The Fight

I don’t know too many details, but the Monday before last, I was at work and the ex sent me an IM. I hadn’t heard from him in awhile but sometimes no news is good news. He simply told me, ‘I didn’t want to bother you, but I got in a fight the other night.’ Well, all of the undoing and removing and distancing I’ve done over the last 18 months or so got completely erased and I felt a familiar but frightening wash of panic sweep over me.

It turns out that he walked a few blocks from the apartment to a bar where a lot of young people hang out. I am close to 40 so this is anyone younger than me 😉 Anyway, I didn’t want too many details, but he was likely blacked out and running his mouth and some “meathead” kicked his ass. My ex is not a big guy at all. He’s 5’9″ if he stands up straight and the most I’ve ever known him to weigh was 165 and there’s no way he weighs that much now. It wouldn’t have taken too much to beat him up in a drunken stupor. He told me that his eye was black and blue and completely closed up; he said he was worried about his legs; that his knees were pretty bad. I kept asking if he was OK or needed medical attention an he said no, that he was just sad and lonely and went out someplace he had no business being. Now, I understand there are consequences but there is a sliver of me that just feels so bad for him. I don’t want him to have to live sad and alone and get beat up (I mean, what is this? Who gets BEAT UP?) and it’s just all so pathetic. I also know though, that I cannot help or save him and I told him that repeatedly that morning. I expressed to him that I was sorry that it happened and that he puts himself through that misery. I also told him I am happy he was OK and hadn’t been killed. He apologized but I told him he had no need to apologize to me; that all I ever wanted for him was to see him be able to live happily and sober.

He also went on about how he cannot keep lying to himself that he can do this, so he is planning on going back to rehab. He said he shouldn’t have left in the first place, but again I say if I got scabies somewhere and also lived with bedbugs, no amount of coaxing could have made me stay, but that’s just me. He said he was meeting with them again that Wednesday for an assessment and he went. I think the wheels are again in motion for him to go back in there. Maybe third time’s a charm.

That would leave me with a messy apartment, lots of furniture I don’t have room for, his personal belongings that I don’t want to throw away nor be responsible for and of course – and this is the one thing that will bring me to tears – my two cats that are left. I am going to have to try to figure out a way to have one of them and have asked a couple friends to be on the lookout for a home for the other. It all just seems so final and that is what I want, but my whole life I have turned away from conflict or things that make me uncomfortable and this situation sits at the peak of my mountain of situations that make me feel anxious, uncomfortable and fearful. I lost sleep about it and when I finally opened up to my boyfriend about it he said he would help me move furniture, clean, whatever I need. I know he will, too; it’s not just lip service. But it’s going to be a lot and it’s going to open wounds I’m sure, and it will be time consuming to the point that I will likely have to take time off of work that I don’t want to.

I suppose it’s all a part of a work in progress which is me getting my life back and him attempting to stay alive. It is me in the process of moving on after having stuck myself in pretty deep for almost sixteen years. I have a lot and I mean a LOT of work to do but at least I have not gone back like I had so many times in the past.

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Please Take a Moment for a Great Cause

Hello all,

I was recently contacted by a student at Clark University in Worcester, MA.  He told me that he is working on his dissertation which focuses on the spouse’s role in a person’s decision to seek help for alcohol use issues.  The study is designed for married couples for whom alcohol use is an area of disagreement in their marriage, and is intended for people at all levels of alcohol intake.

We can all relate to this, am I right?

I’d like to ask all of you to take a moment to check out the questionnaire.  It has been fully approved by the University and all responses are anonymous and can be completed entirely online.  There is even a drawing for a gift card as a Thank You for responding: 

Participate in a survey on couples and alcohol use and enter to win a raffle! 

Are you and your spouse legally married and at least 18 years of age?  Do you or your partner currently consume alcoholic beverages at least once a month?Is alcohol use an area of disagreement in your marriage?  

If you answered yes to the above questions, you and your spouse are eligible to participate in a research survey regarding the relationship between your marriage and your alcohol-related help seeking behaviors.  When you both complete the survey, you will each be entered into a raffle for one of four $50 Amazon.com gift cards!  The survey will take each participant approximately 20 minutes, and survey responses will be anonymous. https://surveys.clarku.edu/AlcoholUseSurveyStart.aspx

I urge you all to help this gentleman out.  Maybe one day this dissertation and the results will help someone suffering in this cycle of abuse and living amongst it. 

I promise a personal update soon; I also promise there is LOTS for me to update.  Hope all is well for you.

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Guilt

I have no idea why I feel the way I do right now, but I feel sorry for him and am feeling guilty that he’s down. It makes no sense.

