I had a small victory last night, and I'm proud of myself for it. I thought I'd share it with you.
My husband called me while I was in my afternoon yoga class, and left a message saying he needed to talk to me about something. I called him back, and we finally caught each other last night when I was on my way home from work. He has been working for a distant relative the last few weeks, and the reward for this work was supposed to be a car. He hasn't had a car in a while, so it was an exciting prospect for him to have his own ride. He was pretty sure that it would help him to get a job.
He's staying with family in a few towns over from here, and he is very upset with me because now he's not got a ride to work. He's afraid he's going to miss the chance to get this car.
"Just because you can't stand to look at my face, now I'm not going to be able to have a car. So two weeks from now when I haven't made any progress at all, you just think about it before you start blaming me," he said.
I could hear the hurt in his voice. He's angry, but mostly, he's hurting and he's afraid. I am sorry for the sad, sick man he's become. My instinct is to stop everything, go get him, bring him home, buy him a car...but I can't. My comfort for his pain doesn't work. It's not meaningful if I fix these problems for him, and it causes more harm than good.
So I asked him if he needed to tell me anything else, and he said no. He got off the phone abruptly. It was hard. That man has my heart, and he's not careful with it...but it was clear to me that I could not help him. It was clear to me that if he loses this car, it's because of the choices that he has made, and it doesn't have anything to do with me. It's clear to me that he's going to have to find his own way before we can find our way together. I hope he does.
