Sink or Swim

The South Korean ferry disaster was over a month ago. But, through reasons of internet maze making, I found myself reading about the accident and looking at this illustration of how the boat slowly turned then capsized.

I read translated text messages from some of the students - which you can see here. While doing so, I found it hard to breath. The text messages, especially, got me imagining all of these students trapped inside a boat and then the boat underwater. It makes you claustrophobic to just think of what all those innocent and obedient people suffered. One student writes to his father explaining there is no way for him to get off the sinking ship. And it kills me to read this and to know that this person had enough time to message their father, but no ability to save himself - that there was an awareness in many of these students, but nothing they could do with that awareness.

I hope that this doesn't seem to make light of the loss so many South Korean families suffered, but because I am always thinking about alcoholism and what I am going to do for myself and for my daughter given the circumstances of my husband's drinking, I couldn't help but think of myself and my daughter as passengers on this ship - not the Sewol - but a ship my husband and I started creating when we got married. (This metaphor is especially apt because during our wedding ceremony we had a friend read Kay Ryan's poem, "We're Building the Ship as We Sail It").

What I am thinking now is that the boat is tilted 60 degrees. All three of us are at the beginning of this ship wreak, and I can't trust my husband to fix the ship. It doesn't seem that he notices its tilting, or notices it and isn't alarmed, he isn't as concerned with the cold water rushing in over all of our feet. I am putting on my daughter's life jacket, my own jacket and I am waiting to see if he understands the dire situation his drinking and lying has put us in. But maybe that isn't even being completely honest - quite possibly I am not even putting on the jackets, I am just looking to him for signs that he understands and is going to address things.

I'm terrified that I will stay on the boat with him, that I'll keep my daughter on the boat with him, and then alcoholism will capsize us. I won't say it is my husband, because he would not drown us - the disease would.

I believe in him as a person, in the man who I decided to build this ship with, but I can't trust his judgement right now, even though he went to a meeting tonight and says he hasn't drank in almost two weeks. And I don't want to be on a boat partly under water, always vigilant for the last moment to flee, to hop in a life boat before it all sinks. I don't even know that it will sink, he could stay sober, but I don't know that he will stay sober. And I feel like an idiot for not already getting myself and my daughter ashore.

Make it Rain

I'm still waiting for my Al-Anon textbook to arrive in the mail. Unfortunately, I bought it used instead of through Amazon Prime. So, it's taking a while to get here. This might signal I want to work on things, but am not exactly in a rush to. In the meantime, I feel the space between Al-Anon meetings open before me like a waste land. It's a desert of emotions, too many emotions and nothing to do with them. Sadness and anger and doubt and regret for as far as the eye can see. No drought, a constant storm, which is its own type of desert.

But I wanted to write something about how our anniversary ended up. After I made my last post, I took a shower and when I walked into the bedroom afterwards my husband had lit candles and cued a Civil Wars' song. It was "I want you back", a Jackson Five cover. You can press play (below) and then continue reading for a more authentic experience of my anniversary evening.

So, the candles are lit and the music is playing and I am naked because I just got out of the shower. I sit on the end of the bed, next to where my husband is sitting, and say something like, "What's going on?"  - This is the first official acknowledgement of our anniversary - He hugs me and I cry onto his shoulder, with abandon. I am not crying because I am so happy that he's made a romantic gesture and I feel that everything is going to be alright between us. I am crying because the romantic gesture does not work like it does in the movies, or as it might have worked on a younger version of myself. The romantic gesture changes nothing, I am glad he's done it, is doing it, but in my heart I am not convinced of anything, least of all his love for me or mine for him. 

Then he gets naked and I think "Not a chance" and he says, "I don't think anything's going to happen, I just don't want you to be alone" (in my nakedness, because I still haven't dressed since my shower). At least he gets that much, I think. The next song starts and it's "Dance me to End of Love" a Leonard Cohen cover that we danced to as the first song of our wedding reception. I was dressed a lot better that evening - and I was a great deal happier. Though, even that evening, he disappointed me with his drinking. I was pregnant with our daughter, so I didn't drink to celebrate our wedding. I had imagined that he might do the same, in solidarity and support of my state, but instead he got drunk. On our wedding night, I didn't even want to make love to him because of how much he had drank, the smell of his breath, his mannerisms. But tonight he is sober (I think, thought I can't be sure, and I even question the smell of his breath). He asks me to dance and I accept - not because I want to dance with him but because I don't want to say no to dancing with him.  

It was an awkward bedroom duet, to say the least. There was certainly no zest or feeling to my movement, mostly I cried on his shoulder. When we were close, I felt his penis grace the inside of my thighs, like a foreign object - like something someone had set down in the wrong place. He attempted a twirl and I turned in the wrong direction. We have never danced well together. We took a dance class that ended in more arguments than coordinated moves, but his dance was lifeless (at least for me). Later he said he was simply glad that I said yes instead of "Get away from me you jerk!". 