I had plans immediately after work to go pick up my new pair of glasses then to go to dinner with a friend. The doctor’s office closed at 7 and I don’t get off work till 6. The office that I work in has staggered shifts to accommodate customers calling from different time zones. By 5:30, my office is a ghost town. My phone rang at about 5:45 and it was my husband. He still sounded semi drunk (he’d called me last night, obliterated, not making any sense and had mentioned he bought whiskey) but not nearly as out of it as last night. He said he was losing his mind because he has to take care of the cats and that he needed help. This means more money to drink. I told him I wasn’t stopping home, nor was I going to help him. We went back and forth a few minutes and he eventually hung up on me.

When I got off work he called repeatedly but I refused to answer. I went and got my glasses, met my friend for dinner and headed home. I dozed off early and woke about two hours ago to some texts from him:

“I can’t make it by myself.

I cried out last Friday. Sobbing and yelling.

I’m sorry (my name), I’ve never had this much pain. I miss you. I’m not talking about stuff, I just miss you.

I’m sorry I get so hysterical. It’s love, (my name).

Detachment”

So could someone please tell me why I start to feel bad for this man? I know the answer and it’s more of a rhetorical question, but I can’t help it. It pulls at my heart strings, just a little.

Again, I do not want to go back to him or our situation. Just sharing what’s going on and my thoughts about it.

This weekend is going to suck. I am giving one of my cats away tomorrow night. God, give me strength.

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Update: I’m Doing Great!

OK, it’s been many, many months. A lot’s been going on but I’m so happy to report that I’m out of the house, relocated about 40 minutes away and landed a great job at a big insurance company.

There are a lot of details, obviously but he does not know where I am. He’s still in my apartment because he has nowhere to go. I am still paying the bills but have shut the TV service and phone service off. I have been buying his groceries but he’s in the process of attempting to get food stamps. Not sure how that’ll pan out. He’s angry, still drinking and nasty when I do have to deal with him. We do not talk daily…as a matter of fact I have not spoken to him since this past Sunday.

Honestly, I am happy and this is what I want. Also, I can’t help but occasionally feel bad or sorry for him. I don’t want to and do my best to keep those thoughts out. I think about the person that’s there, deep down and feel sad. I don’t want to be with him but can’t help but wish I could keep the good part of him in my life.

He talks about suicide. Not often but there’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t be his lifeline. I hope he wouldn’t hurt himself but you never know what a desperate person is capable of.

I do not know when I’m going to act on legal separation or divorce. It’s difficult for me to discuss and I don’t have the resources to pay for it. Hopefully it’s on the not too distant horizon.

I feel happy right now. There’s a lot of difficult things coming up but being out of there has given me so much perspective! For the first time in a long, long time, I’m looking forward to my future and feeling optimistic about life. It’s a foreign feeling.

I read only a few of my prior posts last night. It was uncomfortable and brought some emotions up in me. Today I’m so thankful I’m not going home to him tonight! What a difference a few months make!

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All I Deserve

So yes I went through with my afternoon delight. I enjoyed it immensely. It’s about time I get some freaking action. But guess what? Now (let’s call him Dave) Dave is cooling off. Like, an hour after being together, he went from 1 million to zero.

I don’t mind if you all point and laugh; you can even say, Told Ya So!! I deserve that.

Perhaps I’m naive, but I wasn’t expecting this. At least so soon. He’s the one that asked me, “This will be an ongoing thing, right?” Riiiiiight. All I wanted was some stress relief. Some fun. Some excitement. Oh, I got it. I guess I just wanted more. Not a boyfriend or replacement husband…just some action on the side so my freaking life wouldn’t SUCK SO BAD.

So here I am, the day after. The Drunk is drunk. I am starting to believe this is what I’m destined for. This is all you can get.

I told The Drunk he’s got to agree to divorce me because I don’t want to be responsible for his death costs. Because I know he’ll end up in critical condition in some hospital for a week before he actually does die. And guess who’ll be left holding the bill, as usual? I told him he could still live with me and we can be together, just divorced. We’ll see what happens.

In the meantime, go ahead and have a good laugh on me. This is all I deserve.

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Alcoholism

So I’m just sitting here thinking about my current stresses and everything that’s wrong in my life. It occurred to me that alcoholism is what’s wrong and why the fuck do I continue to allow it to be in my life at all. I mean, this show is on about crack heads and there’s a doctor talking about addiction and I know everything she’s gonna say before it comes out of her mouth. I don’t even want to know any of it! I don’t have room in my life for even a little bit of addiction.  I’m not an addict, I didn’t have addiction in my life over fifteen years ago…why would I even allow it any real estate in my mind and life??

