The Second Road Family

Bygones

I saw my husband’s sister yesterday, and she asked me how things were going at our house. I told her that I’m working a lot, so I’m not home much; however, when I am home, I feel my husband’s resentment of me in the air as thick as if it were smoke. She said she’d spoken with him recently, and he’d said that he thinks I ought to let bygones be bygones…that he’s doing the best he can, and that I should let go of my own resentment and go back to “the way things were.”

I don’t think things will ever go back to the way they were. Even before my husband lost himself in active addiction, I carried more than my weight in our relationship. I gave him full access to my car, my computer, all my things. Over the last year and a half, many of those things have been damaged through the effects of his addiction, and I’m not going to give them back to him until I’m ready. That’s my recovery…

And so much of it, too, is not BYGONE yet. He still isn’t supporting himself. He still steals. He still is hiding from a warrant for his arrest. He still won’t go to meetings. He still acts like an addict, a lot. I understand that it takes a lot of energy for him not to do heroin, but not doing heroin by itself doesn’t take care of all the problems in our marriage. It doesn’t repair the broken trust, and it doesn’t alleviate the heavy financial burden of paying all the bills by myself.

I do understand, though, how it must feel pretty yucky for him. He is a wonderfully skillful manipulator, and he has always gotten what he wanted from people…strangers, lovers, family and friends just hand money and jobs and objects to him. For years, I was his most reliable and giving handmaiden, and over the last year and a half of re-learning myself and re-learning the relationship, I’ve become the first person to see through his manipulations. I understand that it’s painful for him to see himself through my eyes, especially with the memory of how he used to be able to see himself through my eyes.

I wish, though, that he could truly see himself through my eyes. Yes, there are bad parts, but there is so much good in him…so much sweetness and talent and energy and beauty and creativity. No, I won’t trust him yet to hold my purse or drive my car, but I do trust in the potential within him to be a wonderful, equal partner for me. I haven’t left yet because of this hope, and I wish he shared it.