Control

It is no secret to those who know me well that I like control. I like to be in control, not necessarily of everyone but myself and my husband mostly. It is strange that like so many other quirks in my life this element really doesn't radiate much beyond my inner circle.

When I go to a movie with friends I don't need to be in control of when we go, where we go (ok so I do have some popcorn preferences) or what we see. I just go with the flow. Same for shopping, eating out and mostly anything else that involves group decisions.

But when it comes to myself and DH it is an entirely different story. Let's start with me. I was anorexic in high school. (I will get to that story... I promise) According to everything I have read and all of the things the doctors told me anorexia is not so much about food as it is about control. The need to have something that you can control in your life.

I also don't drink. I have tried it a couple of times, it's not for me. I can't STAND the feeling of loosing control. Of not being 100% in control of my senses, my thoughts or my actions. Gives me the creepy crawlies.

The house, it is either really clean, or really messy. There is no in between. I like it really clean, but I'm not so great at keeping it that way. When I feel that I'm loosing control of the mess I get really stressed, really short with DH about it and then I just shut down. I ignore it entirely because it is not perfect and I don't feel there is any way to fix it.

With DH, the control issue stems from trying to get him to do what I want, say what I want, be what I want and failing miserably over and over again. Right now I am pretty sure he will never be what I want him to be. He is who he is. I just have to decide if who he is, just as he is, is the person I want to be with.

Ironically this is exactly the situation, rolls reversed, that caused me to break up with my boyfriend before DH. L wanted to be a pastor and he wanted me to change to be what he wanted from a pastor's wife. One day I looked at him and asked him if I never change, if I am always just the way I am could you marry me? He said no and we broke up. Seeing a pattern?

The reading for today in my Courage to Change book is all about control which is ironic to me because I just spent last night in a battle of wills with DH which I thought was all about him not respecting me and which I now realize was really about me not getting my way.

So this morning when I went to read my daily reading imagine my surprise to be smacked in the face with this one:

"[...]There is a difference between expressing ourselves and using words to control others. Sometimes the only way I can determine whether I'm trying to control someone else or whether I'm simply expressing my feelings is by noticing how many times I say the same thing. If I mention something that is on my mind and then let it go no matter what response I get, I am speaking sincerely. If I repeatedly make similar suggestions or ask prodding questions again and again, I am probably trying to control. If I am satisfied only when the other person responds in a way I consider desirable --agrees with what I've said or takes my advice--than I know I've lost my focus."

So the first time I got out of bed to ask what he was doing on the couch (watching a show I'd already seen) and when he was coming to bed already was ok.

The 3rd time...

yeah...

not so much...

Perception

The more life I live the more I am becoming increasingly convinced that happiness is based almost entirely on a person's perception of their situation. If this were not the case than why could it be that someone in a third world country who has nothing can be 10 times happier than someone who lives in America and has everything??

Living with an alcoholic/addict is also a lot about perception. I choose how I view the situation that my life is in and for most of my life that view has not been so rosy. I received my first edition of The Forum today and on the front cover it says that this issue is about "Overcoming my inner emptiness." That spoke to me.

For 28 (ok... almost 29... but who's counting) years I have been grasping at straws. Trying to fill a void I wasn't even aware was there until now. From the outside I have and have always had everything to be thankful for and happy about. We were poor when I was little, but I never did without.

As we got older my parents got more successful and we did without less and less. Yet still I was trying to have things, do things, be things I was never capable of being. Something in me is missing, something that makes me seek out the wrong people, buy things for happiness (this one is almost gone), etc.

That is one of the biggest reasons that I am letting DH back into my life. I am broken. I am broken with or without him. Only when I am fixed will I know if the problems we have are because I am broken or because our marriage is broken. If I don't fix myself I will just go right back out and find another "winner." I have a hell of a track record already.

I have made a decision to read my literature every day and try to write here as often as I can. I am telling my story on May 19th and I want to be able to tell it to the best of my ability.

