Insecure.

I am feeling real insecure in my marriage right now. My husband and I had a lovely day together yesterday, but there are a lot of things that aren't right. I'm not right and he's not right, and we aren't able to communicate about it very well at all.

I feel like my heart is going to explode. I hate this feeling. I have therapy today and a meeting tonight, and I'm sitting at the prayer center I like right now. I'm trying to turn this stuff over, and I'm having a real hard time. I want to find someone to help me work through these things. Maybe I can find someone here to talk to me.

Prayers and other such white light welcome.

Walls.

I'm building new walls. I'm not sure why.

I feel a cooling in my emotions toward my husband. I love him. I don't doubt that I love him...I'm just less excited about the prospect of him entering recovery.

Secretly, there is a part of me that wishes I'd never let him come back home. I am afraid that the risk of him being home with me outweighs the benefit.

I never want to hurt the ways I've been hurting--never, ever again. I never want to feel those things. I am afraid of moving backwards, and I have no guarantee against it.

I guess, also, that the new sheen of his recovery is wearing off. His going to a meeting almost every day is less exciting than it was, so now what I see is a man who doesn't do much for 23 hours of the day, but does the right thing for 1 hour. I want a real partner, and he's a long way from being a real partner again.

I don't know.

It is what it is, though. He's at home, and mostly doing well. I can't stand listening to him when he's battling himself, arguing out loud about whether or not the AA program is really for him, and half-plotting to find something different, insisting he never promised me anything more than 90 meetings in 90 days. I've seen what it looks like when he does something different, and I don't want to participate in that anymore. I won't.

I guess I see new boundary setting on the horizon, and I'm tired from holding up the boundaries I've already got. If he does decide to drop out of AA after he finishes 90 meetings in 90 days, will I continue to live with him? What if he continues with his recovery, but also continues with his unemloyment? Where will I stop?

I have to trust in the process, and trust that I'll get myself out when it's the right time. I just hope that I'll do it ahead of the hurting. I've been extraordinarily hard-headed about this relationship, and I hope I don't wait until I'm burned before I get out next time.

Hurt.

What have I become?
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end
You could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

I asked my husband for a break today. I'm not even sure what it means, a break. He's staying with family for a few days so we can both figure some things out.

I'm hurting. I miss him. I want to go get him and bring him home. I want him to stay far away. I know how infuriating it is for your lover to be in this place, as he's been here a lot: come closer...stay away...leave me alone...never leave me. I want my husband home, but I don't want this disease.

Many things have been going well between us lately, but the weed smoking is really triggering for me. I'm afraid for him, and I'm afraid for me.

I hope both of us get some clarity from this time apart. I want two things in my life today: clarity and peace. I'm going to pray.

The 10-Second Saga of the Scarf.

I got home from work today, and there was an odd scarf on the floor. No big deal, right?

Wrong!

Instantly, without missing a beat, a story unfolded in my mind:

He's using again. He pulled out my scarf to tie off his arm. Why does he always have to use my stuff? Are the drugs better when my stuff is involved? He's been spending all that time with his mom. They're using together again. I can't believe it. I need to go through all his pockets. Why isn't he home right now? Where is he? This is just like that time I found a scarf of mine with a pair of scissors and he'd burned the scissors because he thought he wouldn't get caught if he didn't steal the spoons. I can't believe I've been so blind!

And then I looked again. It was just a scarf, on the floor. No blood on the ceiling. No burned spoon. No track marks. No syringe. It was a scarf on the floor among dozens of other objects: dog toys, towels, sheets, yesterday's jeans. Just a scarf.

My husband gave me some money yesterday. He's been doing little labor jobs here and there, and he handed me $40. That's a good thing. He's treating me well, with some slips here and there...but nothing that says he's using. So why is the scarf so menacing?

I'm still working that out.

P.S.

I was sick and tired of MPJ and Mantra having new, cool signatures, so I got one, too.

Scarf by UberHottie

It's All Ok.

Apparently, at my house today, we're pretending that things are all ok. Nothing, in fact, is ok, but we're imagining that it is, and we're not talking about anything that isn't absolutely, perfectly, ok.

