Woke up late, got up, made muffins.
I drove around til I found an open UPS store and mailed the iPad to mom. Sheesh that is expensive. I will not be able to do overnight delivery for T's packages... I am just so impatient. :/ I hate waiting to know how people liked to their gifts.
When I got home, the girls helped me rake the entire backyard and the driveway, and L mowed over the leaves. I was amazed that no one fussed at all. It was really very nice.
At 6, I went to the meeting. I was really very anxious, because I had been thinking all week about what I might say if that same couple was there. I wasn't sure if it was appropriate to say, and if it was right to plan my sharing based on something that I thought someone else 'needed' to hear, as opposed to what *I* needed to say. I went back and forth on it up until it was my turn to talk. I had decided to not say anything, and then suddenly it was my turn, and only 4 people left, but 30 minutes left in the meeting. So I decided to say it...
My name is *. My mother is an Adult Child of an Alcoholic, and then she married one. She was so good at what she did, and he was so high functioning and so together that no one had any idea that he had a problem. In fact, I didn’t even realize that he was an alcoholic until a few years ago... All of those years, I thought my mother was just a bitch. But she was covering for him. Fixing things. Keeping everything together...
So I went and did exactly the same thing. I married an alcoholic that was so much fun, so personable, so smart, so successful- that no one had any idea that he had any issues. No one would have believed it. In fact, my own mother spent years telling me that I needed to get help for my “spending problems” because X was such a good guy and worked SO hard to make good money and it wasn’t possible that we had bad credit unless I was doing something wrong... He was the awesome, fun, social, drink anyone under the table, make everyone laugh kind of guy... But they only saw him at the restaurant. They didn’t have to go home with him. They didn’t see him at home- angry and yelling and throwing things.... He went to a meeting at church drunk once, and the next day all I heard was how awesome and creative he is and how lucky we all are to have him...
It didn’t start off horrible. Just little by little, the alcoholic personality crept into things. before I realized what had happened, we were in debt. Bills were never paid. He would lie about having had paid them, so I never knew what was really going on. I woke up every morning in fear that the electricity had been turned off, or the gas, or the water. Every noise I heard outside was someone coming to take away my car...
He wasn’t just an alcoholic, he was also a sex addict. I tried to be supportive. I tried to tell him that having fantasies was great, but that it wasn’t safe or healthy to try to act them out... But he got deeper and deeper into it. He wanted me involved in it. I lived in complete and utter anxiety everyday- never knowing if he was going to suddenly thrust me into some awkward situation that I would have to try to get out of... I didn’t feel safe in my own home. More than once, I got out of the shower, only to find him in my room with a man whom he had brought over, promising that he could have sex with me. I was afraid of what would happen if I said no, afraid of who I was and what was happening if I said yes. Afraid that someday it would get worse. Someday he would bring some stranger who wouldn’t take no for an answer. Someday my girls would look like women- how much worse would he get? How much further could he rationalize?
I would have given anything for him to have been a drop dead drunk by 10am kind of guy. I would have given anything I had for him to have gotten a DUI, or lost his license, or lost his job... Just so someone else would have seen it. For just ONE other person on the earth to see him for what he was and to believe me and to stand with me. To just be able to hear one person say that they saw what I was going through. Even if it couldn’t be fixed, Even if I was stuck- just to have anyone believe me. When he was angry, I used to pray that, just once, he would hit me. That he would just get angry enough and lose it just once and hit me. So that I could walk down the street and people would see a black eye, and they would believe me. They would see what I was talking about...
It got to where all I wanted was to just not have to do it any more. I wished I could just kill myself. I fantasized about it. But if I died, that would leave him sole custody of the girls, and I couldn’t let that happen. So he hadn’t only taken over my life - he had taken away even my option of death. I couldn’t even choose to die because of him. I finally told him to choose between his lifestyle choices and me. Us... He laughed in my face and told me I was ridiculous. And left. And on his way out, he told everyone that I had cheated on him, and that was why he was leaving... And everyone believed him. Why wouldn’t they? He was the fun, happy, social guy, and I was the tight assed, emotional psycho. Obviously he was the one to believe...
I had been working at a church- so I lost my job. I lost my family, my job, my church, my friends, my support system- all at once. To this day, there are still people in this town who turn their backs and walk away from me when I walk into a room. People at restaurants whisper and point. People have told others to not associate with me because I am a whore and a homewrecker...
I have no control over these things. I can’t make them better. I can’t make them stop...
In almost 2 years, I have yet to hear anyone tell that story. In fact, that is the first time in 2 years that I have said any of that out loud... I have heard parts of my story, but I have never met anyone who has gone through the same situation as me...
But it doesn't matter. We all have felt the same fear, the same anxiety, frustration, hopelessness, and sorrow- even if our stories are different. Every one here knows exactly what I am talking about. Everyone here knows exactly how I feel... And that helps. Just being in a room of people who understand- helps. Every time I come to a meeting, I feel better. I feel like I can handle life better now than I could an hour ago. And I don’t even know why. In 2 years, not a single person has given me advice. No one has told me what to do. But ‘coming back’ has kept me sane. It saved my life and has given me hope. Nothing has changed really in my life or my alcoholic’s life. But I am alive, and I am happy to be alive, and I have happy moments every day- because *I* am different- not my situation. I kept coming back. And it works when I work it...
It took about 7 minutes to say all of that... I honestly think that people appreciated that I had said it. And when we got around to the man's turn, he actually said something like, "Well, we have problems, but nothing to compared to what y'all are having to go through..." My head snapped up and I looked at * and her head snapped up and she looked at me, and when she knew he wasn't looking at her, she smiled at me, like, "You did it." So, I guess maybe what I said made a difference to the person to whom I was hoping it would. * told me afterward that she thought I was very brave. I didn't feel brave at all. I felt kind of selfish, actually. Like I didn't have any business saying that out loud... I said something derogatory, and she told me, "Stop it!"...
I went home and got the girls and we went out to dinner. It was nice. It was a good day.
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