Mr. M Update - Plus a Little on Laughter

Am I just numb or am I starting to accept my sadness as a part of life? (Is it possible it is like if one lost a limb they would grieve and grieve for a while and then start living again and learn to live with that loss in a new way?) Some of both, methinks.

What I didn't mention in my last post about Mr. M's dirt biking accident was that I had just had lunch with a group of 6 girlfriends (celebrating one friend's birthday)... we had stayed and laughed and gabbed so long that I rushed straight from there to meet two other girlfriends for dinner! (I had made several plans since Mr. M was going to be gone all weekend :) I was just walking in to restaurant #2 when Mr. M phoned, lying in a crumpled heap on the desert floor convulsing with shivers from the cold night air as darkness closed in around him and they waited for their buddy to come back with the truck. I expressed my concern and sympathy and made sure he was going to the hospital and asked questions like "Are you OK?????" and "Is there BLOOD?!?" and "Are any bones sticking out at weird angles?". He said he would call back and I went in to the restaurant and had a lovely evening with my friends. (The next night I had dinner with another girlfriend from Junior High and she hung out until 1AM!!) At dinner, I shared with my friends about Mr. M and my anger and fear and grief. Another friend shared how badly their business was going and how hard it is to struggle financially for so long... she cried a bit about how many vacation memories they have not been able to make because they never go anywhere because they are always waiting for "next year" hoping things will be better and they are not.

I have trauma and crisis in my life and so do others:

I currently have a friend whose husband of 26 years left her for an old high school crush devastating their 2 children who are now not speaking to him.

Another friend in my support group's husband has been having emotionally intimate conversations on the phone with a woman whose husband just left her... he thinks he might be in love with her and has told his wife - my friend - that he might want a divorce. their devastated daughter has started dabbling in drugs and sex.

Another friend of mine has a daughter with severe cerebral palsy, an adult son with extreme mental illness (he has been in jail and mental hospitals, he gets on medications, gets better, gets out, and realizes he is fine and gets off the meds only to slip back into the clutches of his mental illness). Meanwhile, her husband has had 2 neck surgeries and is not feeling any better and her mother (85) is having massive health problems and moved in with them!

My other friend's husband is 52 and is having memory issues like he makes her eggs for breakfast and then 20 minutes later of she wants him to make her some eggs... she is terrified for what this means for their family and their young 12 year old son.

One of my friends just lost his 12 year old daughter to cancer...

Need I go on?

There is a LOT of sadness in the world. I don't know a lot, but one thing I can tell you for sure; this is NOT heaven! There is a lot of pain and suffering and grief here on this planet. But life goes on. We can curl up and die or keep living. I am super sad for myself and my circumstances and I am brokenhearted for my suffering friends (and these are just a few of them!). But I am amazed at our resilience and HOPE. We cry together (I am not very good at this but am working on it) and we LAUGH together (I am VERY good at this :)

Oh... how we laugh!!!

And it is healing and cathartic.

It is not fake. We are not pretending we are not sad. We are sad AND sometimes there is humor even in the sadness (Dark humor? The lighter side of grief?) The sadness is true but so is the laughter.

So, while it has been a rough few days (and I have a lot of feelings I am still hashing through with Mr. M's latest escapades), it was also a fun few days... I enjoyed my friends and my kids and yes, even my life. It was - as Dr. would say - "abundant" (full of everything).

P.S.

Update on Mr. M is that his friends took him to the hospital and dropped him off. He called when he was done HOURS later and they picked him up. He didn't want to ruin their trip so he said he could just stay the 2 miserable days and nights in the trailer while they all went out riding all day. I could've offered to drive the 3.5 hours each way to pick him up, but didn't and only felt 5% guilty (not bad! ;) They brought him home sunday evening. (The kids and I had just finished a delicious mexican meal with my parents who brought dinner over.)

He was a mess... he was sick - they think from eating something bad - and vomiting and the "runs". (I let hims stay the night in case it was a symptom of an internal injury, I am still keeping an eye on him.) His right arm IS broken. We have to take him to the Dr. to have a more permanent cast put on this week. Not 100% sure what is wrong with the shoulder... the Dr. said to wait and bit before having it checked (this seems weird to me?!?!?). His tailbone and back are still killing him. He has deep cuts and scabs on his arms, elbows, and knees. His helmet is thrashed but it seems to have done its job protecting his brain (thank GOD!).

