in spite of what my therapist advised, just last wednesday in fact, i haven't been writing lately.

i'm feeling sort of poll-axed.

tomorrow i drive up to the 'ham to see HIM. we are meeting with the family counselor there. this is "spouse time" and not "family time", although i doubt the kids will want to go for "family time" anyway. it's a long drive for such a short visit. about 5.5 to 6 hours round trip. it makes for a long day, especially if you factor in the emotional parts. and it's always emotional.

i'm not really jazzed about making the drive. too many transfer trucks on the road for my personal driving comfort. they are muuuch bigger than my little honda. makes me wish i could take ye olde gas guzzler, but since he managed to impale it with that STOP sign, it's not exactly in peak driving condition.

one bright spot, i have my new 'road trip' playlist that i uploaded on my iPod, so it will help the time pass...i hope!

besides making the dreaded drive, i am not looking forward to the session. it's sad in a way, he sounds so hopeful and excited about my coming up to see him. he's really been very upbeat since he's been up there. more so than i've ever heard him be, while in treatment. in fact, last night was the first time he ever mentioned being homesick.

he has 6 more weeks left, at the very least, until he comes back home. oddly enough, last night he mentioned it and said "6 or 10 or 12 weeks, whatever and however long it takes." and that sort of blew me away, because in the past he's been all about coming home and never really seemed to allow anything to seep in to his brain/conscience. he's also said that he's come to believe in a higher power.

in other words, he's saying everything i ever wanted him to say to me, since all of this began, back in 2000.

he's only been there 2 weeks!

in other words, i don't believe anything he's saying to me right now. i think he's totally saying what I want to hear.

annnnd i get to address that tomorrow. oh joy, oh rapture...oh shit.

i also get need to share some decisions i have made. the main decision being that this is pretty much it for me.

we've been doing this for 10 years now, and he's been to 5 treatment centers in the last 7 years. each time he has started drinking again, and it's become progressively worse. my sense of self-worth is shot and i can no longer take the arguments, the isolation, the verbal abuse and the worry over whether or not he will be coming home.

if he goes back to drinking, our marriage is over.

as much as I love him, and i do love him, it's no longer enough for me. mainly because his drinking has been systematically beating the crap out of me for years now.

not physically, but emotionally.

i just cannot see myself living the rest of my life as the wife of a functioning (their word not mine) active alcoholic. i just can't do it anymore, i no longer have the strength.

to be honest, i don't believe that this treatment program will end up affecting him anymore than any other program and I believe he will go back to drinking. why?, you might ask, when he has so much to lose? well, mainly i say it because i know that deep down inside he doesn't want to stop drinking. that's the bottom line.

this program is not my first time at the rodeo, i can only go by history.

oh and he will tell me that he "can do nothing about the past", but "just apologize and move on towards the future"...i know this, because he's said it so many times before.

this time i can answer him. this time i can respond. "those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." as he has taught me all too well, over the years.

i worry that having this kind of frank conversation with him will somehow derail his sobriety attempts. i worry about how what i say will do to him. whether or not he will actually listen to what i'm saying.

i need to stop worrying about how what i say and do will affect him. i need to make myself a separate person from him, if i am to survive. right now we are so immersed, so enmeshed with one another that what he is doing to himself, he is also doing to me. then i pile on the guilt of what I have said or didn't say or did or didn't do. even as i know better.

no wonder i'm one doodle short of wack-a-doodle-do!

so. pretty much it's this: i've made a decision and i think i can live with it. it is up to him whether or not we can work on our marriage. i'm not saying that it soley hinges on his being sober, but that is a HUGE part of the equation.

i'm not perfect and i've never claimed to be so. i can be judgmental at times, i have a potty-mouth, which i try to relegate to my head only, i'd rather read a book or watch a movie than 'go do something' when i'm on vacation and i have a temper, although lately i tend to swallow my anger. that has resulted in a huge upswing on the scale, which makes me unhappy and bears down heavily on my sense of self-esteem.

still i have recognized that it isn't HIS fault that i am eating as i have been, it's my reaction to him. something else on which i need to work.

he has really only two major issues to deal with, if i can ever begin to trust him again or feel comfortable enough in our relationship to trust myself to be myself. ihe drinking and his unfounded jealousy.

as i said, we get to address all this shit and more tomorrow. and then i get to get in my car and drive 2.5-3 hours back home.

joy...rapture...shit.

back again, no real improvement - 2011-06-02
growing - 2010-05-08
does sharing really mean caring - 2010-04-20
don't want to think about it now - 2010-04-13
trying to figure it out - 2010-04-12