The Couch

For years I have had a hate-hate relationship with our couch. Not really our couch even, all couches in general. I remember before DH and I moved in together we vowed that neither one of us would ever sleep on the couch and for awhile after we moved in I tried to enforce that rule.

When we were dating his dad slept on the couch. First out of necessity (his - he had a broken foot) and then out of more necessity (hers - she just couldn't stand him, the excuse was his snoring but I saw things differently). I think by the time I arrived in the picture their marriage was strained. By the time DH moved out it was just hanging on by a thread.

Eventually, after about a year, his dad got tired of sleeping on the couch and moved down to the bed that was in his mom's "office." Many an argument was had about whether that room was an office or his bedroom and if it was his bedroom what did that mean for their marriage. After DH moved out, the line was officially drawn. She turned that room into her "work room" and his dad moved into "his own room" which used to be DH's bedroom.

So, needless to say I had a BAD view of sleeping on the couch. And, it didn't get any better when we moved. DH liked to stay up late to "watch tv" on our couch. Which basically amounted to him sneaking out of the house to do drugs or sitting on our couch drinking as much as he could until he passed out.

When we first moved we had a different couch. It was not long enough for him to sleep on and stretch out but that didn't seem to stop him. I suppose when you are passed out from drugs or alcohol you don't particularly care where or how you sleep. After awhile, I stopped waking him. But I never slept. I would get up every hour or two just to peak down the stairs and see if he was still there, still asleep. It was about a 50-50 shot. Many a night I walked down the stairs to find the living room dark and him no where to be found.

Sometimes he was outside, many more times he had snuck out, gotten in his car and driven away. No rhyme or reason. I remember many times sitting there on that couch calling him over and over and over. Ring, ring, voicemail. Redial.... ring, ring, ring, ring, voicemail. Eventually he would just turn the phone off and I would just get voicemail. Then I would cry. Until I went to Al-anon I always wanted to know the reason why.

I remember just chanting over and over, pick up, pick up, pick up. I just wanted to ask him why. I thought if I talked to him I could make him come home. That I could win over the addiction, I was wrong. Very, very wrong.

On the nights that he would stay home the couch was often a dumping ground. There is a burn hole in our couch from something. (Also in one of our pairs of sheets for our bed) One side of our couch does not work, (it's a reclining couch) and I'm not sure if it is because of something he did or simply because it is a hand me down.

There were several days that he would get up after a night on the couch and I would stick my hand in the end to find the remote and instead would be greeted with a pipe, some drugs, a bottle cap, a beer bottle, etc. Things were hidden throughout our house but the couch seemed to be his favorite spot.

When DH left for treatment the couch was cleaned. I turned it over swept it out, cleaned all the crevices, dumped out all the memories and the bad feelings and then I sat on it. A lot. I played with munchkin, I laid on it after he went to bed, just tried to get the bad feeling to go away.

And for the most part, it has. That is probably the most used piece of furniture in our house. But still, at times, that lingering feeling is still there. Last week DH had a sinus infection. And he snored... BADLY. So he offered to sleep on the couch so that we could both get some sleep. I agreed but in the back of my mind there was still a nagging feeling.

Then I fell asleep, and when I woke up it was 6:00 and my alarm was going off. I think that is progress.