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.

Guilty

I have not been posting for a long time.

I have just started to realize how much this is SOOOOO part of MY sickness as the wife of an alcoholic.

When he is doing bad, I am doing bad.

I start a secret, anonymous blog to pour out my heart and my angst and my fears and my devastation.  It is my journal that my kids can't stumble upon hidden in a drawer or under the bed.  My friends can't find it and gasp at my fantasies or unbalanced thoughts.  My qualifier (Mr. M) can't find it and know how I fantasize about my life without him.  It feels real and true.  I don't have to censor myself because I don't have to have a facade because no one knows who I am.  No persona.  No mask.  Just me.  Feels good.  Feels true.  Feels maybe even a little bit healthy.

Then Mr. M gets sober.

I let him start coming around.  

I hug him.  I let him start hugging me.

I let him have sleepovers.

We go to amusement parks and the beach and even *gasp* vacation.

I start a new family blog with pictures of all the new happiness and beauty we are creating.

I am living in a fantasy land, sucking all this up... lapping it up... rolling around and wrapping myself in it.

I SO want it to be real.

I SO want it to last.

I am SO afraid because I KNOW how temporary it can always be.

I am blessed to be able to give my kids a few more months or years with their Dad and not give up.  They are all blossoming.

But if I let myself THINK about it, I am afraid it is nothing but a house of cards.

My desire to be in denial and just enfold myself in this 10 month period of sobriety - where Mr. M is not perfect, but he is present and available and loving and strong - is all-encompassing.  I think that's why this journal is lying dormant. 

 If I come to it and log in with my secret email address and my secret name & password, then I am remembering and looking at the reality of what my life was (is) just 10 short months ago and I am forced to see how - with the sip of a drink - it would be right back there.

Would I regret this delicious period of denial?  

I can't answer that yet.

And I don't want to go back and read any old posts to see.

I DO know that I am still in therapy and progressing slowly (snail's pace, in my mind), but I DO see and feel changes... but I am not very brave... I am slow and hesitant and scared.  I want to be braver.  I want to trust more and love fully and not live to protect myself from real or imagined pain.

If temporary, my time of bliss is still real.  My kids' happiness is real.  But this... this alcoholic marriage is still real too and I need to not forget it.