Midnight Fight

I am feeling sad these days. Kind of just a dark cloud sitting on my heart. I find myself missing Mr. M when he is at work or when it is not one of his 'sleepover' nights (yet scared and dreading him moving back in when he has his 1 year sobriety birthday in a little more than a month ~ yikes!).

I call him and sound all sappy... and he has a bit of trouble with this because he takes it personally. I must be sad because he is such a terrible person and if he hadn't been a drunk and ruined my life, I wouldn't be sad. So it is hard. Do I not call him at all because he can't handle it? Do I call him and slap a fake happy face on? Do I call and still just be sad and bring him down? Tough call.

More later... I had to publish post and go do a few pressing things (you know, the tyranny of the urgent)... I will log on soon and finish.
xo

I'm back and changing gears.

Mr. M spent the night last night as he does each week.
We got in a big fight at 5:30AM this morning.
We have been doing so well... we have not been fighting much. We have been getting along. (Although new teen Girlie would disagree. She says "All you and Dad do is fight." I said "Really? I feel like we have not been fighting that well and doing really well." She said "Nope. All you do is fight." So I tried to just HEAR her - I am in therapy, after all - "So you feel like all we do is fight?" To which she replied "No. I don't FEEL like all you do is fight... I KNOW all you do is fight.")

This morning one of the kids woke up early panicking that a history book was in Dad's car when they have homework to do. From my bed, in the dark, I lifted my head and groggily parented: "If you had done your homework after school yesterday instead of watching TV, you would have known that and we could have done something about that."

The weeping commenced "I NEED to get it done!!!"

Parenting from the bed in the dark continued "I know... that's frustrating."

You know the drill.

At this point Mr. M was awakened (GASP, NO!... the horror!)... he was surly and grumpy that his slumber was disturbed.

I was not apologetic.

If anything, I was a little mad.

After all, MY sleep was disturbed too. But sometimes that's what being a parent looks like. It is disturbing and uncomfortable. Kids have needs at all hours of the day and night. Sometimes they have bad dreams at 3AM and want to climb into your bed and then proceed to roll and kick and flail in your bed all night long and you wake feeling like you have been on the losing end of a prize fight and someone has poured sand in your eye sockets. Sometimes they barf all over their beds and themselves at 1AM and you need to get up and give them a bath and change their sheets. Sometimes they get chicken pox and can't sleep at all because they are so itchy and you have to stay up all night long watching Disney movie after Disney movie on the sofa for 12 straight hours. Sometimes they spend the night at a friend's house and are scared in the middle of the night and you have to drive over and get them.

I thought of 21 years of parenting in the middle of the night and how rarely he had been there for so much of it. How much I did all by myself. How alone I was. And then the NERVE of him complaining because his sleep was a little disturbed by me parenting our child at 5AM!

So it escalated and in his angry, self-righteous storming around, he accidentally knocked over a lamp in trying to turn it on and accidentally smooshed our 10 lb. dog who was under the covers in bed (heehee). The dog yelped/cried and this infuriated him. WHY IS THE DOG IN OUR BED???!? WHY IS THE DOG SUCH A BABY?! He grabbed the dog out of the bed and dropped her on the floor. He is yelling at this point and stomping around and dropping F-bombs left and right. I tell him to leave and he says "gladly" and leaves.

Now, this is a tough situation because no argument in an alcoholic marriage is just about that argument. As you just read, even the smallest, most insignificant argument has a lifetime of history in it.

Was I in the wrong? - Should I not have asked him to leave? If he lived here full-time, I couldn't have asked him to leave. (Can you see why I am nervous to have him move back in?) Am I in the wrong for asking him to leave in the first place? I was mad... that's OK. Feelings are feelings. But was I wrong for allowing all those hurt feelings from 20 years of marriage to enter into the argument?

Was he? - What is his part? Obviously, he over-reacted. But, in fairness, he was dead asleep and got abruptly woken up to arguing and crying and lights coming on. But he was ONLY concerned with HIS sleep and HIS precious rest. Did I even enter in? Have I ever????

Input welcome.

Plus, I owe a Therapy update soon.

Signs of Strange Behavior

The post for today copied and pasted from alanondiary.blogspot.com, a blog I really enjoy.
And then I have added my own list below.

This post is about strange behavior of the alcoholic. Some things I should have seen as not "normal." I was lulled into a sense that this is a normal behavior pattern for a person. Below are some of the signs I maybe could have seen and recognized as alcoholism.  As you know, my story is one where I lived with alcoholism for years. I was married to an alcoholic.  Here's the strangest thing. I never knew that my wife - my "qualifier" was drinking. I just grew accustomed to how she was behaving and "just thought" that this - her strange and erratic behavior was normal.

Here are some signs of the strange behavior;
1. Failure at being on time - to anything. I am not compulsive about being "on time" especially outside of the business world. But being late all the time - for anything and everything should have been a "sign" that something was wrong.  By the way, her parents had the same problem with her. She would always be late to everything. And they thought it was "just her."

2. Forgetfulness. Yes, forgetting - a lot. Even forgot to pick her daughter up from school - or was late. Forgot to go grocery shopping - so there was little or no food in the house.

