I Don’t Know.
Sep 24, 08- (by JunkysWife)
- 14 responses
- Family and Friends, Sober Salon
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I don’t know what I want. I’m struggling to figure it out.
I want to be happy. I’m not sure if happiness and peace can come together. It kind of seems like happiness might only be available in a bundle with misery.
I haven’t seen my husband since Sunday, and we’ve only spoken briefly on the phone. I’m not sure when we’ll see each other again.
I am trying to determine what is my bottom line. There are lots of things that I want from him…but I am not sure what is the baseline that I’ll accept for him to come back home.
Part of me wants to say that I won’t live with anything illegal in my house. If he wants to have illegal things, he needs to find somewhere else to have those things.
But I’m not sure if that’s what I mean. Maybe, more specifically, I mean I won’t live with an active addict. If he is active in his addiction, he has to go elsewhere…and smoking marijuana daily, to me, means he is active in his addiction.
I like the concrete description of “nothing illegal,” as that makes things quite clear…but it doesn’t truly express what I need. What I need is sanity that I can’t get with an active addict in my space. I’m less opposed to the law-breaking than I am to the fear that living with an active addict inspires.
While he was having his pot binge over the last few weeks, my husband’s behavior towards me was not bad. He was kind, and we talked to each other, and he offered help around the house. It wasn’t the infuriating, frustrating, destructive behavior that became familiar when he was using heroin daily.
It was my behavior that was difficult…my reactions to his actions. When he smokes weed in the morning, it triggers me. I am afraid that it is an indication that he is going to come unglued, and I don’t want any part in it.
I’m not sure what to say, when to say it, or what I want. I want him to come home, or I want to offer him a set of circumstances that I could accept for him to come home…I’m just not sure exactly what those circumstances are.
Ideally, he’d go to meetings, get a job, get a sponsor, and focus on his recovery. I’m not yet at a point where I’m ready to make his recovery a deal breaker for the relationship. I don’t think I’m there. I don’t know.
I know I won’t live like I was living. I don’t know what’s next.
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I can absolutely understand how that behavior can act as a trigger - and since it does affect you in that way he should be willing to hear that and hopefully make choices accordingly.
“What I need is sanity that I can’t get with an active addict in my space.”
Of course you need that, and deserve that. But remember that you can’t ask him to *be* something. You can only ask that *act* in this or that way. Does that make sense? It’s the difference between an addict that does things to recover but doesn’t have his/her heart in it, and an addict that does. So at this time, maybe all you can ask is for functional changes. One of those is that he not smoke pot in your house. You’re not asking, then, for him not to be an active addict, which ultimately is a choice he has to make, you’re asking for him to make behavioral changes that are in line with your boundaries. I think I’m only saying what you know. I wish you good luck, as always.
Your circumstances sound hard … if only he would just straighten up, eh? It seems alternately so darn simple and also so unquantifiable at the same time. The fact that you have to be thinking about what the bare minimum is for his return seems like such an unhappy place to be.
This would be a difficult situation for me to live with. I’ve told my wife that I won’t live with an active alcoholic. She understands that I love her but that I won’t stay with her if she should start drinking again. It’s a tough decision but it’s a boundary that I am keeping. I hope that your life with your husband gets better.
Well he’s been an active addict for months/years now, and you allowed that to go on under your roof. The he got into pot, and up until now you allowed it to go on under your roof. You’ve enabled him to do what he is doing because silence gives consent. Now he is not under your roof and you are questioning what you should be doing - see to it that your own house is in order and good things will come to you and yours. Now that you’ve had some down time, you should think about getting him into some system of care a rehab or a hospital (these conditions) should be the benchmarks that you might allow him back. There is a time and a season for everything. Has his season passed yet? And is yours coming? Compassion only goes so far for someone in active addiction. As long as you permit him to act out in his addiction nothing will change and we will be back at this point again in the future when you cast him out again because you can’t take the insanity.
Like I’ve said before, have you reached the end of your rope, he may be kind and helpful around the house, and that is all well and good. What you need from him is to end his addiction. The record is still stuck in the same rut it was before.
I don’t think you’ve suffered enough to finally do something decisive. Because like him in his addiction, you enjoy being in this place, the wife of an addict. And that keeps you from moving forwards. Been here done this.
What to do… set your boundaries and keep them. You don’t want the insanity in your house then set the rule and stick to it. He won’t end the insanity to come home until you grind your ax into the floor and say NO!!! This story is not going to change until you move your ass in the direction of ending this insanity once and for all, by his getting clean or you getting out of a deteriorating situation, because let’s face it, you put yourself here. Only you can get yourself out of here.
J.
The way I see it, if he is smoking weed, he’s not focused on his recovery. If he’s not focused on his recovery, he’s not heading towards a job and all the self realization that that entails—it’s not just about money though that is part of it.
Of course the way I see it is all clear cut and without the ambiguity of one who has a vested interest in whether he stays or goes (though I do care if you are in pain because of either). Regardless, I don’t think you have to frame what you can or cannot live with within the confines of the law, be it legal or illegal. How you feel seems perfectly justifiable to me if only because it is what it is. Perhaps you don’t have to make anything a deal breaker. I am pretty sure you understand that everything is continuously fluid and the possibilities are endless.
I am attracted to the idea that Tolle puts forth in The Power Of Now that a peaceful, joyous existence need not be predicated on another’s actions or some future event. I take that to mean that you need not wait for your husband to change anything about his situation in order for you to enter the present from wherever YOU are. And I believe it is only in the present where peace and joy are to be found. I also tend to agree with you that happiness exists in conjunction with misery, if only so we know what one or the other is. That may be semantics, though.
Whew! For someone who thinks of himself as neutral, I sure do have some concrete opinions. It matters not. You will find your way. That I am truly certain of.
WS
I’m sorry. It’s sucky. I’ve seen you grow so much this past year! You’re almost there… you’re doing the best you can for you and for him, and that’s all you can do.
luv and hugs,
e
Stay strong, JW. I can only imagine how hard this must be for you. I hope you’re able to get some perspective and clarify your thoughts and feelings.
How long has it been since he had a job?
I think that as long as you let him come home in “active addiction”, but allow him to use elsewhere, he will. I think the problems will still remain unless he is not in “active addiction”.
I just copied and printed this out. I will put it on my addict’s door tonight on my way home.
All I can keep saying is “thank-you.”
I love my husband but hate the addict and all the addicty behavior that still continues into his recovery. At least you have some time alone to work through your feelings. Enjoy the peace you have now.
“It kind of seems like happiness might only be available in a bundle with misery.”
I hope I never have that facsimile of happiness. You’re accepting breadcrumbs and mistaking them for sustenance. I hope you find yourself more worthwhile of a full, sumptuous meal than you seem to see yourself deserving now. So many here see the amazing woman who is not being appreciated for all she is.
Your dream about the frame was very telling. I truly wish happy times for you. Happiness and peace, together.
I was thinking of posting a blog about my brother. He is a former addict…he put his wife through so much…yet when he got clean, she made him pay DAILY. Now they are back together and I resent her. He was working and clean and sober but she could not let the past be the past. Eventually he moved out and was homeless and using. Now he is in AA, doing well, and she is moving up there to Oklahoma with him. I guess if he is happy that is what matters but their relationship has been so toxic in the past. I worry for him.