It's the user

After last night's debacle, and today's talk - [shaking head] Talk about pathetic. I'm so difficult to please. I told him, I would love it if he went one week without waking me up at night, cursing me out, or calling me names. He said it was impossible.

[shrug] Well, better to hear the truth than to have unrealistic expectations. It's truly pathetic to hear though. Hopefully some readers are saying "Well, I thought my marriage sucked but maybe it isn't that bad after all."

Personally, my FAVORITE line last night was after he had just shouted at me for 20 minutes because I quietly closed his door (which in his mind, this morning, was "Shouted at him and slammed the door" when I didn't say a word)... I was lying in bed, TRYING to go back to sleep.

He comes into my room and starts cursing at me. "Where is it! I KNOW YOU HID MY VODKA!" I said, I've been lying in bed. I KNOW YOU HID IT. I said, I have been lying here in bed, trying very hard to have a calm tone of voice, and wondering if he's going to try to make me GET UP AND FIND HIS VODKA FOR HIM.

"I'll go look, then!" I hear very loud banging noises for a few minutes, then he shouts FOUND IT. What part of "Going to bed" - TWO HOURS ago, is not processing? When I am in bed, you try to be quiet? Please? I know I do the same!

I'm lying in bed, still, trying to go back to sleep. He comes BACK INTO MY ROOM as I'm dropping off. HEY, I FOUND IT. SORRY!

I'm trying to SLEEP here! I just mumble something and he finally left me alone for a few hours, until he ran into something at 1:14 AM and woke me up again.

Yes, I have had fantasies about "killing" the alcohol. But you know, it's the user, not the substance. Pain medication is very valuable, when taken properly. When abused, it will kill. Same with alcohol. It can fuel a generator, or a car. It can act as a solvent. [I'm lying in bed listing all these uses in my head as he's cursing at me] Alcohol is not the problem! It's the person who mixes prescription neuropathy medication, over the counter pain medication, and alcohol. It is a person with a strong genetic predisposition, and a track record of binge drinking, binge drinking yet again. It is a person who uses alcohol to "cope", thus causing more problems and damaging relationships. Thinking "I have to put this in my blog" I drop off.

I went to work. I was friendly to everyone, polite to him, and professional. If he needed help, he got it. I was as cheerful as possible. I did not complain or castigate him. I just worked. I got a positive comment from a laughing postal worker, who enjoyed the stuffed toy monkey hanging off my stockroom door (I am aiming for a tropical theme in our area, and have gotten good feedback).

"Help yourself to a soda, you're working hard." "Make sure you eat a snack". I THOUGHT "Whatever", I just said something neutral and agreeable. "OK"

Then, time to go. As soon as I could I ran off and left. He decided to bring me a cold soda. Fine, I'll drink it.

We get home and he says I am "Acting funny". I said, I am very tired, that is all you hear. He kept pushing, and I had to ask the whole "What do you remember of last night?" question. I HATE that question.

I said, for years you have told me, shut the door if you're loud. I just did what you told me to do and got shouted at for half an hour. Sullenly, he says "I SAID I was sorry when I found the vodka!"

It dawns on me about this time, that the two realities will never intersect. This is a man, who, when I was severely depressed, worried about hurting myself. I gave him some boxcutters we had bought for work, because they were sitting on the coffee table and I was staring at them for hours. Bad Thoughts. He acted very kind and sympathetic, until he lost his temper a day later and threw them in my lap, shouting WHY DON'T YOU USE THEM, HUH? THEN I'LL BE RID OF YOU!

Kind of hard to get over that. I remind myself that God is holding him accountable for every action, and all Ron's horrid treatment of me will come to light one day. The fact that I really stayed pretty calm today is a tribute to God.

I kept asking God to put His love in my heart today, because all I felt was hate and resentment. I said it. I may be many things, but I'll always be honest. He did a pretty good job, or I did a pretty good job of letting him clean out the hateresentment and replace it with compassion and mercy. About the "worst" thing I said today was "You don't even treat me with the respect you give to other people. You treat me worse than you'd treat an ANIMAL!" Sadly, he didn't dispute it. Worse, he COULDN'T!

Then he goes around wailing "Why can't we get along?! Normal people don't have these problems! If I had a Normal Woman I wouldn't have these problems!" I don't think normal women are signing up for life with alcoholic, child-hating, profoundly disabled, blind men. Only one woman dumb enough to do that! [laughing] I told him I would be happy to move out, and he could go find Her. [snort] Oh, no!

I'm tuning him out a lot now, and whenever he says something kind I think "Yeah, if I believe THAT then I have to believe all your crap talk." I listened to "Mirror" by Barlow Girl a lot. "Who are you to tell me/that I'm less than what I should be?/who are you? who are you?/I don't need to listen..."

Ugh. I was having this fantasy at work - I am good at building stories in my head. I think it's a cool benefit of my disabilities. I had this vision of signing Ron up for "Intevention". A nice documentary guy coming out to film us. I could talk about the verbal and physical abuse, watching him killing himself, one drink at a time. How he wants to destroy everything good in his life. They would film him falling on the floor, shouting gibberish, and going off on me.

Then I had a vision of the intervention: We would all sit down and give Ron his ultimatum. I would tell Ron I was moving out, if he didn't enter treatment. His enablers (thank God I stopped that) would tell him they wouldn't help him buy alcohol. Ron's boss would say his job was at risk (he has referred to Ron as an alcoholic on more than one occasion). Ron would break down, cry (I closed a tray and pulled another one out, stocking candy bars), and admit he needed help.

The interventionist would pat him carefully, not rubbing or touching his back (extremely sensitive to touch with the neuropathy - if you want to hurt him a good backrub is the way to do it)! They would whisk Ron off to "Harmony Center" - specializing in brain injury, chronic pain, and alcohol addiction.

In case you haven't guessed, yes, I have watched the program, and yes, I am very imaginative. So, Ron would work out all his issues for a few months; while I, back at the ranch, kept the business going. He'd "heal", come home, and live happily ever after.

But then I thought, he's been just as horrible to me when he wasn't drinking. Dream: denied.