Road.

Commitment.

2008-11-24T11:09:00.007-05:00

Marriage means commitment. Of course, so does insanity. I'm up to my neck in both.

Over the last several days, my husband has increasingly talked of a desire to hurt himself. He has been caught somewhere between wanting to turn himself in to the police to deal with his warrant and to find some help to detox. Feeling like these two options were the only ones, he's vacillated between hopelessness and fear. Yesterday morning, when we woke up, he wanted to go to the emergency room. He'd called a few detox facilities, and they'd all suggested that going to the emergency room would be a good first start to being connected to resources to help him with his suicidal feelings and his detox.

We went to an emergency room, and he told the doctor that he was feeling suicidal and that he wanted help with his substance abuse problems. He told him that he was on methadone maintenance, but that he is out of money and has no way to secure methadone and continue weaning down. He said that he is horribly afraid of being dopesick, and that he's feeling like he'd rather kill himself than detox on his own again. He told him that he is violent toward me, aggressive, and angry when he's detoxing, and that he doesn't want to be a risk to me, to himself, or to anyone.

The doctor called a detox center, which said that his methadone dose was too high to help him. He explained that while he has been prescribed a high dose of methadone, that he's not been able to get it regularly because of his financial problems, and so he's been spreading out his doses over several days. They said that he should get back on his methadone program, and that was all the advice they had in spite of his protests that he is out of money. This doctor gave him a prescription to help him with nausea, and sent him home. No one addressed the fact that he was saying that he wanted to kill himself, and they didn't offer suggestions for anymore resources.

He was becoming increasingly agitated and talked more and more about wanting to cut his throat or slit his wrists. I recommended that we try our county's psychiatric emergency room, as it seemed like that might be a place where they'd listen to you when you were saying that you wanted to kill yourself. We went there next.

Again, he told the intake nurse that he was thinking about killing himself, and he wanted help with his suicidal feelings as well as some ideas about resources to help him detox from methadone. The doctors took him back in a room, had him dress in scrubs, and took away his pocketknife. They brought me out a bag full of his things, and I was very excited. I thought that they must be admitting him, and it seemed like they were trying to get him some help. They let me go back to visit him, behind a set of locked doors, and he said that they were going to send him to the county detox facility, where they'd promised he'd be able to see a nurse to get some help for the symptoms of his detox. I sat in with him while he explained his fears and his suicidal thoughts to a psychiatrist, and I expressed my own fears for his safety as well as my own. I told her about all his crazy behavior in the recent and the distant past, and how I was both afraid to leave him alone and to stay with him when he was detoxing. The psychiatrist said she understood, and she promised him that he wouldn't leave her care without getting the help he needed. She said that he seemed paranoid about the medical system, but that there was no reason to be afraid. She assured him that there was help for people like him. He thanked her, and she asked us to go wait in the main waiting room.

A nurse brought out a customer satisfaction survey, and my husband filled it out, writing a note at the end thanking them for helping him. We sat for a few minutes, and the nurse came out with his paperwork. She asked us to step into another room.

She handed him his discharge papers, and then she said, "I'm sorry, but we're not going to be able to help you. They can't take you at the county detox unless you get your methadone dose down to 30 milligrams. We recommend you go back to the methadone clinic and wean down according to their plan."

And that was it...no further suggestions for other resources. No attempts to help him with his suicidal threats. He began to cry, and he asked, "Is that it? There's nothing else? Nobody can help me? What if I kill myself? Can somebody help me with that?"

The nurse said that he'd have to leave. A security guard came and escorted us away from the premises. Another nurse, who'd not spoken with my husband at all. yelled at him from the parking lot that he was going to have to help himself if he wanted to get off drugs. He said that he was trying to help himself, and she continued to shout at him that he was going to have to get some help and that he couldn't do it on his own. When he tried to respond to her, the security guards became increasingly aggressive.

My husband was pretty worked up at this point, and he called the emergency room back to try to speak with the psychiatrist who had promised he wouldn't leave her facility without proper care. No one would let him speak with her, and when he threatened to kill himself again, the nurse on the phone said, "I'm going to have to end this call now," and hung up on him.

A friend of mine was on the phone with me listening to all this, and so she called the police. My husband insisted I drive him to a hardware store so that he could buy some razor blades to kill himself. We were intercepted by police officers, who took the razor blades from my husband and escorted him back to the emergency room. Even when escorted by police officers who had just removed razor blades from him, the psychiatrist refused to treat him. The same nurse who had never seen my husband and who had yelled at him in the parking lot before came outside and told the police officers that they needed to have him arrested, and they told her that they couldn't arrest him for trying to get some help.

The police officers recommended that we meet with their suicide crisis team, and my husband and I went home. The suicide crisis worker came to our house, and her goal was to smooth things over with the psychiatric emergency room. My husband was afraid to go back there, so the next suggestion was to have him involuntarily committed.

So that's what happened next. I went to the magistrate's office, and I had my husband committed. Oddly, the same magistrate who married us filled out the paperwork for the commitment. About an hour after I swore on a Bible that my husband was a danger to himself and to other people, the police came and got him and took him away to get help. They told him that they'd have to investigate the warrants for his probation violation, but that getting him medical and psychiatric care was the first priority. The police were the people most interested in getting him help. It was kind of strange...the medical and psychiatric folks kept saying, "No. No. No," while the police kept saying, "Yes! Yes! Yes!"

So now, he is in a hospital bed in the county psychiatric center, waiting for a bed at a detox facility that's not too far away. Word is, it will be next week before he gets there. In the mean time, they are treating his detox symptoms to the best of their ability. I spoke with him briefly, and he seems afraid and uncomfortable, but hopeful.