Why Didn't You Come to My Birthday Party?

Last year we had a big get together for Munchkin's birthday and FIL didn't come. He said he couldn't come because MIL was going to be there. Even though they got divorced in May of 2004 and he got married again in September of 2006 he apparently has yet to let go.

The step-sisters, however, all showed up with bells on. The party was huge and MIL didn't feel uncomfortable because her family was there as well as FIL's family. This year I decided to scale it back. I only invited Grandparents, Great-Grandparents, aunts and a few friends. I sent out 15 invitations. 4 of them were to FIL, and three of the four Step sisters (the other one lives with FIL, another story for another day).

None of them showed up. No phone calls, no sorry we can't make it. Just didn't show up. Nor did they call later to say sorry we missed it. One week later FIL has yet to call and acknowledge that he even missed a party.

Last year I was hurt. I put something about it on the family blog and I was run through the ringer by one of the Step-SIL's who had found the blog. It was not pretty and ended in FIL telling me he wanted nothing to do with my blog and he never wanted to have anything about him posted there again.

I obliged. But he doesn't know this blog exhists and this is my safe space and I just want to say once and for all that I'm pissed off about the whole thing. I think he is a giant self centered ass for missing not one, but two of his grand son's birthday parties. I think he needs to grow the F&^K up and get over it all ready. He has been divorced for almost 5 years.

There you go, I've said my piece. Next year that is 4 less invitations on my list. Anyone want some cupcakes?? We have lots of left overs seeing as how we were about 11 people short!!

Relapse

That is a word heard over and over in the rooms of Al-anon and AA. 2 months sober and a relapse, a year sober and a relapse, 10 years sober and a relapse. It can happen to anyone, at any stage of the game. If you get complacent the disease will come back to bite you.

Why did I think we were any different? Why did I sit there in those meetings and shake my head when someone was talking about a relapse? For DH the magic number was 19 months. He made it 19 months sober but somewhere between there and 20 months the bottom fell out.

On DH's 19 month sobriety date his father was arrested. He had been driving without a license because he did not complete a court ordered program for a DUI three years earlier. He had pot and pot paraphernalia on him. I firmly believe that DH is 100% responsible for the choices he makes but I also don't believe that this helped him.

I remember talking to him after his dad was arrested. Talking about relapse, worrying about relapse. All of that did me no good, it happened any way. Within a month he had turned to pot. At first just once in awhile. He hid it well, but the more he got into it the more he started changing. No ambition, wanting to sleep, not wanting to help me, getting more and more ugly as far as angry cussing etc.

I knew something was up, I just couldn't put my finger on it. I kept asking a friend of mine if he seemed different. If she'd noticed anything. At first I just thought he wasn't taking his medicine regularly. I have been trying not to mother him but I started reminding him. Take it, take it, take it. Nothing seemed to be making him better.

The mood swings were getting worse, the not wanting to help around the house, wanting to sleep a lot. For a while I thought maybe he was depressed. Perhaps he needed counseling, a new medicine, something.

I remember about a month ago getting in an argument and him telling me that he just wasn't happy. He hadn't been happy and he was tired of it. It was then that the flash backs started coming. We had NOT had a conversation like that since before when he was using. I knew something was up but I couldn't prove it. Why I didn't drug test him then, I will never know.

I just kept thinking it can't be meth again. He's not violent, he's not awake for long periods of time, he's not impossible to wake up, he's home every night, he's not stealing money. I have to be imaging it. Then the Sunday before Christmas he left. He was moody and short with me again and as I was taking Munchkin up to get him ready for bed he called me a name under his breath. I was tired of it. So sure that I was just married to the biggest asshole on the planet so I stomped down the stairs and told him if he was going to talk to me like that he could just leave.

Then I went upstairs and promptly dissolved into a puddle of tears. It was all just getting SOO much worse and I didn't know what to do. At this point, I felt trapped. Like I couldn't get out because he was sober and what would people think. How ungrateful when I told him sober was enough, only this person, if he was sober, was NOT enough.