3. Shopping all the time. Another addiction. Forever leaving the house and shopping at the grocery store. It was "just one more thing" at this store or that.

4. Being unorganized - all the time.

5. Moodiness . . . especially at certain times. At 5PM every day she would become the devil. Her face would actually contort - twist - and she would be pissed off at me.
6. Being called a "Control Freak" - is a sign that you maybe controlling. But you are controlling something you don't understand and don't know why. For example, when you start asking questions about why your spouse is going out and you get "none-sensical answers" and you are then called a "control freak" - you may not be the problem, but your intuition is trying to tell you something is wrong and you are NOT listening or you are rationalizing it away. Being called a control freak may be a sign that you are controlling - you are not bad - you are just trying to figure out something that is not making sense. The problem is not recognizing that something is actually wrong.
7. Being controlling. Once you step into trying to control this disease - you lose. You lose your identity and the disease in the other person becomes more powerful in that the disease tells the alcoholic - "See, she/he is a bad person. Let's drink some more."

8. Missing work. Missing planes. Missing assignments. This occurred with Girl Scouts.

9. House a wreck. Car a wreck. I mean a mess. When stuff is scattered all over the floor -clothes or whatever or crud in the car - this is a sign. She was medicating herself away from the reality of life.
10. In my case - our daughter was always being "medicated." It was Motrin this and Motrin that for any pain. I have 4 full bottles of Motrin over my house (I no longer live with my wife and have filed for the big D in hopes that I could/can show some normalcy for our daughter). Our daughter would bring these bottles over in her suit case. I take them out and place them in the cupboard now. She was "in pain." But for some reason, once she was here, the pain was forgotten. I think this may be some sort of transference - my wife medicates herself and she wants to medicate our daughter. As I write this - I am a little pissed about this and would like to figure out what the heck to do about it.
11. Neighborhood women - they were sorta talking about my wife and how "funny" she was. I never "drilled down" into asking what they meant or what they were referring to.

12. Eating habits. My wife would eat a lot. Would these be munchies?

13. She was overly caring about what the neighbors thought of her. She wanted to show she was "perfect" on the outside, but in our home, it was a disaster. No dinners for us. But she would cook food for others who were coming home from the hospital after a baby was born or some event. Their dinner was perfect. Ours, well it sucked or did not exist. A big sign. The alcoholic and the alcoholism does not want to be found out, and wanted to put on a "perfect front." This is very normal in an alcoholic home. Sometimes the spouse of the alcoholic wants to put on the air of everything normal over here. But in reality - the house is screwed. And it - the pretending and denial affects the children - here's how: their gut/intuition is telling them something is wrong - but they are being told "don't worry about it" or "everything is normal" and "don't tell anyone." Puts a big pressure on a little person and makes them grow up confused as all hell.

14. Too many glasses of wine. Kendall Jackson was the affair with whom my wife had. I wonder how may people are drinking to be healthy and in reality - are now alcoholics . . . I really wonder. Who would think an alcoholic could be a white wine drinker?

15. Wife would go MIA for 10 minutes or 30 minutes. Our house was fairly large. So she could hide and drink. Another sign. Duh.

Anyway, these were some of my signs I "coulda," - "shoulda" seen.  I know the focus needs to be on us - but there are some people out there who may be experiencing alcoholism and they are like us - they never knew it or don't know it - and need help to see it.

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My list:

* Breath smells sickly sweet (vodka, which supposedly isn't supposed to smell at all).  I confront Mr. M about it and his excuses are plentiful and profuse.  He just put a dip (chewing tobacco) in.  And I lie to myself and tell myself maybe he has diabetes or something and that's why his breath smells sweet.  So I would start hounding him to go to the dr. to get it checked out.

* Lying about things... even little things... a LOT.  Getting caught and then making up an excuse or a lie to cover it.  I can't even remember any examples, but I was baffled all the time and was willing to thing that maybe I was crazy rather than see the truth that he was drinking again!\.

* My normally tidy, controlling husband didn't care about mess and didn't get off the couch to participate in life.

* Never getting off the couch.  The hours of sleeping and watching TV in the same position are too numerous to count.

* Sleeping excessively.

* Detachment.  "Elvis has left the building".  He ceased to be present emotionally in ANY part of the family... His body was there, but his heart, soul, and even brain, had truly "left the building".

* Not fulfilling commitments he absolutely would have under normal circumstances.

* Excessive anger over trivial things, like the time he had hiccups that would not go away and he broke down a door and tore the rod out of the closet... weird... couldn't explain it.

* Oh, this is a biggie:  He didn't eat dessert anymore!  When we used to go out to dinner, he could be counted on to always want dessert.  (Sober alcoholics often need & want sweets - to replace the alcohol in their systems, Mr. M was like this.)  Once he started drinking again, he never wanted to eat dessert (at home or out).  he would even say things like "you know I am not a dessert eater!"... and I am thinking "since when".

* Always accuses me of nagging or controlling him.

I know there are more and I will add them as I think of them.  Thanks to Joe at alanondiary.blogspot.com for your healthy, insightful posts, I appreciate you.