I also have spent a lot of time today telling his story to anybody who will listen to me. I know that he's a drug addict without money or health insurance, but he deserves to be heard, and he deserves respect and help when it's available. It is sad to me that he had to be carried away from his home in handcuffs in order to get the help that he'd been seeking all day long. A few hospital administrators are investigating what happened yesterday, and they've assured me that my husband will get proper care in the mean time and that they'll let me know what comes of their investigation.

So that's my story. It's complicated and hard to write. It's not a story that reads prettily, but it's what happened. I'm tired now, and I'm going to nap.

Gratitude.

2008-11-21T17:25:00.002-05:00

Earlier this week, I got a mantra from my guru, and I've been meditating with it since. It's working for me. I'm not sure if it's my commitment to meditating twice a day and my persistence in sticking with it, or if it's the mantra itself, but I feel like I'm finding authentic peace.

This morning, I was walking between jobs, and the air was so, so cold, and the sun felt warm on my face, and the sky was beautiful and blue. I felt overcome with gratitude. I'm finding a better way to live, and it's working.

When I finished sitting in meditation last night, I couldn't get up. It felt too good to sit so surely in myself. I bowed my head in prayer, and sat for a long time repeating, "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you."

Thank you.

Thank you.

Lifting My Own Spirits.

2008-11-19T14:57:00.003-05:00

My new guru says often that positive thinking means lifting our own spirits. I'm trying to live in that definition today.

I'm lifting my spirits by cleaning my space and making it smell nice. I'm wearing comfortable clothes that make me feel beautiful. I'm spending time with people who make me feel calm and happy. I'm petting my animals and taking long baths.

Most of the time, it's working. It works best if I don't talk to my husband, but sometimes, it works even if I do talk to him.

Who would have known that self care would be so simple and so difficult. Every time I think I'm doing it right, I recognize that there are whole realms of places where I can do better, nurture myself more.

I wonder where it happened that I lost track of how to love myself. In the end, I guess, it doesn't matter, since I'm getting it back today.

Ache.

2008-11-17T08:18:00.003-05:00

I am feeling awfully emptied out in so many ways. I'm tired. I'm overwrought. I miss my husband. I'm afraid.

I am angry. He's sucked me dry, and now he's shoving me off. I spoke with him briefly last night. I'm not sure why I opened that door. He talked about what it's going to be like in his next relationship and how he can't do anything to please me. Nothing's ever good enough.

It frustrates the hell out of me. No, it's not ever good enough for you to be high and a leach, but I'm pretty sure that it's not going to be good enough anywhere he takes that behavior. He responds to me as if I'm some kind of a gold digger, which is absolutely maddening. In his mind, he can either be clean and unemployed or using and working...and in his mind, the money he makes for working is his reward that should have nothing to do with bills that need to be paid.

I want the sick stuff inside of me that still loves him to get out of me. It's like poison in my blood, and I want it out. I don't want to feel the need to be close to him.

I'm on the ninth step, and I'd planned to make amends with him this time. Last time, I'd committed myself to making a living amends and to stop enabling. I've done that part well, but there's more I'd like to make right with him...like my inability to let him go...my obsessive clinging to the fantasy of the man who I wish he would be. I'm recognizing, though, that he's not ready to hear it, and I'm not ready to say it. Every bit of me aches for him, and I can't let go of the outcome. I'm still composing my amends as if it's going to save my marriage, and that's not the right way to go about it. I've got to sit on this one for a while.

God's Will for Me and the Power to Carry it Out.

2008-11-14T23:46:00.003-05:00

"All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on."

-Havelock Ellis

I'm starting my second round of the ninth step this weekend, but I am struggling with 11th step issues. I am looking and looking and looking for God's will for me, and I'm not sure what it might be.

It seems ungodly of God to want my marriage to end; it seems like God would want a marriage to be restored. Maybe God is mad at my marriage for springing from the seed of infidelity. Maybe God is mad at me for having a second marriage. Maybe that God I don't believe in is the God who's handling my life right now.

Sometimes, I feel like all the evidence in my life is pointing me toward ending everything with my husband, cutting all ties, and moving on. I want to pack up my belongings, sell my house, and move far, far, far away from this city that he haunts. Other times, it feels like every ounce of me is empty without my husband. It feels like I was born to love him, and no other life is optional. It feels like it's me, on my insides, that's haunted by him, and leaving him won't exorcise that connection. Nothing's going to get this demon out of me.

I want to know what it is I'm supposed to be doing, and I guess what I'm supposed to be doing is waiting and seeking God's will for me...waiting for the strength to carry it out.

Dear Husband,

2008-11-14T15:15:00.004-05:00

I still taste his kisses
like candy in my mouth.

-"Lonesome Blues" by the Be Good Tanyas

I am angry at myself for letting me relapse on you. I'm detoxing, again. I can't stop thinking about your mouth.

Today, I want to give up and tell you to come home. I want to tell you that I'll do whatever it takes not to have to lose proximity to your mouth.

At the meeting I went to last night, the topic was denial. I used to think of denial as that thing I felt in the face of your using, where I'd not even let myself admit the possibility that it could be happening. Today, my denial is different. I'm in denial that my life might be better without you.

I have a good life. I have good friends. I have a connection to my God. I have cool pets. I have a great job that I enjoy, and I'm making enough money to pay the bills by myself. I help a lot of people. I'm healthy. I'm attractive. I'm smart. When I take an inventory of my life without you in it, it's wonderful, or it should be wonderful...but I don't feel it. All I feel is the pain in my guts for wanting you.