Ironically, this comment made me feel the most of anything that happened that day. It made me think for a moment, maybe he actually does know the damage his lies have caused, maybe he does feel badly enough to finally make changes and be a real partner. Pretty romantic, right? Your spouse calling themselves a jerk as the highlight of your anniversary. Still, this brought us to a better place than I thought we would get to that day. 

Then we watched Star Trek, like you do. 

Most surprisingly, after Star Trek, in bed, with the lights out, he asked if I would give him a hand-job. I resented him asking, a bit, but considering how much unconsummated nakedness had filled the evening I decided to indulge. Once I began touching him, and allowing him to touch me, things escalated and I thought, "I think I might actually sleep with him." And when he asked, "Would you have sex with me? I said yes. It definitely felt more like hormonal sex than love making, but that it even happened at all was pretty surprising. So, I guess I answered by second blog post: Will We Ever Have Sex Again

Last part of our anniversary, the ending, was us both lying in bed awake. Neither of us could fall asleep after making love. I don't know what that means - but there it was - us lying awake, next to each other. The end of what I hope will be the most difficult anniversary of my (our?) life.

Two Year Anniversary - Two Tragedies

Today is our second anniversary. To celebrate, I went to an Al-Anon meeting. Well, that's not all that happened today. We also spent the morning painting the 4th side of our house the same color as the other three (it's been almost year of them not matching), took our daughter swimming in the afternoon, and then went out to dinner. Ostensibly speaking, this does not sound like a bad day - not even a bad anniversary for two people with a one-and-a-half year old. We even managed to get through it without conflict. -- I decided that my anniversary present to him would be not bringing up his drinking, his attitude and/or how these things have made me feel about a) myself, b) him, c) our marriage. So far, so good! All I've got to do is hold out through this evening, and we're going to watch a Star Track movie so there shouldn't be a lot of room for communication. Plus, I already got the crying out of the way at Al-Anon.

Yes, I cried at Al-Anon. Yes, I was the only one who cried at Al-Anon. Yes, the meeting was large and full of enough people with enough reasons to cry.

The thing is, I am sad about this anniversary. It is depressing to think that we have been married for only two years and we are this unhappy - that I am so unhappy. I don't feel any romantic, anniversary-type feelings toward my husband and I don't believe he feels any toward me. Of course, I am allowing myself to feel self-righteous about this because HE is the one who lied and hid alcohol. HE is the one that did this major damage. I feel I should have permission to not be romantic, offer romantic gestures of some sort, and that he (in his guilty state) should make up for my lack of emotion, should try to win me over in some way, should do some great romantic gesture that convinces me everything will be okay and we can be happy together. Obviously, he's done no such thing - and considering that all he's asked me to do is watch a Star Track movie, I don't think he's planned something incredibly inspiring for this evening. He doesn't feel this dynamic, this in-the-dog-house-ness the same way that I do. How could he? Unfortunately, realizing that he doesn't feel the same as I do, that he probably doesn't even have a clue about my expectations, doesn't keep me from wanting it all the same. Realizing it certainly doesn't keep me from being depressed about my unmet expectations.

Since, I promised myself that my present to him would be not forcing a discussion of problems, I won't explain my expectations to him. Still, they sit like a cloud over me, keeping me from enjoying what I might enjoy about him. Instead of talking to him about something he won't appreciate or understand, I cry at an Al-Anon meeting.

This isn't exactly what I'd call an enlightening entry. But I do believe that my expectations (and the inevitable disappointments they carry) and related to will, and at the meeting this Socrates quote was introduced, “Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart’s desire; the other is to get it.”

Well, Socrates, I can say that at this point the tragedy I'm dealing with is not getting my heart's desire. The problem is I want to be married to someone I can trust, who I feel understands me, who is not an alcoholic - but I am married to X. I realize that the conditions of the marriage or the state of the people in it are not going to change in a day, but I can't help being mentally and emotionally opposed to how things stand now (even though I know that accepting the current state of things is the necessary first step towards them getting better). 

Today has just felt like such an empty anniversary. I have mostly hurt and disappointment in my heart and I really hope this is not the reality next year. I want to love with honesty, abandon, and trust - and want to be loved that way in return.

Life in a Library of Babel?

I didn't write yesterday because I spent Friday evening alphabetizing my collection of books and dusting. It seemed imperative that I do these things. Why? Probably, I am trying desperately to get certain aspects of my life under control, since so many aspects are out of my control. This is what you do, when you're married to an alcoholic, I guess. You alphabetize things. You dust.

I miss having one of my favorite poetry books near me - so I will probably have to shift some things in this arrangement, but overall I feel better. I have always lived with a certain degree of disorganization, it's actually how I work best. But I'm beginning to realize that what I enjoy or get creativity from is a certain degree of chaos on the surface; a desk strewn with the books that are currently inspiring me, the opportunity to stand up and dance, painting materials not too far from hand. But underneath all of that opportunity, I need order. That way, I can feel like someone reading life in a fantastic library, maybe something like Borges's Library of Babel.

I can pull anything from the shelves of my life, of my home, to play with, read, enjoy -- but overall there is organization. To my left and to my right, before me and behind me, there is the expanse of the library in order and waiting to be discovered (or left alone).

