Purgatory.

There have been many, many moments in my relationship with my husband when I've described it as a type of Purgatory. I'm not sure if it's quite a fitting description theologically as much as metaphorically...I often feel like I'm being singed by hell-fire with the promise of heaven, looming, just ahead. Loving an addict, or this addict, or this man, is like navigating Scylla and Charybdis...the rock and the hard place...the choppy waters.

His mother and I were discussing today how these problems permeate every single moment of our day. From the simplest little disagreements, everything is tinged by addiction. A few days ago, we had these coupons to go to Backyard Burger. If we bought (I bought) a combo meal, we got a free dessert. It was lovely and silly and a fun mid-week date, and I wasn't feeling resentment about paying. At the end of our meal, he says he wants another cobbler. I refuse to pay for another cobbler, and he tells me that he could pay me for it when we get home. I point out that if he has money, he should just give it to me for the dinner I'd already purchased, or for bills, or for any of the various things he should be paying me for instead of using it to buy another cobbler after he's had a perfectly reasonable meal. We proceed in this manner until we're in a full-blown fight, and I'm crying, and he's yelling, and we're both furious and frustrated because neither of us is right and neither of us is wrong and there's absolutely nothing that either of us can do about it.

All over $2.

We're just so stuck, and helpless in the stickiness of it. He tells me again and again that things will be better when he is working, earning good money, and able to contribute to our bills and start paying me back for what he's taken. I agree that we'd both be better and our relationship would be better if that would happen, and I understand that he can't make the health inspector come or the shop open any sooner. I'm just still so skeptical, though, because of the way he blew off his last job, which was such a wonderful opportunity. I'm scared that it's not ever going to get better. I know it's going to get better, but this fear grips me...it's not a fear of my being sucked into this pit with him, but it's a fear of losing this relationship. Of losing him and of my love for him dying.

I'm afraid that I'm going to wake up one day and not care anymore. I'm afraid that the switch will get flipped and that nothing will matter to me, that he could work and be a millionaire and never touch another drug again and it will just be too late to make a difference.

I want this relationship to work. I want to get away from this miserable middle place and starting moving forward. I want us both to be in a place where I can start learning to trust him again, to rely on him, and to be partners in each other's lives.

I also, right now, want desperately for him to act like it's our first wedding anniversary weekend and that he cares or notices. He's all self-absorbed and grumbly. Perhaps I need to express to him, firmly, that I want a fucking puppy about my anniversary. I want a loving speech and a night of sex and dinner, even if I have to pay for it. I want some recognition of the date, even if it's dumb. I don't care if it's dumb. If I don't get it, I'm going to have a deep pit of resentment for the rest of forever.

Someone should call him and tell him that he has to be nice to me for our anniversary.