And I'd trade it all. I'd give up everything if it could bring you back to me. I'd give up the sanity I've found in my efforts to compensate for your madness if I could find a way to live with you. I'd be ugly and stupid and broke and never, ever write another word if it would make us so we could live together. I wish I could just let it all go, and I know I can't.

I'm spending the rest of the day not calling you. I don't know what I want to say, but I want to call you. I know from experience that when I most want to call you, I most shouldn't. Nothing good will come of it, and if you hear my deep longing for you in my voice, you'll use it to hurt me.

I don't know what to do with myself. I miss you, and I love you from the deepest place inside me.

Your Wife.

No Trapdoor.

2008-11-12T22:18:00.003-05:00

I got home tonight, happy to find my husband here. I wasn't sure if he'd be at my house or not, but I thought he might. I sped all the way home, like I used to, excited to be close to him.

I saw him peek out the window, and then he got up and left, quickly. His movements made my heart skip a beat. I knew it couldn't be good. I came inside the house, and he was in the bathroom. He'd turned the exhaust fan on. It smelled like pot in the room.

I asked him if he'd been smoking. He said, "No." He asked me to come closer to him. I did. I smelled smoke on his breath. I asked him again if he'd been smoking, and he said, "No." I told him he smelled like smoke, and it smelled like smoke in my house. He then said that he'd smoked some pot a few hours earlier, but that he'd gone outside to do it. I told him it was probably best for him to leave, and he freaked out briefly, and then regained his composure.

As he was leaving, he pulled a bowl out of the drawer where he used to keep his underwear. "You probably smelled this," he explained.

"I don't know why I thought this was possible," he said.

I don't know why I thought it was possible, either.

He has a place he can go if he wants to be high. He can do that at his parents' house as much as he wants. I don't want drugs in my life, and I don't want the chaos that comes with him using around me.

I am sad that the escape latch I'd imagined isn't actually there. It's another door into the same room.

The Both Boat.

2008-11-11T14:35:00.004-05:00

A message from my guru:

You are having a problem with finding happiness within self. Probably this is a problem that comes from your childhood. Probably also your husband is having this problem as well, and for a while, you were sailing in the same boat. You were very happy in the both boat, but now, you are going in different directions.

I really, really loved his "both boat." We did find happiness in the both boat. For a long time, my husband fulfilled all my needs. He was my god, my social life, my career, my muse. He was everything to me. It was really, really beautiful and felt really, really good when it worked, but I see now that it doesn't work. It can never work forever. We can't keep sailing in the both boat.

He came over last night and spent the night, and it was an interesting exercise in boundaries. He wanted to stay for a few days, and I had to work through a lot of stuff to figure out what would be ok with me. The idea of him for one night felt wonderful; the idea of him staying for three or four days with no definite end felt unbearable. I can't express what made the difference between those two scenarios, but it was clear to me that I was happy for him to spend one night, but not several. I told him that he was welcome to spend one night, and I was afraid that he'd react badly, as my setting boundaries have never been happy for him.

He actually reacted well. We joked about how we're on vacation from each other, and that it's probably best to keep some space. I told him that I like the distance, and that I hardly hate him at all now. He said that he still hates me a lot. We giggled.

I am recognizing that I can find a lot of options if I am authentic. If I look into my own heart to find my answers, there are many possibilities of what I can do with my life. The options aren't either to live with my husband and be miserable or to live without my husband and be miserable. There are varying degrees of separation that might be what we need to save our marriage, and I'm happy that, at least today, we both seem able to navigate our separate boats.

I enjoyed falling asleep in my husband's arms. We both had a hard time getting out of bed this morning. It just felt good to be together. It felt good to be together and feel good about each other. It's been a long time coming. He went to work, and I worked from home after meeting with my guru. He came back here later in the evening, and we had a few minutes together. I am glad we had those minutes because they reminded me of what I can't live with: He called the next door neighbor, who came over to exchange video games. They were loud. They both had big shoes that got dirt on my clean floor. I got angry that my husband was messing around buying video games while I struggle to pay the bills.

I'm not ready to have my peace disrupted with his need to socialize with big, loud, pot-smoking men. I'm not ready to stay out of his business about money. He's not ready to devote himself completely to adult relationships or to make grown-up decisions about money. We're not in a good place to come together, no matter how much we love each other. It's clear to me from the contact we have.

Another thing I'm happy about that has come from our new "dating" relationship is that we are going to get marriage counseling. I'm on a waiting list at a place that offers income-based counseling for folks without insurance, so it will be affordable. I'm excited to have a third party help us to work through our issues and to help us set goals. He's very good at telling me what I need to do, and I'm very good at telling him what he needs to do. To have someone outside the relationship help us to see what we both need to do to be able to live with each other seems really, really helpful.

Today, I have a lot of hope.

A Date with my Husband.

2008-11-09T23:22:00.002-05:00

My husband took me out to the movies last night. He bought both of our tickets, which was nice, and he even snuck me in an ice cream sundae. We held hands through the movie. When the movie was over, we kissed each other goodnight. I went home. He went to his parents' house.

I guess this is working? At least for now?

Dear Husband,

2008-11-07T23:13:00.007-05:00

I've spent much of today thinking about your mouth: your lips, your teeth, your tongue. I've spent too much time on it.

Sometimes, I'm overcome by my physical desire for you, as if I've been traumatized by it. It's kind of like the feeling after being in a car crash...you're walking down the street, just living your normal life, and suddenly, you hear the cracking glass, the screeching tires. I'm living my life, teaching and writing and thinking and breathing, and all of a sudden, all I can see is your face. All I can see is your mouth. I feel paralyzed by it, and thrilled, and afraid.

My life has been fogged, like a mirror, by your breath. I wipe a little window to see through, and then I invite you back to heat the space all up again.