Maybe I’m rambling but I’m so sick of my life being about addiction instead of happiness and life. I want to experience a day that is free of the effects of addiction. I wish I would’ve savored it before…him.

So I feel positive in myself that I am capable of changing this. I pray it lasts and I can actually do something about these feelings.  I used to think, who cares? Life’s over…ya blew it. But I’m not feeling that right now.  I’m feeling like I wanna put some change into motion. I’m feeling like I want my life back.

How’s that saying go? These times they are a changing…

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2012

I’m feeling so down today. He drank last night and all day today. I don’t even think it’s that that’s bringing me down. It’s just everything. I’m so sick and tired of feeling like I’m in a roommate situation rather than a relationship. 

I love my job though. I go in tomorrow morning and I’m actually looking forward to it. It’s been a looong time since I’ve felt that way. I got along well with everyone in my training class but I haven’t met anyone that I’d consider real “friend” material but that’s ok. Sometimes that’s better. Unfortunately I found myself having a slight and I mean slight crush on someone there. I feel so stupid even admitting that but it’s true. I’m not sure if the feeling is reciprocated but that’s probably better that way, too.

He’s been “working” but I use that term loosely. He’s only worked like ten hours tops per week if that. Now he also drinks over half his check away so it’s not helping me much. He just continues to make things hard for me. Every. Single. Day.

I looked online at the Legal Zoom website.  I can file for dissolution in my state and Legal Zoom only charges $299 for the paperwork. I’m really thinking about ordering…if I could ever get a hold of three hundred bucks!

Anyway, I’m doing well, except for him. Let’s hope 2012 holds better things for all of us.

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Hiding in the Bedroom Getting Verbally Abused

What’d you do tonight? Me? Oh, after I got home from work at 9:30 I hid in my bedroom, eating my dinner. The Drunk was slumbering, passed out across my ottoman and big chair. I tried being oh so quiet and it worked for a little while.

I heard him doing his wake-up coughing fit for a couple minutes, then here he comes into the bedroom. I need cigarettes. He talked to me just a little bit, would leave the room every few minutes to smoke and then he’d come back. I need cigarettes.

I was stupid for even attempting to talk to him. I told him I was angry that he’d stolen money from me again and that every time he drinks it ends up costing me $30 to $50 and I cannot afford that. I said, you don’t want to work, I have to watch every fucking penny and its not fair. I didn’t say anything about the remote yesterday and I could’ve been a bitch about it…

Here we go. I’ll back up to yesterday when I got home from work and he’d seen the Best Buy ad and just had to have a universal remote for the tv. It’s one of the new ones that has a screen on it. Kinda cool, not necessary but I’ll admit I like getting new gadgets too so what the hell…we went to the store and of course they were sold out so we had to hit a couple more places and did some price matching and we ended up getting it. He had said if he can go home with this remote it would make his year. Please. So bottom line, I didn’t care that we bought the remote.

But that’s not how he took my comment. He raised his voice and said I buy one fucking thing a year! One fucking thing and I get shit for it! I knew you’d have to make a comment about it. One fucking thing! Over and over. I just sat here with my eyes closed. Please go away. He walked out of the room and I thought for sure he’d slam the door but he didn’t. I got $7 out of my wallet and sat it on the other side of the bed. He came in a couple minutes later saying, Just let me go to the store. Then he must’ve seen the money sitting there and said, What’s this? This isn’t enough! I just wanna go to the store and this isn’t enough. This is an insult! I need more than this! And on and on and on he went. If it were my last ten dollars on earth he wouldn’t care. He is such an ugly piece of shit. I just can’t stand him. He turns into this hideous monster several times a week and I fucking hate him. So what’d I do? Gave him a twenty and took back my $7. He’s supposed to bring me my change. That’s rich.

Tomorrow at 1:30 he has this appointment he’s been telling me about all month. He finally told me its to talk to a psychologist. Any doctor who talks to him should immediately see he’s a menace to society and have him committed ASAP. I could only hope. I wouldn’t even care if they lobotomize him. A vegetable would be a welcome addition over that piece of shit. I can’t stand being afraid in my own house. Or driving away on my way to work knowing he’s probably already putting his shoes on and will be walking down to the store the second I’m out of sight. And quite frankly I’m just jealous of people who seem to have normal lives, normal spouses…no turmoil or chaos. People who’ll probably get a Christmas gift from their spouse this year and a card on their anniversary. I can’t imagine…

So now I’m off work for 3 days. This should be fun.

Editing to add: its now Monday morning and he should be getting ready to go to his appointment but he polished off a second six-pack last night so he went to bed. Fucking incredible. What an asshole.

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Happy Thanksgiving

Update: nothing has changed.

