Why didn't anyone tell me?

(Shared with permission by Margaret Clapp)

Why didn't anyone tell me this was a no-win situation? Why didn't anyone tell me how "supporting my husband's recovery" would destroy my kids? I think they should post some stats of actual long term opiate recovery outcomes at meetings. This is lifetime of descending levels of hell for the families.

Over the past six years, I sold my soul, compromised my identity and values, wasted my savings, irreparably destroyed my self esteem and most horrific of all, damaged my precious daughters. For what? To keep "my marriage together", so my kids wouldn’t grow-up without a "dad". They have a "dad" alright. A "dad" who taught them, by constant example, how to lie and avoid responsibility. This is not life I imaged for myself or my lovely children.

I was never stupid or weak. Just the opposite. I am well educated. I was fit and cute and funny. I worked hard and success came easy for me. I had a supportive family and strong network of friends in a lovely upper middle class neighborhood. Notice the past tense.

In 2005, I discovered my husband had a “problem". He was coming home from work falling down high, pissing in the hallway, sleeping/watching for days, then he went off the wall, screaming, agitated, violent. You all know the drill. I was scared. I wanted to help him. I loved him. He loved me. We had two kids. I would stand by him and he would get through this. After all, we were married for better or worse.

Over the next four years I thought I was insulating my daughters form the chaos of their dad's addiction. He never drove them in car. The kids were busy at school, sports, homework, social events, spent allot of time with grandma. I took on the roll of mom and dad. put on a happy face and took care of business. All the while, demonstrating, through my daily example, how to be a doormat, how not stand-up for your rights, that a wife is not entitled to love, affection or respect, that a wife was a target for blame, that wife should never expect the truth, that lies are tolerated in marriage, that marriage is not a partnership. I allowed this to happen.

Worst of all, they knew. My sweet young daughters knew I was compromising my integrity and self respect for the sake of a drug addict. My kids, by extension, also comprised a significant portion of their childhood for a drug addict. They had no choice. They grew-up in home without trust, without respect.

At some point, I realized that he (my Opiate-addicted husband) was not married to me. The love of his life came in a pill (Oxy, Vicodine, etc). Weren't fathers supposed to put forth effort and make sacrifices for the family? His efforts and sacrifices are for drugs. He wasn't my partner in building a future our daughters. His partner is opiates. His future is getting high.

If you're still trying to be the best wife and mother possible, please stop believing everything will be OK. Every lie you ignore, every dollar missing, every late night wondering when he’ll arrive home is one more chip away from your soul. Your kids are bearing witness to your slow decay.

GRAB the kids and RUN. Why? So you don’t end-up a soulless disaster. Run. NOW. Today. Run for your life. Don’t stop until you are free from the lies and pain of someone else’s addition . Run fast. Run while you still have love in your heart, before hate overtakes your soul. Run.

"Fair"

I have really been struggling these last weeks over the issue of fairness.

Fair is a relative term. Life, in general, is not fair. But in my mind, it should be.

I was devastated by the execution of Troy Davis. I can barely write these words without breaking down. I, like millions of others, had held my breath until the last second, only to get the bad news.

I can only hope that this, like so many other things that are happening in our world now, will create some sort of tipping point, where the rest of us finally fight back for what is right. I am really happy to see so many people demonstrating on Wall Street and throughout this country. I hope this movement will continue to grow.

"There is a huge number of Americans who simply don't realize that they've been victimized by Wall Street – that they've paid inflated commodity prices due to irresponsible speculation and manipulation, seen their home values depressed thanks to corruption in the mortgage markets, subsidized banker bonuses with their tax dollars and/or been forced to pay usurious interest rates for consumer credit, among other things." - Matt Taibbi

I know about unfairness all too well in the money department. For someone who tries to think the best of people, this has hit me especially hard. I've come to realize that when there's money involved, any good that was there (if there ever was any) quickly dissolves.

It's very hard to completely heal when things continually seem unfair. I am trying to accept that things will never be fair between us.

I need to accept that I will never get a full amends from my ex or his family no matter how many AA meetings they attend. The rules for the rich and entitled are different than those for the rest of us.

The only thing that is "fair" in terms of my divorce is that my ex is no longer married to me.