I'm still, oddly, enjoying this time alone. I am feeling much better about it after seeing you a few days ago and reading your sweet, sweet letter, but even if I am not comfortable with you out of my life, I am comfortable with you out of my house. I am proud of myself for coming to a place where I can recognize my need for separation from you.

I hope you are healing. I know that there's not likely to be much more time before you are going to want to come home, and I'm afraid of it. We aren't ready to live together. I won't tell you no. My fear is that we will continue to come together and separate, come together and separate, until I finally reach a point where I break.

Or that I won't ever reach that point.

I love you.

Your Wife.

Diamonds and Rust.

2008-11-06T13:53:00.001-05:00

Good Morning.

2008-11-05T18:11:00.002-05:00

My husband came to visit me this morning. It was a good visit. He and I are good at complicating things. Things are complicated.

I know I can't live with him, today, and I don't think he can live with me, either. I also can't live with the idea of him out of my life forever. Maybe I'm dating my husband.

It was good to visit with him, with all parts of him. I spent a long time with the back of his neck. I'd been thinking a lot about the back of his neck, right where it turns from flesh to hair.

I like the idea of developing a new way of interacting with each other, of living separately and together at the same time. I don't know if it's realistic or achievable, but it's worked today.

I love him. It won't leave me alone. The space I've had from him has been healthy for me, and today, it feels healthy to see him also. If dating my husband will work to allow me to have him in my life without his madness, then it's what I want today.

I left him in my house when I left for work. He hung out with the dogs before going on to his own work, and he left a letter for me by our bed. I won't tell what it said, but it was perfect and imperfect all at once. I pressed my lips to his red writing and left it by the bed. I want it there to remind me of something that I thought I'd lost, something I think I may never be able to lose.

Dear Husband,

2008-11-04T19:08:00.002-05:00

Talking to you is hard. It's hard and it's wonderful. It's wonderful and it's terrible.

Honestly, I've had a better day today, though, for knowing that you're missing me. It's sick. A lot of people, mostly people who don't know you and who don't know me, are telling me I'm a fool for even entertaining the possibility of having a future with you. They're all absolutely right. I'm a fool. I've always been a fool for you, and I don't see it ending any time soon.

I like the idea of living apart and seeing each other sometimes, of taking some space to heal separately but with an understood intention of coming back together. I feel like I can catch my breath. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but it's a true thing.

I meditated with my new guru today, and somewhere along the way, I recognized that I was sitting quietly without thinking of you. It felt like a victory to be able to sit quietly and not think of you, but letting my mind go to celebrate that victory turned it back on, and sent it spiraling after you. Before I was able to get back to myself, I found my hands wandering through your hair, holding still at the place where your hair meets your neck. I found my eyes picking through its color, the dark singed with gold; my mouth pressing close, breathing deep. My mind finds its way to you always, but I'm working on it.

I love you. No more, no less. I love you like I've always loved you. I feel differently about you, but the love is just the same as it ever was. It's never grown. It's never shrunk. It sinks me in myself like an anchor. I guess that's marriage, really: a love that never changes.

It bears out to the edge of doom. We stand together on the edge. I know you'll leap, and I won't let go of your hand.

Your Wife.

Spiritual Shopping Spree.

2008-11-04T13:25:00.003-05:00

Today was my second meeting with my guru, and I am very excited about one particular suggestion of his to enhance my meditation practice. He recommended that I get a set of clothes that I use only for meditation, which sent me on a giddy shopping spree for my perfect white light outfit. I had $25, so I headed to a discount store to see what I could come up with.

I started out in the exercise section, but nothing was quite right. Fortunately, though, the exercise section was right by the pajama area. I never wear pajamas, preferring either to go naked or to wear an old t-shirt to spending money on sleeping clothes...but there, in the pajama section, was a selection of the most ridiculous, beautiful, outrageous daishiki-muumuu looking things I've ever seen. They are long, one-size-fits-all kind of things, and they were only $8 each. It took me a while to settle on which one looked most meditative, but I settled on a black, silky number with a peacock design that has beautiful red, blue, and purple feathers.

Since I only spent $8 on the meditation outfit, I had plenty left over for additional spiritual accouterments. I got a beautiful black box with a Buddha on top. It's going to be my God Box now. I also got a set of candles and a pretty, sparkly candle holder.

I can't wait to get home and set it all up!

Dear Husband,

2008-11-03T17:31:00.004-05:00

I'm having another hard day.

I spoke with your mother today. She told me some stuff it was difficult to hear, but I'm not surprised. I can always tell when you turn into a different person...when the lies start. When you stop making sense. When you're so angry. When you can't finish anything you start. I always know, and I don't want to know, and I believe myself and don't at the same time.

I want the ache in my heart to go away, forever. I want the space next to me in my bed filled with you, but I want that other you. Maybe I want an imaginary you.

I want to understand my own ups and downs in grieving, but I guess it's not a thing that's logical or understandable in that way. I had such a good day yesterday, without falling apart at all...and then today, I've had much more bad time. For several days in a row, I felt like it was getting easier every day, but today is not easier than yesterday. Because of the particular ways I'm mad, I start to imagine that this is how it's going to be: a long, painful decline.

I'm taking good care of myself, though, and doing all the work I know I need to do to get through this stuff...I went to my yoga, and I've talked to my friends and family. I'm reading my books, going to my meetings, and working my steps. I am recognizing a tenacity in healing myself that makes me very proud of who I've become. I wish you could be proud of me, too. I wish, more than anything, to share this growth with you. I want you to be a part of the journey, and you're not.