He still isn’t working but he is attempting to sell all of his vinyl albums online. So I should be able to afford a new home and car in no time…

He isn’t drinking today but he got irritated with me and went to bed at 8 o’clock. I have a huge list of things I’d like to do, but I really have no motivation today. I’d love to remove the 100+ pound air conditioner he finally took out of the window last week…and left on the floor. That’s where my Christmas tree belongs and I’d like to put one up this year. I’ve skipped it for the past several years because the cats try to eat everything off of it, but I’m feelin it this year so I wanna put it up. Normally, we store the AC upstairs but he always acts as if its the end of the world when he has to lug it out, so he wants me to clean out my closet so we can scoot it in there. So here we are full circle with me not having any motivation. I don’t know why. When I woke up I had every intention of doing it but…oh well. Maybe tomorrow.

Thanksgiving is Thursday. I would want nothing more than to spend it with my maternal side of the family, but my brother will be there with his, excuse my French, c**t of a wife who invented pregnancy and childbirth. She is phony, money hungry and unstable and I can’t stand being in the same room with her. So I called my dad and he fumbled around with his words and finally spit out that his sisters and married girlfriend are going to be there so I never really got an invite over there so… I’m gonna do Thanksgiving with a friend, her husband and son. The Drunk is planning on going to his mom’s condo. He’s gonna attempt to make some Hoppin’ John for the first time so I don’t know if he’ll end up at my friends house that day or not. What I do know, is that I have to be at work at 11:30pm Thursday. Some genius in the retail world thought he’d cheapen this holiday by opening at midnight, Black Friday. I’m totally against this idea for two reasons: I work retail and it just feels so desperate. Please come spend your money. We can’t wait till dawn…we need it NOW! So I’m pretty disgusted about that.

This will be the first year I’m not spending it with family and it makes me feel a little sad. On the other hand, since I love to cook and bake, it’ll be fun preparing stuff with my friend. I’m gonna make a French silk pie. Mmm.

But in case you were wondering if the husband kept his word and freelanced online, the answer is no. Surprising, isn’t it? So you know what I did tonight? I applied at the company he recently quit. So we’ll see what happens with that. If he could get hired, I certainly can. Oh, and something else to look forward to…he has some kind of an appointment after the holiday to “talk to someone”. I think he either means an assessment to get into a men’s home for sober living, or some kind of doctor that can attempt to help his head and hopefully prescribe some strong drugs. Either way, I’ll keep ya posted.

So have a happy Thanksgiving. I’m gonna try.

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Eight Days

That’s how long he lasted at this job.

Yesterday I was out of the house most of the day. I did some errands and even went to a movie. He had some trouble with the phone line and called me freaked out about it. I called our cable company and as it turned out there was a short outage that affected us. Not a big deal but he got “points” against him at work due to equipment failure. Kinda frustrating but not a huge deal. So when he finished working I said I’d like to take him out to dinner but he was already moping and non-responsive. He said he’d had a bad day and just can’t be the person on the phone that they want him to be. He can’t handle being critiqued on any level and I could see that he was already headed into a tailspin.

We went to dinner with another couple and my friend had a crazy day at her job and talked about it quite a bit. Then after we’d finished eating we were still talking and she asked him how his job was going. He went into it a little and started sounding a little normal, so I thought maybe just getting it off his chest to other people helped.

Next morning I woke around 4am. I had a nagging feeling so I got up and he was still up, pacing around the living room. I did a quick scan for bottles or cans and then asked if he’d been to sleep yet. He said no.

I woke again around 8 which is the time he gets up for work. I came out to the living room and he was up putting his coat on to go outside to smoke. I was actually naive enough at this point to think I was out of the woods.

He came back in and sat down with his pitiful face on, picked up a notebook and told me he’d written some things down. One was that he wasn’t going to drink today. Drinking is the cause of him not sleeping, not being able to work with others or emote empathy in his voice. Secondly he was going to contact his employer, let them know what was going on and then he’d “move on”. Thirdly, he would contact a freelance website that he was in contact with months ago and work with them.

I immediately started crying, unable to think of anything else but trying to make him reconsider. I asked him if he is definitely quitting the job; he said yes. I just went into my bedroom and cried and imagined all the things I want to say to him but likely won’t. I imagined killing him, divorcing him, yelling at him or begging him to please keep working. In the end I won’t do any of them because I haven’t done any of them in all of the fifteen years I’ve been with him and if I did any of them it wouldn’t matter. Because in the end all he is, is a selfish, arrogant, prideful, waste of life alcoholic who doesn’t want to work or be a husband, he just wants to drink.

And I was stupid enough to marry him.

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