We're ignoring my husband's increasingly obsessive-compulsive behavior. He's hoarding things, stealing junk and dragging it home and leaving it all over the house. His emotions are cycling, up and down, affectionate and angry, needy and distant, paranoid and full of reckless bravado...

I am promising myself that this weekend, I'll tell him what I've been observing. I am afraid for myself, but I'm also afraid for him. He's not well, and I think he needs to see somebody. I hope I can find a sane moment to recommend that he visit our county mental health clinic. The sane moments are fewer and further between lately, but I am not sure what else to do with this information...these observations.

Honestly, there is a part of me that is afraid to ask him to leave. I am afraid of what he might do.

Swoop.

I'm up at an unfortunate hour tonight because I had a terrible dream:

Look! he shouts at me. We are getting out of my car and approaching the house I lived in when I was in high school. It's a house that always makes me feel unsafe. I look at him, and he's pointing up in the trees.

My eyes aren't adjusting. I can't quite open them. It's suddenly too dark, and I can't see what he's so excited about. He seems afraid, but also interested. "Look!"

I hear feathers and rustling and feel something swooping down on us. He grabs me and pulls me to the ground, and my vision adjusts just enough to see an owl attacking us. He's covering me, but the owl is coming down, and it's going to get him, and then I know it will get me because I can't see it well enough to fight it.

It's a graceful metaphor: the bird of prey, looming; his fascination with it, and my inability to see it coming and fear of being unable to ward it off.

Fear And Confusion.

I forgot to mention that what is even harder than struggling on my own with our present situation is watching my husband struggle. As afraid as I am for myself, I am more afraid for him. I have better tools for handling this kind of distress than he does, and it hurts me to watch him navigating this dangerous territory.

He has these moments of clarity, and then he descends into fear and confusion. Sometimes, I feel like we've had these little breaks where we are able to come up for air, to be able to see each other, truly, to communicated in a real way, for the first time in a long time. There have been little diamonds being formed in this pressure, and I'm grateful for them...

But I hate watching him hurt. I want him to be safe and sane and whole, and I don't know if he ever will be.

I spoke with my sponsor about what is going on a few days ago, and she reminded me of something that I need to remind myself of right now. My husband is a survivor. He has experienced some difficult, frightening things in his life already, and he's come out on the other side of it. He has made huge messes of his life before, and he always lands on his feet. I have to remember that he has some inner resources, and that he will be ok.


Art by Mall

A Sudden Panic.

"Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live."

-Dorothy Thompson

He called to ask when I'll be home. I told him I'd be going to the meeting straight from work unless he would like to come with me. He pretended not to hear the part about coming with me, and said, "So you'll be home late?"

And suddenly, I was full of fear. Panic. Sadness. He's not been to a meeting in nearly a month, and I've been doing a good job of not caring about it. It's his recovery, or lack of recovery, and it's not my business. My business is to take care of myself, whatever that means.

It has been good for me, I think, to let go of his recovery, to let him handle it or not handle it and to keep it very clear in my mind that all I can do is react to his behaviors. If he continues down this path, and it continues to be unacceptable to me, then eventually, I'll get out of the unacceptable situation. It's healthier to let him figure it out on his own and to figure it out on my own...

And yet tonight, I'm scared. I'm scared because I know what path he's on, and I don't want him to go that way. I want him to be ok, and he's not ok enough, not yet. I want it to happen faster, whatever "it" is. I want release from this fear, from my anxiety over his future and our future together.

I do want it. Apparently, I don't want it enough to leave. Not yet.

I made a new friend this weekend. In talking to her, we ended up kind of revealing our life stories in that way that you do when you meet someone nice and you hit it off well. Telling someone new my adventures as a junky's wife gave me an interesting sense of perspective. It was interesting to me that I had to tell her these deeply personal things about myself in order to be able to explain who I am and how I'm living. My role in this relationship is a huge part of my identity presently, which I don't like. I'm a junky's wife, still. I'm working on myself, and I'm growing, and I'm doing the best I can; but still, at my core, the most essentially true thing about me is that I am married to a heroin addict. My life is built around reacting to my husband's disease.

I am predicting for myself such peace if I can ever get over this hump. I'm finally growing tired of the drama, the trauma, that I've been bathed in for so long. I just kind of want things to be quiet, to have time with me, to figure out who exactly it is that I am.