I wonder what kinds of things you're thinking about. I wonder how deeply committed you are to sabotaging this relationship. I'm so afraid that you're going to do something stupid and irreparable. I'm afraid that you will do something stupid and irreparable, and I'll accept you anyway. I'm afraid that there's no good outcome.

I do want off the roller coaster, but I want you just as much. I'm very angry that it doesn't seem possible for me to have both.

I'm angry at your madness. I'm angry at myself for battering me against your madness, trying to make sense of it. I'm angry at your disease for making you think it's ok to treat me badly. I'm angry that you expect me to exude endless sympathy, endless money, endless love and support and nurturing because you're sick (because you're using). I'm angry that you think abstinence from heroin is the end of the problems you've created. I'm angry that the sudden, sharp personality changes I watched happen in you are all related to drugs, drugs, drugs. I'm so fucking sick of drugs. I'm sick of being sad. I'm sick of being sorry. I'm sick of being mad, lonely, afraid...I'm sick of it all.

I am shocked that there is such a profound part of me that is thinking it might be worth it just to go to you and ask you to come home, regardless of the cost. There's a part of me that thinks I'll put up with anything, always, just to keep you close to me.

I think I'm sicker than you are.

I love you.

Your Wife

Transition Words.

2008-11-03T06:10:00.000-05:00

definitely, extremely, obviously, in fact, indeed, in any case, absolutely, positively, naturally, surprisingly, always, forever, perennially, eternally, never, emphatically, unquestionably, without a doubt, certainly, undeniably, without reservation, yet, still, however, nevertheless, in spite of, despite, of course, once in a while, sometimes, whereas, but, yet, on the other hand, however, nevertheless, on the contrary, by comparison, up against, balanced against, vis a vis, although, conversely, meanwhile, after all, in contrast, although this may be true, first, second, third, and so forth. A, B, C, and so forth. next, then, following this, at this time, now, at this point, after, afterward, subsequently, finally, consequently, previously, before this, simultaneously, concurrently, thus, therefore, hence, next, and then, soon, in brief, on the whole, summing up, to conclude, in conclusion, as I have shown, as I have said, hence, therefore, accordingly, thus, as a result, consequently

Dear Husband,

2008-11-02T22:25:00.002-05:00

Today has been a little better. I am feeling ok. A friend of mine from Nar-Anon has been struggling with her relationship, and we spent a lot of time together this evening. It was good to be able to get my mind off of you, us, me...

I think it's the first day in the longest time that I haven't fallen apart completely. I'm surprised. I still feel a deep, deep empty in the pit of myself, but I'm able to keep moving and overlooking it.

I am still talking about you, though, and thinking about you, and thinking about your problems as mine and my problems as yours, and our problems as the problems of a married couple. I'm not treating it as if we are moving toward becoming something different. I'm not feeling less married. Maybe it's too soon. You haven't even been gone a week.

I hosted a chat session at The Second Road tonight, and it was fun in a lot of ways, but in other ways, it was hard. I talked about you, and I talked about how things were before you came unglued. I am having trouble getting my mind out of that time. It was such good time.

More than anything in the world, more than anything ever, I want it back. I want you back, whole and healthy. I want the life we almost had.

That's the story of us, isn't it? The almost perfect, almost complete. It's infuriating, as I keep doing my part. I keep finishing the plan, but it doesn't work when it's only me. We make these stories for our shared future together, and I wish you'd find a way to make your part true, or achievable. I know it's not in your power when you're in your disease, though...you'd never say, "I'm going to be a heroin junky and be unemployed and parasitic and miserable for a couple of years!" Neither of us would have composed the story just this way...but I can't stop imagining the differences between what is and what could have been.

I miss you so much. I've been missing you for a long time now, though, and I know that having you back home won't bring You to me, the part of You that I recognized the first time I saw You, when it felt like the sun had finally come up in my life. You've got what's best in you all vaulted up, and no matter what I do, I can't get at that man. Even knowing it, though, I crave your physical presence. I want to see your face, smell you skin, taste you neck. My eyes are hungry and my hands hurt from being emptied of you.

I love you. I always will.

You Wife.

Guru.

2008-11-01T23:12:00.003-04:00

"Oh, you are a writer! That is very good! You are creative! You have something beautiful that I don't have," said my new Guru.

"You have something beautiful that I don't have," I responded. "Maybe we can work something out."

At one of the places where I work, I'd noticed that one of the clients was a company that had "Yoga" in the title, so I checked out the website to see what it was about. I was intrigued to find a real, live guru, teaching mediation, Ayurveda, and yoga therapy in the city where I live. I'd looked at some of his workshops, and thought I might check one out one day.

A few months later, the boss mentioned that he'd practiced meditation with this guru for a while, so I was able to ask a few questions about the process. And finally, recently, one of my favorite yoga teachers put up one of this guru's business cards on our bulletin board at the school, endorsing his services. Those were two pretty good testimonials for me, even if it did seem a little silly for a guru to have a website and a business card.

This past week, I've felt like I've lost track of my center. For a long time, also, I've been interested in pushing the spirituality I've discovered through my 12 step work a little further, and I guess now is as good a time as any. I wrote to the guru yesterday, and I met him today. I'm going to meet with him once a week for the next little while to see if I can slow my mind down a little and to explore this stuff a little further. It can't hurt, right? And surely, it will be something interesting to write about.

Dear Husband,

2008-11-01T16:19:00.005-04:00

It's getting a little better every day, but still, at least for a few minutes each day, I feel like I can't breathe.

Today, for instance, there have been two times where I've lost my breath. The first was this morning. I went out with some friends for breakfast, and there is a duck pond by the restaurant where we ate. I was doing ok. These are friends in recovery, so it felt good to be among my people while I'm feeling so raw inside, and I felt as centered as I've felt since you left. But I stopped for a few minutes when I left to look at the geese and the beautiful, black swans, and it seemed like my heart might break. They were beautiful. You are beautiful. Beauty hurts my eyes now. I don't want to see beautiful things because I can't see my most beautiful thing.

