Unwired.

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.

Dear Husband,

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

Heartless vs. Worthless

On Wednesdays, I have quite a long day. I work from 8:00 until noon, take a yoga break, and then go back to work from 2 until around 9. I get home, and then I have my online step meeting. It's a long day. I need a lot of sleep, and I protect my sleep like a mother bear protects her cubs.

This morning, my husband wanted a ride to the methadone clinic. I only just found out that he's gone back on methadone, as he'd been hiding it and lying to me about it for a while, so the methadone clinic is a touchy point for me. The car, sleep, and me giving up my basic needs to fulfill his immature needs are all big boundaries. He's got a cold, and he wasn't feeling well this morning, but I have made it clear to him that I am not giving up two hours of my sleep to drive him back and forth to the methadone clinic, which is only a ten minute walk from our house. I'll gladly give him a ride if he wants to wait until I'm awake, but I'm not getting up early to do it for him. No. Never. Not at all. No more. These are boundaries it took me months to establish, and I'm not giving in.

He threw a world-class fit at 6:00 a.m. It astonishes me. I understand he didn't want to walk, but I didn't want to get up. I'm going to respect my wants more than his now, and man, that really pisses him off. He slammed doors, screamed, and broke a picture frame.

I couldn't quite hear what he said as he was slamming out of the house, but it was either, "I guess you'll just be a heartless fucking bitch until the day you die!" or "I guess you'll just be a worthless fucking bitch until the day you die!" I wish I knew which it was.

"Heartless," according to the Oxford English Dictionary, first means literally "Without a heart." I do have a heart, as I feel it beating when I climb stairs or when I get really anxious, so that can't be what he meant. The second definition might be accurate: "Destitute of courage, enthusiasm, or energy; spiritless; out of heart, disheartened, dejected." I'm certainly feeling drained of energy and disheartened. I'm tired of this life. I thought I'd found a way out, but then he came back home. The next non-obsolete definition is: "Destitute of feeling; lacking in affection or friendliness; callous, unfeeling, unkind, cruel." I think this is what he was referring to, if he did indeed say "heartless," and I have to disagree. I'm not lacking in feeling or affection. I'm not cruel or unkind. I may be becoming a bit callous to him, as the soft parts of me have been rubbed raw in his disease, but I've felt my heart swelling and swelling to the point of bursting with all the feelings I've got.

"Worthless," on the other hand, means "destitute of material worth; having no intrinsic value." I am not worthless to him in this way, as I'm his meal ticket. I have a lot of material worth to my husband. The second definition is "Lacking worth or merit; destitute of moral character; contemptible, despicable." I suppose that my refusal to fulfill my husband's every need might make me contemptible or despicable to him, but that seems unfair, as he's not fulfilling many of my needs, and I find him neither contemptible nor despicable.

It makes me sad that my husband is in such a bad place. I'm sorry that he has to say awful things to me. If he dislikes me so much, I wish he'd leave my home and give me some peace. I've offered to compromise with him and to give him an opportunity to show me that he can do better than he's done, but this morning's outburst was really, really ugly. I cannot continue to let him treat me like I'm not worthy. I'm a good woman and a good wife, and I've stood by his side through one of the ugliest experiences a person can go through. I've born the brunt of his addiction's havoc, and I'm not going to go on indefinitely waiting for him to wake up and stop hurting me. I love him, but I can't live this way.

Fate. Faith.

Today, I'm mad at my life. I'm mad at all the circumstances that brought me here and now. I know it's not how I'm supposed to do it. I'm supposed to be grateful. I'm supposed to believe that a higher power has brought me here, lovingly, to teach me something important, something that's going to help me. Not only am I supposed to have this faith, I know deep down that it's my only hope. The only way I'm going to get through what's coming next is to have faith that I'm going to be ok.

I am not so sure that I'm going to be ok, though, and I'm not having an easy time trusting that this is all for a reason, that it isn't some kind of vast, endless, meaningless mess. A vortex of nothing, despair and ennui and absolute discontent. I'm angry, oh I'm angry. I'm angry at every person who played a role in getting me to the place where I am. I'm angry at every fucking handmaid in this tragedy. I don't want to be the character that I am anymore. I want a trap door, a deus ex machina. I want out. I want peace. I'm so afraid.

I have a feeling that before the end of this day, I will quite literally be brought to my knees.



Art by Scorsone/Dreuding

I Understand What I Am Still Too Proud To Mention.

"Why do you always have to act like I'm such a burden?"

"I just need to know when you're going to work because I have some work to do, and I'm trying to figure out my schedule."

"And that's my fault!?"

"I just asked you a question: when are you going to need a ride to work?"

"If I'm such a fucking burden, why don't you just leave me?"

I'm not sure if my husband will ever be able to forgive me for not leaving him. Lately, when we have these kinds of interchanges, I just feel so sad for him. He must feel so horrible about himself; he must feel like such an insufferable burden.

And while it's not a happy shift, I recognize this shift in my understanding of what is happening as growth on my part. At first, his responses made me feel bad about myself, like I wasn't loving, forgiving, working hard enough...like I must be doing something to make him feel these ways. My next step was feeling mad...mad as hell...mad that he'd want me to accommodate him, to drive him around, to be on call for his every want and need and never to notice that he expected these things from me.

So I'm glad that now I understand that it's really not about me. It's not about me, not at all. It's about his frustration with himself, his long year of taking without giving, his long descent into selfishness that he can't see a way out of. His anger towards me is a reflection of what's going on inside himself, and I'm sorry for him. I'm sad for him. I wish better things for him. I'm not willing to take it for him, though.

I'm not going to take his anger anymore, not for things that aren't mine. I'm not going to hurt for him. I choose my words and actions very carefully because I know that he's hurting, and I know that I've chosen to stay in a marriage with a deeply broken man who is going to need a lot of patience, space, and time to heal. I know that my expectations should be low and my gratitude high, and I stick to my side of what I need to do to make our marriage work...and as long as I'm taking care of myself and respecting him, I'm not taking his anger for him. It's his, and he's got to work it out for himself without pouring it on me.