All I can do is move on the best I can, raise my kids well and be happy with my new life. The saving grace is, I do have a new life.

Taking Care of (my)Self

My recent pain has reminded me of some of the choices I have made these last years regarding self-care.

I want to stress that I get chiropractic care, massage and accupuncture not because I have so much extra money (although that was the case at one time, it certainly isn't now).

I get these treatments because I place such a high premium on my health.

It has been very clear to me how much stress living (or just dealing) with an addict has put on my body.

Things are much better now, but for years I had chronic headaches, back/neck pain, every sort of stomach issue, and was severely underweight (wearing a size 00 at 5'7").

I don't have much money now, but one thing I will not scrimp on is my personal care. I say this because I see so many women put themselves last and say, "I can't afford self-care."

I don't believe this is true.

I have had to re-shuffle my priorities, but I am managing.

I did that by cancelling cable, eating out less, and basically cutting out little by little anything that was not essential. (Self-care is essential!)

I have also been selling things off slowly. I never thought I could (or would) part with many of my possessions, but I feel lighter and happier than I ever have.

What use are diamonds and money to me when I am dead?

I have seen so many women (including my own grandmother) die of cancer after a life-time commitment to an addict.

I firmly believe that leaving the relationship is the only way to save yourself.

And, that we must take care of ourselves before the addict eats what's left of us up.

Because, even if you leave, the addict will always be there to some extent. And the effects on your body will remain if you don't deal with them aggressively.

One last thought, I am sickened to think of all the money wasted on alcohol, drugs, rehabs and recklessness by the addict in my life.

Certainly I am worth a few hundred dollars a month to get the care I need.


"Self-nurturing requires an attitude of feminine valuing. It is enhanced
by the time in which you shift your attention to yourself. If you nurture
yourself, the choices you make in your life will be conscious and
empowered."

—Virginia Beane Rutter, Celebrating Girls

Preferences

Apparently my in laws are upset by a recent blog post to our family blog about my former in-laws. They told my husband that I seem to like this other family better than them.

Well duh!

Who wouldn't prefer kindness to dry drunks?

Who prefers cheap Indian-givers to generous people who would give anything or do anything for their family?

Who prefers being called poor and stupid to being loved and cherished?

Everything is always about them. Maybe they should realize that aside from their money, they have nothing to offer anyone. If they want people to truly "like" them, they should treat people decently.

Of course I prefer people who have never even tasted alcohol to people who drank away my husbands childhood.

When you are sober you can actually raise 7 amazing children very well, even in a war zone. It's not that hard. Just stay present and put the fucking bottle down.

My former in-laws had their house destroyed, faced constant death, had their son shot at in his school...I could go on and on. They had actual problems that they overcame - and managed to still be amazingly nice people.

(And, no, I do not consider having a lush life in the US and drinking too much to be an actual problem. It causes problems for other people. Addiction it is a chosen problem which the addict can change.)

I have thought through this and none of my former husband's family has ever had a problem with addiction. Not his parents, his 6 brothers and sisters, their children, aunts and uncles... You could go on and on. For the most part, no one has ever even tried alcohol. So this is a shout out to Muslim families. Complete abstinence works. And if you have a strong family it is possible that none of your seven children will be addicts of any sort. (Even after suffering immense hardships that would be hard to fathom in this country.)

Within days of arriving to Lebanon, H's grandma sat me on her lap and told me I love you just as much as I love H. You are now a daughter to me. All of his family treated me that way.

And they still do.

So, YES, I prefer my former in-laws. If you want me to like you better, treat me better!

Kids for Sale

So my husband still will not give us a dime. And I know he has money because I saw his pay stub yesterday. So, I called him on it and he said he had to give $1500 to his dad. (And the rest of it?!)

Seriously? His multi-millionaire father is going to get money before his own children?

So here is his response:

"My family was willing to help us through this tough time at one point, but you have ruined that, for both of us!

I asked him the other day why he won't help his grand kids and he said he probably would if he was allowed to even know them. You have cut them out of the kids life to prove that you could."

MY KIDS ARE NOT FOR SALE.

I will not put them in harms way so that my entitled husband can avoid working like a real man.

No thank you.

We will be just fine. And someday, the kids will figure this all out on their own. They don't need me or anyone else to tell them. They have seen it before their own eyes.

