Remembering Family Week

For some reason, I thought back to "Family Week" at Betty Ford (which I usually refer to as "Fuck Family Week") today and an image has been stuck in my head.

There was a beautiful and kind woman there with me, and I grew to love her almost instantly. We still keep in touch, and she is very dear to my heart.

At one point during the week, we were supposed to confront the addict in our lives and express the pain they had caused us. Her husband was not there, so she addressed someone else, or maybe it was a chair - my memory fails me. Her face was so mesmerizing in that moment that I did not really notice anything else.

I do not remember most of the things she said, but I do remember how real and raw her pain felt. I remember thinking, here is this beautiful, amazing, compassionate woman - and she did not deserve any of this.

I do not remember my moment or what was said to my husband. At that point, I think I skipped over a lot of things because I don't like being under pressure or in the spotlight. In some ways, I think it would have been better if he had not been there because I think I tried to spare a lot of his feelings and humiliation instead of getting rid of everything in my heart.


“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

- Maya Angelou

Unsent Letter #1 - Fall 2008

I am in constant pain all the time. Last week was the first time I actually considered taking prescription drugs - or even getting some pot. But I didn't. I have treated this with chiropractic care, acupuncture, massage, the inversion table and way too many Excedrin's. My back and neck are still killing me. I am going back to meditations and affirmations. I am listening and reading You Can Heal your Life again. I think that this must lie in my inability to forgive.

I don't want to take drugs. I don't want to even take all these Excedrin's. I am tired of being in this pain. The last few weeks I have been very short with the kids. I feel like there is literally a knife in my back. There seems to be no relief. One day it hurt so bad that I called J sobbing. I came home at noon and opened a beer and sat on a heating pad and let the kids do whatever they wanted until J came home with lunch. That seemed to help me relax some. When he walked in I started laughing hysterically, almost done with the beer and said, Now I'm going to Betty Ford! I don't think he thought it was funny.

But I can't drink beer every day. Especially at Noon. So for now I am working on getting to the bottom of this forgiveness issue. I think there are probably several things here. And what Louise says makes so much sense to me. Why am I continuing to punish myself? Why can't I let go of this? Especially when it is hurting this bad?

The person I am most angry with is my father-in-law, and then his wife.

Then I suppose my husband, to some extent, although I think the letter actually cleared a lot of that up. Maybe I should work the steps too. I think the fourth step is supposed to clear all this up. I emailed a friend about this but haven't heard back yet.

I think this last year really put us in a ditch and I resent that. I need to take more responsibility for that instead of just blaming my husband - and then my father-in-law for not helping us more. But that is hard for me. I know I did bury my head in the sand last year. I think I was depressed.

Perhaps it took me being in so much pain for me to be willing to do the work. But I am going to pour over the Heal your Life book and start to do the steps. I have a tape somewhere if I can't find someone to do them with me. And, I could find a sponsor. And, I noticed there is a workbook.

But I went to the chiropractor 3 times last week, and did everything else, and I am still in so much pain. So there has to be something else, something deeper that is holding that pain there.

So maybe I should start by doing letters. That always seems to help me.

I haven't been able to write a letter to my father-in-law in a long time. Since that seems to be most pressing, I will start there.

Dear J,

It seems that the silence between us really has not solved anything. Last night I watched the video of you dancing with H on her first birthday and I felt very sad. It has not been my intention to keep you from your grandkids. However, I did feel that there was work to be done before those relationships could resume. I don't know if that was ever conveyed to you. I think sometimes J has a hard time being in the middle of our relationship, especially now that it has become like this.

As you probably know, I have a very special relationship with my dad. He made many sacrifices for me as a single father, and I will forever be grateful to him. Likewise, my former father-in-law and I continue to share a very special love. I think I always had the expectation that we would also be close, and thus our relationship was always disappointing and painful to me. I have always felt that you held me at a distance, and when you did pull me in, you were very critical. I suppose in return, I became very critical of you.

I have had a very difficult time digesting J's childhood. It is very hard for me not to judge you. When I was at Betty Ford for family week, there was a man in my group who reminded me a lot of you and I developed a great affection for him. He was also a recovering alcoholic, who had a son at Betty Ford. He was struggling with a lot of guilt. He told me what got him through was the idea that you are only tried and convicted once for a crime. While I liked that idea, I am still struggling. The reason is that I feel like you have still treated both me and J poorly over the years. The reason that I blocked your email is I feel you have a pattern of displaying very bad, abusive behavior, and then apologizing. I think you need to change your behavior because without changed behavior an apology really means nothing.

To me, children are very precious, and you can't turn back the clock on abuse once it has happened. Wounds are very difficult to heal, and scars will stay forever. The fact that you often blow up on me or J makes me nervous to trust you around my children. I also don't come from this sort of background. As I've said before, my dad has never even raised his voice at me, so your behavior is especially frightening and concerning to me.

I don't know what the solution here is. I am tired of feeling angry and resentful towards you. I would like our family to heal and grow - and move forward. I know that you and J are healing, and that I deeply love my husband. I made a decision to try to forgive you when I was at Betty Ford, and I took the block off my email then. But I am still really struggling with this. I have been going to Al-Anon and learning a lot from that - and also reading a lot. I suppose this will be a journey and not something that I can just push all at once, but I wanted to let you know that I am trying.

I am sorry for my part in things, and I decided to make a first step towards some sort of a resolution.

My Letter to The Betty Ford Center

Dear Betty Ford Center,

My husband attended your center last summer for 90 days. I came down for both Family Week and the marriage retreat. I left with high hopes and great respect for your center. But all of that has been shattered in the last few days.

