Breakfast coverup

My husband is at our house right now, packing up the things he’ll need for his stay at a halfway house. So I took our youngest two to the local coffee shop, handed them cinnamon rolls, milk and the Nintendo DS and a laptop and told them we were gonna enjoy some breakfast and video games. (The oldest is at a friend’s house.)

Seems like life will be easier when they know the truth and we can stop pretending that their dad is away on a business trip. Of course, when they know the truth, life will become infinitely more complicated with questions of when will Daddy be home? Why does Daddy have to stay away?

Last night the littlest one and I were watching “Free Willy.” When Willy jumped the rock wall and escaped into freedom, my little guy sobbed, understanding that the boy would not get to see his whale friend anymore. When I asked him why he was crying, my son wailed on about his frog who died. “I miss my frog!” he cried over and over.

I had to wonder how much of the true, wounded sadness was really “I miss my dad” that he just wasn’t articulating. And the truth is that I miss his dad, too. Oh, how I wish I could just throw the door open and say, “Come on in!”

But I am afraid that doing so would only take us 20 steps from where we need to be, which is in a place of honesty and sobriety on his part and forgiveness on mine.

Liar

It’s a term that I’ve used for my husband before when he’s trying to cover his drinking/drug use. But today it fits me.

I took our youngest child to a new health care provider and had the usual mountain of paperwork to complete. I’ve done this so many times that I could practically do it in my sleep. I really wish there was a universal electronic file that you could just upload to whomever needs the information.

Anyway, I was breezing through the filling out of the forms when I came to the question “Parents’ marital status?” That one stopped me dead. It was the first time I’ve been asked that question since my husband moved out.

There’s never an option for “Married, but pissed off.” Just “married” is enough. But the “Separated” option stared me at the face, so much private truth in that one word. So much acknowledgement of the pissed-offedness, of the turmoil that exists in our house. And I just couldn’t face it.

So I lied and quickly put my check mark next to “Married.”

Today I feel…

Today I am feeling angry because I feel like my husband is not respecting my request to stay away. He calls frequently. He’s come home for one reason or another every day, always when the kids are gone, thankfully. They don’t realize he has moved out. They think he is on a business trip.

He seemed confused when I said that I wouldn’t be ready for him to move back in two weeks. Yet, clearly, that is what I said and what I wrote in the letter I read to him about his leaving. Is it so wrong that I don’t know when I expect him to return? The fact that he seemed to think a few days away would be enough for me angers me. Years of lies and deception and I should surrender my anger in a few days? I’m not Christian enough and too outrageously human for that.

I find myself feeling sorry for him. And then angry. And then defensive of him. Everyone says that I am strong. Then why do I feel so weak? Why do I feel like the boundaries I’ve set are written on the ocean’s wave — advancing and receding, advancing and receding?

I’m seeing a therapist on Friday. I saw one a few years ago for a total of four visits. I stopped because I didn’t really know what to talk about. I didn’t really identify myself as a co-dependent. I don’t know if she did.

On Saturday I picked up the book Co-Dependent No More . I can see myself in some of it, though not all of it. What I have come to understand is that for years I was the mature, responsible type of co-dependent, always taking care of everyone. But lately I feel like I’ve progressed to the state of being so tired and so burnt out from the caretaker role that now I am the irresponsible one.

If it were possible, I would lay for days on end on the couch, computer on my lap, television on in front of me. But there is work to be done, are children to be bathed and clothed and fed, and so I’m the pseudo-responsible, irresponsible one.

And I am tired. I try to remember that whatever God asks me to lift, he gives me the grace to carry. Remembering that and believing that are not equal tasks.

Breathing out

I came home tonight and felt as though I could release the breath I’ve been holding in for the past five days. I am not ignorant of the struggles that lie ahead, both in the emotional and spiritual journeys my husband and I face, as well as the logistical conflicts that are sure to arise parenting three children on my own. Already I’ve thought of and tried to mentally tackle the arrangements of getting them to and from their various activities at the right moment. And I will tackle that — tomorrow.

But in the driveway tonight, there was a sense of peace. Of not wondering what I was going to find on the other side of the front door. To be sure, there was a bit of sadness in realizing that he is gone, even though it was at my asking. Yes, there was the chatter and clatter of children and the remorseful realization of all the homework saved for Sunday night. Mostly, though, there was only the sound of me breathing out.

Doubt

The sun is shining. Today is the day my husband is supposed to move out. But he is sober and in the kitchen cleaning up. And this is how I want life to be. So I start to doubt my decision to ask him to leave.

Yet, it was just about 14 hours ago that he stood there over a trash can full of empty beer cans telling me he didn’t know where they might have come from. Only when I accused him of stealing them did he confess to having bought them.

“Just so I could have one at a time” to help me through the detox process. I asked if there were others — he took me to the basement where he dug out five more empties. Two hidden in a toy on the top shelf. Three in the utility room behind some Christmas decorations.

He is an alcoholic and, by default, a liar. And I can’t trust him. As much as I want this to be ok and I want to go on living life as “normal,” I have to face this and know that I’m doing it for our family.

Tomorrow I will talk to the school so they are aware that our children might need a little love and leeway. I’ll find a counselor for me. And I’ll try to make an easy transition for us, praying all the time that God keep him safe until he finds his way.

Saving me, saving us

If someone had said to me on my wedding day that nearly 16 years later I would be asking my husband to move out, I would have denied it. I would have objected and thought they had no idea what they were talking about it.

Yet, today, that’s exactly what I did. I asked my -aholic husband to give me some space. I don’t want a divorce. But I can’t live like this either. Counting pills in prescription bottles to see if he’s stolen any. Looking in trash cans for hidden whiskey bottles.

It was less than 2 years ago that I thought our life was back on track. I thought rehab was our fresh start. I went to the spouse sessions. I sought help at our church to connect him to a sponsor. I didn’t say anything when in those first clean months he was gone to AA meetings sometimes eight times a week.

Never did it occur to me that we would be starting over now. For the third time. Somewhere deep down I love him. But mostly today, I feel anger and resentment. I feel stupid for being duped.

Yet, I feel like I want this to work. I want to find a way to climb over this anger. To put this resentment behind me. And to do that, I can’t have him staring me in the face everyday, telling me how sorry he is. How much he wants to be a better husband, a better father. Because to look at him right now makes me want to puke. To watch his pathetic, pitiful, cowering shell of his former self makes me want to kick him in the gut. To hear his words that, no matter how full of his truth they are, sound painfully empty to me, makes me furious.

So to save our marriage, to save myself from the bitter shell I’ve become, he has to go, at least for a while.