And then there was a song. I'm at a coffee shop, and I'm trying to work. I haven't been able to get anything done all week, and I committed to myself that today, I'd get caught back up. I can't get financially behind, and I can't let my work pile up until it becomes an avalanche. I had great intentions of catching it all back up today and tomorrow, so I left the house (which honestly is feeling a bit haunted in your absence). I was working along pretty well, and then I hear that song by Amos Lee that you liked a few years ago called "Colors." Remember that song?

I know we all,
we all got our faults.
We get locked in our vaults,
and we stay..

When you're gone,
all the colors fade.
When you're gone,
no new years day parade.
You're gone,
colors seem to fade,
colors seem to fade.

I thought it was so charming how you liked that stupid, sappy song. Now, it reminds me of you walking around our first apartment together, singing. It reminds me of you grabbing me and throwing me down on the bed. It reminds me of the joy I found with you, the pure, sweet joy that we had before it got so ugly. God, remember the first day we were in that apartment together? Remember looking around and realizing it was going to be us, ours? Together!

I've also been pretty mad at you today, or at least mad at your disease. I've been hurting too much to be mad, so I'm hoping that getting angry will be progress. I woke up this morning with the word "parasite" in my mouth, and I had to say it out loud. It was beating its wings, and it needed to fly. You see, it makes me really, really angry that you're starting to be able to make a little money on your own, and that at the same time I'm getting good at enforcing my boundaries. What it feels like is that you've been sucking the life out of me, and as soon as I start to tell you, "No," and you start to be able to take care of yourself, you're casting me off. I don't like the idea that I've been a free house near the methadone clinic for you. I don't want to have been your host body.

But it is whatever it is, and I'm powerless over it. I kept going and going and going until the waters were rising up above my head, and I had to make a move. You're moving, and I'm moving. Maybe we'll move back together one day.

But today, what I want is the hooks you have in my heart to let me go. I want 24 straight hours of being able to breathe without feeling these panicked snakes crawling up my throat. God, I love you, and I hope you're ok. I hope we both are.

Love, love, love,

Your wife.

Letting Go.

2008-10-30T23:29:00.004-04:00

I realized something today in our meeting. I am having a hard time letting go. It's been a bad couple of days, and I'm not able to get still with myself. I know that it's a choice I can make to start using my tools, gathering myself up, and moving forward, and that I'll feel better if I make this choice.

But I don't want to. I don't want it to be over, because then it's really over. If I move on, it means it's done. I don't want to give up yet.

Today, I'm choosing to stay in pain to keep from letting my husband go.

Sunday Night Chat Session

2008-10-30T15:30:00.003-04:00

I'll be the guest of honor at this Sunday night's salon chat at the Second Road. If you haven't set up your account over there yet, you'll need one to be able to join the session if you're interested in talking to me.

Go to The Second Road, and after you set up your account, you can click on the "Chat" tab. The session will take place at 8:30 EST.

From Ntozake Shange

2008-10-30T15:15:00.001-04:00

oh you/ you are sucha fool/
you want me to write some more abt you
how you come into me like a rollercoaster in a
dip that swings
leaving me shattered/ glistening/ rich/ screeching
& fully clothed

you set me up to fall into yr dreams
like the sub-saharan animal i am/ in all this heat
wanting to be still
to be still with you

I Want to be OK.

2008-10-29T17:33:00.003-04:00

Today, I'm not feeling like I'm going to be ok.

The treasure for me in my recovery is that I always feel like I'm going to be ok. That's what I've found in excavating my character defects and getting in touch with my real self and my spirituality...I've found a quiet center where I can always go, turn off the voices in my head, and feel warm, safe, and at peace. I can't get still with myself today. I want desperately to feel that connection with my higher power, and I can't find it right now.

My husband called me this morning to apologize for yesterday. I feel somewhat better, I guess, that he's acknowledging that he was really scary and awful. I don't know why it makes me feel better, as it doesn't change anything. The events were what they were, and we are now much more definitively separated than we've ever been before. Even if he's sorry he was scary, he was damn scary, and I can't be afraid.

Today, I want to run away. I want to sell my house and move far away and change my name. I want to sell my house, quit all my thousand jobs, and travel for a while, or move somewhere new and start over. The geographic cure has never worked for me before, but I can't bear the thought of being in this horrid, empty town.

I want my husband. He's gone. Even if his body came back in my house, the man I want isn't there, and I don't know how to get ok with it.

Every Farthing of the Cost.

2008-10-28T16:57:00.005-04:00

Today, my husband kicked down the banister to the stairway, kicked the dog, threw a chair, called me a cunt, and told me that he's going to fuck another woman tonight in order to make sure that he never comes back to me again. He also threatened to kick in the door if I don't let him in when he comes back to get the rest of his things. It was very dramatic.

I took him to his parents' house, and that's that. I hope he stays.

He got himself very worked up because I wouldn't let him use my credit card to get car insurance. He had the money to give to me, and I still wouldn't let him use it. I'm afraid that next month, he won't have the money, and I'll get stuck with the bill (like always). He's also very hurt that I won't drive him to the methadone clinic in the mornings at the time he would like to go, and it's not good enough that I'm perfectly willing to drive him later. He's also very upset with the idea that I'm not willing to put his needs before mine anymore. He finds the idea abhorrent.