I used to think of myself too much of a "free spirit" for this type of organization. I saw it as structure and structure as limiting. I viewed creativity and structure as opposed.

*Now, having the chaos of alcoholism so fully present in my life has made me aware that the strain that comes with chaos - this type of chaos - is worse for creativity than structure or organization because it limits your mental energy and range. Your mind is not open to wandering through the shelves of the Library of Babel because it is confused, it is burdened.

Well, I'm working on unburdening myself - regardless of what my husband does with his drinking. I'm starting to see the type of life I want to make for myself and my daughter and I'm excited by the idea of building this organization to sustain us both.


*Actually, this presence is not new, it's just my conscious awareness to it (the alcoholism has been there for years, and years - both in my husband and myself).

Will We Ever Have Sex Again

Today, this question occurred to me. Will I ever want to have sex with my husband again? I haven't slept with him since he told me he had started drinking again. That was Sunday, May 18th. Now, it is Thursday May, 22nd. 5 days. Not an epic length of time by most standards, and really not epic in regard to our relationship considering that 3 years ago X (I will from here on out use X to represent my husband's name rather than making up a pseudonym for him, too), so three years ago X suffered a terrible back injury and was briefly paralyzed from the waist down. This lead to no sex for quite a while, as you can imagine (it was everything below the waist). And then again, after the birth of our daughter my bladder spent months bulging into my vagina. Needless to say, this turned us into eunuchs again, for quite sometime, until months after my surgery.

But all of that, all those physical woes where bodily impediments to love making. This is something different. Any mental appetite that I had for sex with my husband is, at this point, completey washed out. As I drove to the local YMCA this evening (exercise is the best therapy, right?) I found myself thinking about how I feel he's broken his wedding vows. Then I realized that I don't think there was anything about complete honesty in his vows, in our vows. This seems a major oversight, not to have included this, but it also seems like a given. Should you really have to say, "I will never lie to you, I will be completely honest with you." NO! This type of companionship, honest, lovingly honest, is what you sign up for when you get married. Or, at least, I think it is what you sign up for. If you wanted to be manipulated, kind of tricked and played with you would just continue dating, right? Then at least you would have the excitement along with all the games. Now, instead I find myself with none of the excitement and also none of the security that I thought I'd traded that excitement in for. Maybe that line confesses my major fault. I should have never traded in in the first place. Then I wouldn't have to be disappointed with the deal, and sexless.

First Days, First Week

About a minute ago, I created this blog. I created it to have a space where I can write about my adventures (wait, adventures, I'm already trying to be cute), what I should say is my time with or my shitty experiences with an alcoholic husband.

On Sunday, May 18th he told me he had been drinking again, and hiding it again, which I both knew and didn't know. This is the thing about being with an alcoholic, or being in a relationship with someone who hides things or lies. You think you are the one being crazy when you suspect what is actually the truth. In my case, this is complicated by the fact that I suspect myself of being an alcoholic (but this is a whole separate -but connected- animal that I'm not ready to get in to right now). Stick around, read on, or follow the blog for more on that. 

What I'm dealing with now is my husband's lies and his drinking and what I'm going to do about it all - for myself and so after we talked Sunday night I found an Al-Anon meeting Monday evening and got an appointment with my counselor for Tuesday afternoon. So, in response to his confessions as of Sunday I have been to two Al-Anon visits and one shrink appointment. From here on out I will call my counselor a shrink even though this is not a necessarily accurate description of the kind and intelligent woman who I speak to once or twice a month. I use the word shrink in an endearing and respectful way, and I realize there is a difference between what she offers and psychiatrists and psychoanalysts provide. The point is, as of writing this blog post I am two al-anon meetings and one shrink visit in to my rebellion against life as it was or has been. 

I'm starting this blog for myself - but I hope that it also serves as a resource for other women who find themselves in similar situations. To clarify what that situation is, for me: I'm 32, I have a one and a half year old daughter and I'm married to an alcoholic who sometimes thinks he is an alcoholic and sometimes (maybe more often times) thinks I am blowing things out of proportion. Sometimes I may respond with extreme emotion to his behavior, I admit, but here are two facts: In February was drunk, lied about it, and proceeded to risk both our lives driving home from the airport over icy roads. I was sober, he had drunk/flew his way from New York to Mississippi. In November, he was so passed out drunk in the bed that he struck our nature as I was breastfeeding her in bed. When he did finally come out of the stupor  he got up from the bed and began to ask about our daughter, not cognizant of the fact that she was lying beside me. This was the night before Thanksgiving, I did not feel there was a lot to be grateful for - in regard to my choice in partners - that particular holiday. 

But I digress, which I am sure to do frequently, but this first blog I just wanted to do an introduction. I am using a pen name - but that is all I'm making up. I will not write of anything personal that is discussed at Al-Anon meetings, except for that relating to my person. Oh, and I'm hoping to use this blog to decide whether or not to divorce my husband. I told him I would do so if he drank again, I don't currently have plans to do so - and he is pulling into the drive way right now.