Unsent Letter #2 - January 2009

J,

I am not really sure what to make of anything or anyone anymore.

In Islam, when you make a commitment that is not honored by the other party, and the other party is not able or willing to fix it, you are basically absolved of your commitment.

I am beginning to feel that is the case with my marriage.

I do not have the bank statements. I do not believe I will ever see the bank statements. I don't have any of the other documents from J that we need. If I were asked the same information, it could be provided in a matter of minutes.

You can not force someone to be honest with you. Either someone is honest or they are not. J has proven again and again to be dishonest. I am not going to sit around and wait for a miracle. I'm not sure honesty is a trait you can learn at his age. You learn honesty at a young age from the example your parents set.

I have read Suze Orman's book. I have tried to stick to a budget. It makes no difference when my partner has no intention to stick to a budget and no honesty with me about his money or anything else.

I think you should hold J accountable. All the way. He doesn't have any value for people or money. Maybe he needs to lose everything to get that. I don't know. I am tired of paying the price for his carelessness though, for his disregard for all of us.

I have stayed in this marriage largely for the sake of my children, and now because I am just stuck. There has been no real indication that there is any love, compassion, empathy or anything else towards me. That being said, your grandson is now severely depressed. His counselor says that even if J does get and stay sober that it will take YEARS of hard work on his part to re-establish the trust that has been broken.

I just cannot understand how someone spends 90 days at Betty Ford at the cost of his father and his family every day, every day, EVERY DAY, and then starts drinking again. I don't understand any of it. I don't understand a father bringing cocaine into his home and leaving it right in his baby daughters' reach in the closet where she plays. We are all lucky that H is not dead.

I especially don't understand why we are all still talking about J and why we aren't figuring out how to help your grandson. Because I will be damned if history repeats itself. That is why my dad is here now every Sunday. And that is why J is now mostly called by his Muslim name. Because my son will come out of this and be the man God intended him to be. Whether or not I have to sacrifice my other ideals is now beside the point.

One ideal I will not sacrifice however is to file for bankruptcy. I will not crucify myself for J's carelessness, for debts he has every capability of repaying - just so he doesn't have to work or be stressed out by working. I have been working. I haven't had years of vacation and 5 months at rehab to play golf and sit at meetings. I have been here, working, and taking care of these children, which is the greatest and most important work, whether it provides a salary or not.

The train is now starting to move very fast. J will either have to hop on or miss it. What he does now has almost become irrelevant to me. Or perhaps I should say, I know from where we've been, where we're headed and I have just become dead to it. Perhaps J missed the train a long time ago and it is too late for him to ever catch up. Perhaps you all did.