As I was trying to compose myself and read to Munchkin I heard him go outside. I heard the truck start and I heard him drive out of the driveway and at that moment I didn't care. Never in the whole time he had been home had he left and before when he left I chased him down, called him a million times and this time I just let him go.

About 10 - 15 minutes later I did call him. Not to beg him to come home, as before, but simply to ask him what his plan was. He was short with me and hung up on me. I didn't call back. About 45 minutes later he called and asked if he could come home. All I could say was it's your home too. Why I didn't drug test him then, I'll never know.

Things continued to unravel during the holidays. He would get off work early and instead of going to work with his dad or finding a side job he would just come home and sleep on the couch. The Tuesday before Christmas I was supposed to go to a meeting and he told me he had to work late. On Sunday we were with his dad for Christmas, an entirely different nightmare there that I will go into later, and his dad was going to give DH a check and mentioned that they worked until 6:00 on Tuesday. 6:00 when he clearly told me it was much later.

Then last Monday I got the credit card bill and discovered a charge on there for almost $75 dollars to one of the phone sex lines and I knew. I knew something was up. He had not done that since before when he was using.

I was so embarrassed I didn't want to tell ANYONE. What would they think of me, my husband calling that smutty line and talking to some whore. Finally I confided in an Al-anon friend and she didn't' judge me so I told another friend. I started to finally come to terms with the fact that his choices were his choices. I did NOT make them so I didn't need to be embarrassed by them. They are not a reflection on me, they are a reflection on him.

By that point I knew something was up, I just didn't have the evidence to prove it. As I was screaming at him on Monday night I threatened to get a drug test but I never did. Maybe because I knew I didn't need it. He would slip up... and he did.

On New Years night we got home at 12:30 and he wanted to stay on the couch to relax. He had been doing this more and more and I had become increasingly suspicious. As I was lying there getting ready to go to sleep I realized that I had forgotten to put the cheese in the refrigerator. I went downstairs and he was in the basement. He gave me some story about checking on the cat who was puking.

I knew it was a lie but at this point it was almost 1:00 in the morning and I was too tired to argue about it. He came to bed at 2:00 and claimed he couldn't sleep. The man I knew had never been up that late in the past year that he had been home and now this was twice in the past week. I knew something just wasn't adding up.

On New Year's day we were supposed to go over to my sponsor's house to watch a bowl game. On our way out the door I remembered that I hadn't fed that cats and while I was in the basement I just decided to check the cupboard down there.

We never made it to the bowl game. In the cupboard were three pipes and a bag with who knows what in it. I didn't look. Honestly, I didn't care. I put the pipes in the bag, took it upstairs, threw it in his face and told him I was taking Munchkin to my parents.

Of course he tried to deny it, saying it was old, except I check that cabinet several times after he got home. Then he tried to say he just found it in the garage... strike two, cleaned that too. Finally he came clean and said he was smoking pot again. That he had gotten it from a guy he did a side job for. A side job in the middle of November, right when his attitude started going down hill.

It all made sense now. He was moody and tired because of the pot. He had turned into a giant asshole because of it. All the pieces seemed to fit except for one. What the hell was I going to do?

I have been in Al-anon for over a year now and if I have learned anything it is the concept of one day at a time. I didn't have to know that day and I was ok with that. DH slept on our couch on Thursday night and on Friday morning I asked him to find somewhere else to stay for awhile.

I don't know what will happen now but I know that I can't have him doing drugs and living in our house so at least until he can pass one or more drug tests he will be staying else where and will NOT be unsupervised with Munchkin.

That's all I need to know right now. The only part of my fire plan that needs to happen. The rest we will take day by day. My decision today does not have to be my decision tomorrow and I'm ok with that.

Now, it's late, and I have to work VERY early tomorrow so I'll have to continue with the rest of the story later...