Powerlessness Is Scary.

It's a dream:

We're in the car together, and he's driving. We're heading to one of the studios where he used to work, the first one. We've not been there in a long time, and we're both excited. He's going to finish a piece he started, and it's going to be really beautiful.

He's driving. I don't like it, but I'm trying to ignore that I don't like it because things are so pleasant. I think that I should just let him drive. The sun is setting. I look out the window and try to enjoy it.

The studio is over a hill. I notice some traffic cones and flashing lights. " I think we're not supposed to go this way," I tell him. I'm trying to relax. He keeps going. There are workers waving their flags at us. People are shouting, "Don't go that way!" I am getting more and more upset, but I'm also trying to watch the sunset and trying to relax. I'm trying to let him drive. I'm trying not to take the wheel.

Suddenly, we're falling. He's driven into a huge pit. We're falling, and it's taking a long time. I'm hoping that we won't die. I don't know how anyone will ever rescue us. I look over at him, and I want to touch him. I notice that he's nodding.

Boundaries.

Sigh. I guess I need to call my sponsor.

I'm struggling with those complicated borderlands between boundaries and control, acceptance and accepting unacceptable behavior, keeping quiet to keep my sanity and keeping quiet to keep a false sense of peace.

A few weeks ago, we'd reached a breaking point in our marriage. He'd gone to stay with his folks, and I'd taken his key to my home. I needed some time to think about what it was going to take for him to be welcome to stay here, and I came up with a few things, a few boundaries that are necessary for my sanity, for my comfort living with someone who has been in and out of active addiction and who has entangled me in all the insanity that comes along with it. I told him that he needs to be able to pay his own way, including both paying for his own methadone and paying half of our bills, and that I needed to see outward signs of recovery, beyond going to the methadone clinic. I need to see him attending meetings, working steps, building community, having a sponsor.

His response to these requests was to find a job, the next day, and to bring me money for groceries. He told me that he can do the things I need, that not only can he do them, but that he realizes that these are things that are vital for his own survival. Without a job and without some recovery in his life, he says that he knows he isn't going to make it, regardless of what happens to our marriage.

The job isn't perfect; it's only going to last for two or three months. It is, however, a job, and it's paying his bills and paying for his methadone. For the first time in almost a year, he's being a true partner, at least financially. That's a wonderful thing, and I'm grateful.

And he has been lackadaisically attending the meetings that are held in conjunction with the Nar-Anon meetings that I attend. He gets in the car, he goes with me, he listens and talks to the folks in his group. He has not sought out a sponsor, and he hasn't looked for a different group. Last week, he blew off one of the meetings because he wanted to hang out with his father. It made me furious.

So what I'm struggling with is where, exactly, it is that I've placed my boundary, and what my boundary means. I suppose that attending one or two meetings a week is better than never doing anything. I hope that he will continue to build relationships, and he'll find a sponsor (one that accepts his methadone maintenance...there has been some controversy at the N.A. meetings he's attended), and he'll fully engage the program. I don't know if he will...especially as he is doing well with his methadone and feeling very "fixed."

Part of me wants to yell and cry and tell him he's not doing enough. Part of me wants to ignore it. I don't know what would be right, and I don't know what it is that I want.

What I am most afraid of is that he will fall apart again, relapse, and that without the support and tools that he can gain from recovery, it will be another long, hard fall. I am afraid that we'll be on this roller coaster forever, and that he's not going to be a person who I can spend the rest of my life with. I'm afraid I'm letting myself down by letting him off the hook for one of the boundaries I set in order for us to continue in this relationship. I'm afraid that I'm borrowing trouble by worrying about his recovery when I'm knee-deep in the muck of my own. I'm afraid that if I don't worry about his recovery, nobody else will.

I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

Tragic Junky Photo Montage.

Fuck.

Death Looms.

Last night, I was so afraid.

He didn't answer the phone.

I called and called.

He'd gone to bed early.

He never answered.

I was so fucking scared.

People have been threatening us.

He might have overdosed.

I kept thinking that he was hurt, dead, lost to me forever.

I called his mother and she went over there.

He was mad.

MAD.

As if he can't understand that people love him.