I undressed him and helped bathe him and am letting him spend a few nights. I did a load of his laundry and am being polite. He is terribly sad that I seem angry with him. He just doesn't get it: "It was an ACCIDENT, Babe!" I tried to explain. He says he gets it but he is very self consumed (he is in a lot of physical pain, plus me being mad at him brings emotional pain, plus I think he was quite scared and I am not offering a lot of comfort, which is my usual role... a lot of new stuff going on over here...)

Mr. M Goes Motorcycle Riding

Mr. M went on a motorcycle riding trip with some sober guys from the program. I have been near giddy with the thought of him being gone for a few days. This is weird because all I ache for him to do is to be sober and come home. But he has been sober for 5 weeks and he is over at the house every day. But we have been fighting. He has started to boss me and the kids around about cleaning (he's a bit OCD and likes to get all "up in our kitchen" when we are not as tidy as he is). He is no longer on "good behavior" and is crankier with all of us. (You can read the few previous posts about the fight on my birthday and on Christmas Eve morning). So a little break sounded nice.

He left and it brought up feelings of grief and sadness. I felt like I did when he was away from home and drunk. I just felt sad and hurt and abandoned. I kind of missed him but not really. If anything, his absence and my grief about it made me think how TIRED I am and how exhausting it is living this way.

He's only gone for 2 nights but has called and texted and left voicemails and sent video clips of the place he is staying. He got worried when I didn't respond and tried repeatedly to get in touch with me. We finally talked for a few minutes. He was telling me he missed me etc. I felt nothing but sad. I'm just sad.

I know it hurts his feelings when he doesn't get the response he is hoping for from me. And this freaks me out because if he gets scared or sad or feels rejected and cannot deal with his feelings, will he drink???? So then I feel like I should engage more and show him I love him - to prevent him from drinking. But this is just that illusion of control. He will drink if he wants and not drink if he doesn't want. My behavior is irrelevant. I can PRETEND I have some influence if this makes me fell better to convince myself that I actually have some power in this insanity. Mr. M may stay sober a while - or forever - or he might be drunk when he comes home tomorrow. And regardless, I am just sad right now.

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.

Foreclosed

Yesterday Mr. M and I went over to our friends' home to help them pack and to hug them as they sobbed.  

The sheriff had appeared last Thursday to serve them with an eviction notice.

Sad and devastating under ANY circumstances... the heartbreaking twist here is that Wifey knew and had been hiding it for MONTHS (and helped create it).  Hubby was completely in the dark... shocked and flabbergasted!  

I was packing in the garage.  I walked over to Hubby's workbench.  My eyes filled with tears.  This was not the workbench of someone who knew he would be moving and was preparing to move.  It was the workbench of someone who thought he would be there for a long time.   They have a LOT more to work on than just losing their house (and all their equity - a lifetime of work and savings, lost at 40 years old).

I do not want ANYONE to be as miserable as I have been in my alcoholic marriage... I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.  But wow, do people suddenly have more understanding, mercy, grace, and gratefulness!  (And where did the pity and maybe even tiny bit of judgement or "we are better than you" look in their eyes go?)   People suddenly realize what kind of love, support, and help we could have used in OUR tough time when we show up to help them in theirs.

Mr. M found himself teary and emotional all day.

He was sad for our friends.

He was also sad for us.

He saw the devastation the lying and betrayal can bring.

He had never seen his friend cry... and he wasn't just crying, he was sobbing.

So very sad...

I guess you could say that I have the blues.

I have been really grappling with sadness.

A heavy, weighty sadness sitting on my heart & shoulders almost all of the time.

It's like a companion that I am becoming used to having accompany me every where I go.

When - for a moment - I am happy or light or free, it almost feels unfamiliar and then it is back, sitting on me again after only a few moments of respite.

My therapy feels slow.

I feel frustrated with my lack of progress.