There is a part of me that is relieved that he's gone, and I'm hoping that his anger will fester long enough to keep him away. There is another part of me that is really deeply hurt. I never wanted our relationship to end. It saddens me that the tools I need to be able to live with him in his disease make him unable to stand living with me. Right now, he refuses to take responsibility for his own life. He refuses to live with me if I won't enable him, and it's really sad that he's that deep into his sickness.

It's sad that he can't see how messed up he is, too. I understand that he's struggling. He's trying to get a car, which seems like a real ticket out of a lot of the troubles he's gotten himself into; he's realizing he's not likely to be able to get this car with his arrest warrant and shoddy credit history. He's desperate for a loophole that will keep him from having to clean up the messes he's made, and he wants it to be someone else's fault. I hate to see him hurting so much, and I'm mad at his disease for taking away my sweet, sweet man. I want that man desperately.

I realized something today. While I was driving him to his mother's house, he was cursing me and saying all kinds of awful things, and it was hurting so, so badly. In the end, though, as much as it's hurt to have to pass through this awful time with him, I wouldn't trade a second of it. I love him, and I would take every bit of pain I've experienced as his wife to have had the opportunity to experience the other side of him. I risked a lot to be able to be with him, and it was worth it. I've known true love, real love, and I'm glad we had our time together. It was worth it.

It was worth it.

It was.

I still harbor hopes that we will be able to be together one day, that he will find maturity, responsibility, and real recovery. I don't know if it will happen, but I hope it will.

The Zombie Army Argument.

2008-10-27T22:57:00.005-04:00

Could we talk about something else?

One of my jobs includes teaching a night course in writing, and we were workshopping a student's essay tonight that was a great example of what I like to call the "Zombie Army" argument. It's my way of describing the inevitable slippery slope fallacy that feels so satisfying to writers when they are first learning to make a great argument. They sniff out a logical trail, and they start upping the emotional ante until suddenly, they are describing a future, possible world that will inevitably emerge unless we change our terrible ways: There will be limited power, limited food, and limited access to these resources (obviously, they are controlled by The Man.) We'll all live in caves and fight with weapons fashioned from fence posts and scrap metal. We will need these weapons to protect ourselves from the zombie army, as all slippery slope arguments end up with a zombie army roaming the streets, spreading a rage virus or eating brains or whatever. It's a fun analogy, and it eventually works as a kind of shorthand. Instead of "the slippery slope" fallacy, we talk about the "Zombie Army" argument, and it helps my students to reign in their wild logic.

I started thinking, though, about why these kinds of arguments come up so frequently in my classes.

My job is to teach writing, but I've always had a secret goal that I've called teaching "Critical Thinking." I believe that critical thinking is vital to a writer's ability to express him or herself clearly, but rummaging through my character defects has made me look at my fixation with this idea differently. It's a little too important to me that my students question everything, and I make the point a little too well. By the time they turn in their final drafts of their first projects, I've transformed them into conspiracy theorists. I've got them doubting everything: Is there really even a war in Iraq right now? Did the Twin Towers actually collapse on September 11th? They're trying to convince us on the news that gas prices are fluctuating...I don't buy it!

I want so desperately to teach my students to question the status quo so that they won't get hoodwinked by The Man that I have them seeing the Man's hand pulling strings all over the place. Instead of teaching them to fight deliberate attempts by people in power to manipulate their understanding of reality, I teach them to doubt everything.

Figuring out what is real, I've recognized through my stepwork, is important to me. At a critical moment in my life, there really was a Man who was hurting me and encouraging me in my denial of that reality. I have lived in the shadow of that incident for years, unconsciously recreating it again and again with various other men who would help me relive the painful pattern of hurt and denial again and again.

It's interesting, watching places where my character defects (denial, anger at authority, catastrophic thinking) slide into my character strengths (critical thinking, creativity) in this way in my teaching practice. I am going to try to watch myself and see where I can soften my edges a bit to keep my students from having to muddle through the Zombie Army phase of their writing, much as I enjoy giggling with them as the fantasies unravel.

Aren't You Clever?

2008-10-26T00:17:00.002-04:00

I took my husband out to dinner and a movie tonight to celebrate a special anniversary. We had a decent time, and I was feeling pretty good about him and our prospects of being able to get to the other side of this crap, maybe, possibly. Maybe I'm just sick, though, and my head has been all foggy with the medicine I'm taking. I don't know.

So we were a little early to the movie, and he said, "I need to go use the restroom before we go in to the theater," but he didn't go. I wondered what he was planting a little seedling of a lie about, as he had that lie voice. Those of you who are in relationships with addicts, I am sure, are familiar with the lie voice. It's just an octave above or below the normal voice. It's not too different, but it's not quite right, either. I ignored him, though, as I was having a nice time, and I didn't want it to get messed up.

Later, he asked me if I'd moved some Ibuprofen he'd put in a pocket in my car. I'd not moved it, and I picked up on the hint of a lie in his voice again. A few minutes later, he asked for the car keys so that he could go look for the headache medicine. I gave them to him, with some hesitation, but again--I was having a nice time. I didn't want to mess it up.

He came back into the theater about 10 minutes later, and he smelled like a 14 year old hippy...all marijuana. He sighed, and all I could smell was joint.

I am so fucking mad that I kind of want to strangle him in his sleep tonight. I won't, but I will want to. I am less mad about the childish, addicty sneaking around than I am about planting little lie seedlings.

I want him to go away. He managed to give me, for the first time EVER, the amount of money that we've agreed would be fair for him to pay each week as his part of the bills. I was happy that he'd made this big step forward...but so much else is still the same that I'm not sure it matters anymore.

When I Get My Money.