My husband left his BF workbook out and I made the mistake of leafing through it. He notated that he had UNPROTECTED SEX with 3 women while married to me. I had specifically asked him for his medical records while he was there, and he would not give them to me. Now I know why. I am very certain that your Center was aware of this and you must be fully aware of how dangerous unprotected sex is for people who are cocaine-addicts.

I am the mother of two young children. At your Center, you encouraged me to look at my part, and I have done that. But now I am outraged. I wasted more of my life on this addict, who also relapsed after leaving your center no-less. Had I known of his infidelities, I would have left him. Instead, your Center engaged in a cover-up which could have cost me my life.

I am thinking back to the culmination of the week, when the addicts are supposed to "come clean" and tell their partner everything. His assigned counselor actually sat in, along with 2 other counselors to make sure he said EVERYTHING. She said was satisfied with his answers. The other two counselors and the rest of the room looked over at her for her sign of approval. Afterwards, she even shook my hand. I spent the week with your counselors - a week of my life that now makes me sick. Because I feel not only betrayed by my husband, but also by your Center. And I thought you were "the good guys".

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

I am aware you are a center for addicts, but I ask you to consider what would happen to my children if something happened to me? Is their addict father going to take care of them? Who do you think takes care of these children? Certainly not him.

I wish your counselors 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.

I also believe you can not reach or maintain sobriety without rigorous honesty. So in many ways, by allowing him to hide behind his lies, you also contributed to his relapse.

Make no mistake; my husband is still 100% responsible for his actions. But I think you need to strongly consider your approach at "Family Week" and look at YOUR PART in all of this.

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.

The Miserable Cunt

My husband left out his Betty Ford workbook and I came across it this afternoon. I actually had seen it hidden away in a drawer in the garage several months ago but didn't really look through it.

It seemed odd to me that it was out. Almost like he left it there. When I asked him about it later, he said he had taken it out to take it with him to the condo. There are multiple places he could have left the book. The condo for one, or the box he keeps at the bank that he doesn't know I know about. But it seemed to me like it was there for a reason.

In any case, I read through it.

I have always thought my husband has had affairs. But I have never been able to prove it.

I have asked him about it point blank numerous times. But he always denied it to the hilt.

And I'm a pretty liberal person in this regard. What bothers me is the lies.

I think you always know in your heart when someone is unfaithful to you.

My husband has always denied any infidelity. He acted like I am completely crazy for even thinking it.

Even when he has stayed out all night.

Even when I have found condoms.

But what I have found tonight confirms it.

In a lot of ways, I am just relieved to finally know the truth. There is something very liberating about that.

But in another I am very angry that he lied about it and did not tell me sooner.

I was ready to file for divorce 2 years ago. I went to see an attorney then and was ready to file. Had I known, I would have made different choices. And I wasn't in this financial mess then. I could have walked away and been done and today would be completely different for me.

It's not just the infidelity. It is the lies. It is everything else. And there were 3 women. He had unprotected sex with 3 women.

And I know specifically who one of them is. She is not someone anyone wants their husband sleeping with.

It's funny because she was always the one I had suspected before. He had told me when she started using cocaine again and I was suspicious as to why he started talking to her again. He said he was trying to help her get sober, but that didn't ring true to me.

Someone else had also told me he was with her when I was pregnant with our son. It was my ex-lover V, who later ended up killing himself. And I remember so specifically the last time I talked to him on the phone...him telling me, and his intonation when he said, "I can't believe you left me, and are now with that guy." It was pure disgust in his voice. He just couldn't understand it.

I have thought about that last sentence so much over the years. Especially when V killed himself. And I know now why J never made it to his funeral. It was too much for him. It was almost too much for me.

I thought about just holding onto everything and not letting him know I knew, but I couldn't. He called about half an hour after I read everything.

So I told him I had read it. And that I knew. And I also told him I had read all the parts about him driving drunk with his family and kids in the car and putting us all at risk that way.

And instead of taking responsibility or saying he was sorry, he called me a miserable cunt.

Christmas Eve

My dear friend reminded me about Christmas Eve a few days ago. My husband and I were fighting a lot. It was good to remember where things can escalate with him. She mentioned she still had some of the texts he sent me. (We often fight via text so our children won't hear us.)

What the fuck are you talking about??
I’m outside trying to move my car you ungrateful bitch!!

You’re an EVIL women, and I am done!!!
Bitch!!!

I was out Christmas shopping for our family
What a terrible thing!!!
Enjoy being so Supreme!!!

She told me, I keep them to remind me who he is.

That's one reason I decided to do this blog. We both tend to be too forgiving. I have tried for so many years to just look at the good things and forget the bad things. But the bad times are pretty bad.

Here's the post I put up on our family blog on Christmas Eve. I decided to take it off, but it is very telling.

I'm not used to being called a "Bitch" by anyone, let alone my husband. But I married into a family that has a different way of expressing themselves, to say the least.

Well, Merry Christmas. I've had enough. I should have ended it last year when I found the cocaine in our home and the police arrested him, but what can I say, I am not a "quitter", as my dear sister A says. I waited through all that for 6 more months, and then another 90 days at Betty Ford (after the 60 days he had already done 4 years ago no less).

In any case, after cooking all day, and waiting 4 hours for my late, adoring husband, who seems to be 2-3 hours late every night for some "reason" or another, I didnt really appreciate being called "an ungrateful bitch" or even an outright "Bitch" after that for that matter.

Somethings are just not acceptable.

So, Merry F-ING CHRISTMAS!!! I am DONE!