Roar.

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.

I'm a Terrible Boss.

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.

24 Hours in the Life of a Junky's Wife

8:40 PM: Get off work. Gather your things, and get in the car. Think, "I don't want to go home. I need to go to bed, but I don't want to go home." Call Nar-Anon friends, and find somewhere to go for dinner.

9:00 PM: Hold Nar-Anon friends hostage and make them watch you eat dinner and listen to you complain about how your husband won't stop smoking weed and playing video games with the 30 year old, unemployed neighbor, who seems to be taking up way too much space and time in your residence.

9:40 PM: Drive home. Cry quietly. Pray: "Please let him be asleep. Please don't make me have to talk to him."

9:50 PM: Call a girlfriend. Park in the road a few blocks from your house, and talk to her on the phone until you see the bedroom lights go off at home.

10:20 PM: Lights out. Go home, assuming you're safe from an encounter with your husband. Change from work clothes, pet the dogs, and get ready for bed.

11:00 PM: Climb in bed with him. Find a friend online to listen to you complain about how much you hate/love the handsome beast you married. Chat for a bit until he becomes too handsome to resist.

11:20 PM: Curl into his body and fall asleep in his arms.

3:30 AM: Wake up, weirdly resenting a lie he told 18 months ago. Roll out of his arms. Talk yourself sane.

4:15 AM: Wriggle back into his armpit. Back to sleep.

6:30 AM: He wakes up like a wildebeast, yelling at the dogs and sighing loudly. Ignore him. Force your eyes to stay closed and force your mind to shut up so you don't have to get up with him. Keep trying. When you can't fall asleep again, roll around in the bed, letting your resentments fester gorgeously. Tell him off in your mind. Tell him the way it's going to be from now on. Tell him, quietly, all about how he's going to get a job or get out, goddamn it!

7:40 AM: He comes in the bedroom and pounces on you. You're still telling him off internally, but you're pleased with the weight of his body on yours externally. You tell him you've been telling him off. He giggles and kisses your neck. Tell him how much you hate him, and wrap your arms around him. Bury your face in his chest and breathe deeply. Make love.

8:15 AM: Get up, get coffee, get dressed.

8:45 AM: Find weed paraphernalia hidden in the laundry room, and demand that it disappear. Swear you'll call the police if you find anything else illegal in your house, ever.

9:00 AM: Leave for work. Cry in the car, quietly. Listen to NPR. Try to settle down.

9:30 AM: Meeting with a client.

10:30 AM: Find yourself confessing your awful, complicated life story to another person.

11:30 AM: Back to work.

1:00 PM: Switch to another job. Work, work, work.

3:00 PM: Go home. Find the annoying neighbor in the house, playing video games. Find husband proudly painting a wall upstairs. Have a brief fight about how it's not the right wall. Tell him you wish he'd finish the projects he's already started before starting a new one. Feel sorry when he looks hurt and tells you he was trying to do something nice.

3:15 PM: Lock yourself in the bathroom for a mid-afternoon meltdown.

3:45 PM: Back to work. Work, work, work.

5:30 PM: Yoga. Breathe and breathe and breathe and breathe.

7:00 PM: Shower. Burn incense. Cry quietly. Get dressed.

8:00 PM: Nar-Anon. Breathe and breathe and breathe and breathe.

Talented Man Overwhelmed by Ernest Williamson III

It Doesn't Fit.

At least once each day, I pause to weep. My life fits a little close around the midsection. It gets uncomfortable by the evening.

I want to stop living this way. I can't stop. I'm active in my addiction. I hate all its effects on my life, and I can't stop.

Tuesday is my worst day of the week. It makes me fussy. I came home and there was yelling. It wasn't yelling at me, but my ears are too tired for yelling tonight.

The Spiraling Argument.

"Love really is all it's cracked up to be. It really is worth fighting for, worth being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk everything, you risk even more."

-Erica Jong

One thing I've always loved about my husband is the way he fights. In past relationships, I'd always feel like the relationship was on the verge of shattering every time we'd fight (I'm not codependent, shut up). Whenever we fight, even when it's nasty and he's being his petulant, whiny, addicty worst, I never doubt that he loves me or that we're not going to get through it. Our arguments can get really bad, but they always end well, and we always end up working through something important.

Our fights function in something like a spiral...we start out very far apart, and we circle and circle around each other...he yells and I cry and he cries and I yell...but eventually, we come closer and closer together until we merge.

We had a big one this weekend. I had been holding it in and holding it in and waiting and waiting to see if he'd ever get it together and get some bill money to me. The first week he was working, he gave me about half what we've agreed would be the amount he'd give me each week. The second week, he gave me the same amount, but the he had to borrow a bit of it back for methadone. This past week, he gave me even less.

Because he's working for family, his schedule is very flexible. We both agreed that this flexibility would be a good thing. He's been crazy for a long time and out of work for a long time, so having a chance to ease back into being a grown-up by working for family, having coffee in the morning and a great lunch with people who love him, and being able to get there late or leave early occasionally is a great gift. And it's become a gift that he's gotten really good at taking...

Every day last week, there was some reason why he wasn't able to work more than 2 or 3 hours. His mom stopped by and they talked for a long time at lunch. He sat in the morning with his cousin and talked about the weekend's game. He and his uncle had gone to the hardware store to buy supplies, and then they stopped for lunch, and time got away. He didn't feel well, so he could only stay for a few hours and then he got a ride home. Etc. Etc. Etc.

At the end of the week, he'd managed to pay for his methadone, throw a few bucks my way, and buy himself coffee every morning. He's feeling great about himself because he's doing so much better than he was two months ago, and he was pretty shocked when I let him know that the pink cloud that's puffing out his ears wasn't working on me. I'm still pissed, and this better isn't good enough.

He freaked out for a while, pouted in that special addicty baby-fied way, yelled that "NOTHING IS EVER GOOD ENOUGH!" for me, cried about how I make him feel like an ass hole even though he's trying very hard to be a good husband for me, and I yelled, cried, and stomped around with him. I recognized that I was behaving like a crazy person when he retreated to the bedroom to pout and I was sobbing on the couch, and I called my sponsor to get some sense talked to me. She pointed out that it's a beautiful day. It was a beautiful day. I loaded up my doggy and we went for a very long walk. We talked to each other. I talked to myself and to whatever higher-power would listen. She sniffed the grass and peed a lot. I felt better. I got home, and he was better.

He'd thought about the things I'd said, and he acknowledged that I was right. He's not doing enough. He wants to do more. We found our centers, separately and together.