2008-10-23T16:41:00.003-04:00

My husband is expecting to get paid for a job he's been doing for a few days, and he is continuously listing the things he's going to do when he gets his money. He's going to go out to eat, order a pizza, and buy some new clothes. He's going to get a video game and go to McDonald's twenty times. He's going to do all kinds of fun stuff.

It's really, really working my nerves. I'll be getting a pay check on the first, and guess what I'm planning to do with it? I'm planning to pay bills. Maybe there will be a little left over after I pay the mortgage, and then I'll go to the grocery store and buy food. Yay.

I wish he could be a grown up. My patience and tolerance tanks are on empty. I feel affectionate toward him hardly ever anymore, and it's new that I'm losing the desire to be close to him, even physically.

Homeless Homeowner

2008-10-21T18:09:00.002-04:00

All the ups and downs around my house lately have sent me backwards a bit. I'm avoiding my home again. It gets awkward, floating around from coffee shop to coffee shop trying to find a place to work without feeling weird. I've been to three places today.

The magic of working from home was that I was hoping to be able to work from home. Instead, I travel around like a migrant with my laptop, avoiding the house, the mess, and the man who lives there.

I don't want to keep trying anymore with my husband. I'm going to need to see a miracle in the next few days to change my mind about what's been happening. In the week since he's forced his way back into my home, he's smoked pot in the house and disrupted my sleep twice with great big, abusive hissy fits. Everything that I've said would be a deal-breaker, he's barreled right through. I was talking to a friend about him earlier this week, and she asked, "Is he that arrogant or that stupid?"

I'm not sure which, and I'm not sure it matters. It's going to be painful to extricate him from my life, and especially from my house, but I'm not seeing another way to live. I want to be able to go home.

Huh?

2008-10-20T20:32:00.002-04:00

Today, my husband had the same morning fit as he had last Wednesday; it was the same fit that he apologized for so beautifully on Friday.

He doesn't feel good. He didn't want to walk to the methadone clinic. He did clear up for me, however, that the word he was using was "heartless."

He woke me up at 4:30 in the morning to pick a fight about how he needed a ride, and he threw a huge fit when I said, "No."

I know better than to try to understand. I know his behavior doesn't make sense. I do, though, want it to make sense so much. We have one more week until this two week trial of him living with me again is over. I promised myself I'd let him have these two weeks, no matter what they looked like, and if I found him to be unbearable at the end of it, I'd do whatever it takes to make him go away. I don't know if I'm truly ready to do whatever it takes, but I have to sleep. I have to be able to get rest on the nights I work late. I have to be able to have some peace, and it's rapidly becoming more important to me than hanging on to the remnants of this relationship.

I love him. I do not doubt that I love him. I am still deeply in love with him. It's kind of my worst fear, that I will still feel such a strong physical pull to him, but I won't be able to live with him, and maybe it's going to come true.

He told me that he was sorry this morning before I left, but I don't know if sorry is enough anymore. The behavior has to stop, especially the behavior that affects my daily life so strongly. My basic needs for sleep and sanity in my home are more important to me than anything right now. I have a lot going on, and I need my strength to be able to cope. He's sapping my strength.

I Love You. I Love You. I Love You.

2008-10-18T22:53:00.000-04:00

I spoke with my husband on the phone tonight, and he kept telling me again and again that he loved me. He said it too much.

I am suspicious of my husband for saying "I love you," too much.

I am crazy.

Good night.

Bread at the Hardware Store.

2008-10-17T09:11:00.004-04:00

"Come here," he said. I came. He pulled me into his lap.

"I'm sorry about the other day, in the morning. I shouldn't talk to you like that. I don't want to talk to you like that."

"It's ok," I said.

"It's not. I know you have to set stuff like that up so you don't get hurt. I understand, it just hurts my feelings when I feel like you don't care."

"I do care, and I don't want to hurt your feelings. I'm sorry when I hurt you."

"I know. I love you."

"I love you, too."

Sometimes, instead of my crazy bastard husband, I get my dream husband. He's present, and he understands how hard it is to live with him. We are able to empathize with each other.

At a meeting a few weeks ago, a woman said that she is learning in her recovery that trying to get support, love, nurturing from her addicted partner is kind of like trying to get bread from the hardware store. She knows that the hardware store won't carry bread, but sometimes, she really wants bread from there. In recovery, she is learning to go to appropriate places to get her bread...like the grocery store of friends in recovery or supportive family members. Or on good days, she can even make her own bread.

I really liked the metaphor, but there's a part of it that doesn't quite work. Sometimes, there IS bread at the hardware store. Most of the time, it's not there, but when it is, it's the best bread ever. It keeps me coming back.

Let's Pretend.

2008-10-16T23:06:00.004-04:00

My husband and I are pretending that his fit yesterday morning didn't happen. It's really healthy.

Totally healthy.

I'm not sure what to do with it. I'm feeling pretty detached from the whole affair after talking it through with some friends. Today, I've worked a lot, looked up information on 12 step support groups for survivors of childhood sexual abuse, and played with this website, which Stagnant Artist showed me. I went to a meeting. My husband and I ate hot fudge sundaes together and flirted.

He's really upset with a lot of things, poor man. He's upset that his mama didn't love him right when he was a little boy. He's upset that I'm getting stronger, which manifests mostly in a lot of "No" as far as he's concerned. He's upset that he's gotten himself in such a bind. I see him working really hard in a lot of ways to pull through this time, but I'm also astonished at how quickly it can all fall apart.

He's just so stunning, and I do enjoy touching him.

I don't know. I don't know what I'm doing. I do know, though, that I'm feeling centered and clear. I'm going to visit some people I love dearly this weekend, and I'm excited. I'm caught up a bit with some work, so I can relax for the first time in a while. I'll get a break from my husband, which always opens my heart a bit to his struggle.