Again and again and again and again.

I realize that it is much easier to control an addict, but I will NEVER allowed my children to be subjected to the abuse of that family just so they can breed another generation of addicts and money whores.

Fuck Family Week

I am unable to sleep. I am angry at my husband and worried about what I am going to do with my life.

If it were just me, that would be one thing. But I have two young children and I need to minimize their pain as much as possible.

This isn't the life I had planned for either one of them.

In thinking about it, I have to also say that I am very disappointed in the Betty Ford Center.

My husband blamed not telling me on the 9th Step, which says something about not telling someone if it would do more harm than good to tell them.

But I told him he was manipulating that into his own BS to make it work for him.

I specifically asked him for his full medical records from there for months to check for this very thing. He evaded me, and gave excuses and everything else and this is why. That was on there.

Everything was written in a Betty Ford workbook that they went over with him. His counselor and the other counselors had to have known. I spent a week with them there.

Unprotected sex with 3 women who were also likely coke-addicts put my life at risk. And they should have told me if he didn't.

I'm thinking back to the culmination of the week, when the addicts are supposed to "come clean" and tell everything to their partner. Their assigned counselor actually sat in, along with 2 other counselors to make sure they say EVERYTHING.

There was nothing said about the UNPROTECTED SEX he dictated in this book.

And there I sat with him and all his buddies in group and at various dinners and no one said ANYTHING to me.

I seriously hate addicts and their little cover-up clubs. I suppose since they are all in the same boat, they have no problem with covering up anything for anyone else. Can't be worse than anything else they did themselves.

So there I was at the Betty Ford Center, wasting a full week on "Family week", which should really be called "FUCK-Family week" and flew down for another marriage counseling workshop. And they all just encouraged me to "look at my part". Which is great, but I have already done that. Maybe addicts should look at THEIR part for once and say "I Fucked up." Maybe they should look at their lives and say, yeah, my parents screwed me over big time, but I don't have to screw everyone else over. Maybe Rehab clinics should protect some of these family members instead of the ADDICTS WHO PAY THEM - so that we all don't end up dying from HIV or HepC, or in cars our addicts are driving when we don't know they are completely out of their minds....

I left there was such gratitude for that center, but now I hate it. I wish they would have told me the truth, even if my husband didn't have the balls to - because I could have moved on with my life at that point instead of wasting more time.

That could have been me...

I met a woman in Al-Anon last week who has stayed in my head. She brought her 2-year-old with her. He sat quietly on her lap the entire time. She came late, even after me. She was from California, and had fake breasts that peaked out under her dress. She sat next to me, and I comforted her several times during the meeting when she cried. Afterward, I spoke with her, and she began to cry again. She told me her husband was out of control and on drugs. He had hawked her diamonds, which from looking at her must have been large. They had 4 homes going into foreclosure next week. She said she thought she had this dream life, with a big house up on the hill, and it was all going very fast. She could be on welfare next week. She had 2 other children. The oldest boy was 11 and giving her a hard time. She had just walked in on her husband with a call girl. She told me she had no boundaries, and she was just OK with it. She started crying more. I looked down at her son, who I felt, should not have had to hear all this, but then where else would he have gone? Another man was there listening as well, trying to give her annoying advice. Trying to fuck her, as far as I was concerned. He was a real loser in a purple shirt. A real fruit loop. He didn't stand a chance, but she was much nicer with him than I would have been. I suppose I held my annoyance pretty well too. She told me that they were at least going to put their house on the market and that everything would be OK then. Wow - this market is terrible, I thought. It's not going to be OK. Then she had to go. I told her to keep coming back. It was hard not to give advice. I wanted to tell her to leave him. I wanted to offer to babysit. I wanted to give her my phone number. But I didn't. I told her to come back, and I have been thinking about her ever since.

That could have been me. That could have been me.

Life is getting better for me, but in many ways I still feel very stuck. I am withholding with almost everyone except for my children. My sister has commented on this before - that they are the only ones that I am able to truly lavish love on. I told her that I would rather they have it, as if my love had limits, and I would run out. I often want to be nicer than I am, but I can't. I hold on to the words that could make someone's day better. The sad thing is that I know this and I still do it. Maybe that is progress, but it makes me feel bad.