Albuquerque living part 4

[MissAgnes]

Hi alb,

I'm new, but have read some of your old threads and they have been helpful to me. Your calmness with the ow situation impressed me very much. I have a birthday and a 20 year anniversary to get through in the next month and a half, in addition to holiday prep, so I am looking for ways to stay upbeat and patient. And you have really piqued my interest in pole dancing. I don't know if it's my cup of tea, but I did a little research into it and they have a drop-in class sort of close by. I might check it out.

Thanks for taking the time to post an update.

[Albuquerque]

Miss Agnes,

I can NOT recommend pole dancing any higher! I love it and I continue to do it. I can't say I'm great but (just as my H) I have slow progress! It is a great way to connect with females of all ages and sizes. I've gone to several studios and everyone of them has great, supportive teachers and great and supportive fellow students. It's a great work out and really helps you get in touch with your femininity and sexuality. I look forward to hearing your thoughts. It's not for the faint of heart though. I haven't NOT had bruises on me for probably over a year!

I feel you on the anniversary and birthday front. I actually don't remember if H did anything on my birthday when he was in the MLC fog. Fortunately I was out of town and didn't have to deal with the in person stuff. And he was out of town galavanting with OW during my anniversary. THAT was a tough day. Book yourself a mani/pedi or a massage or both on that day. It helped me. The holidays are always hard. Finding a hobby (like pole dancing! will help with keeping you occupied. Keep me updated!

[Crying out loud]

That is where I am at. H birthday is Friday. Don't know what ro do. I feel if I don't he will resent me more. Or if I do he wonder why the fuss.

[Crying out loud]

I hate auto correct.

[Albuquerque]

Sharebear,

My only advice would be to try and be low key. I'm not sure of the specifics with your sitch, but making a big deal is no good. A card, MAYBE a small gift but even so, maybe make it something practical that he needs anyhow. No R talk on the card. Act like a coworker essentially. No matter what, it will likely be awkward.

[Albuquerque]

It's been another long time but time for an update. I don't visit the forum often but hope that perhaps my story can help others.

Overall things seemed to be looking up. We have had some major changes in our situation though. Last January, a job came available in my field that was too tempting to pass up. As fortune would have it, I was offered the position and we are now selling everything we own to move internationally to the Caribbean. H was initially concerned, as was I. The year before H had his MLC breakdown, we moved cross-country for my job. The job was OK but we were financially strapped and none of us enjoyed living there. We ended up tucking tail and moving back but not without great cost and great stress to all of us. H was never in favor of moving ( and I knew it) but I turned on the tears about how good an opportunity it was and he gave in. As a result, he was quite resentful about how it all ended up. That certainly didn't CAUSE his MLC but it certainly didn't help. As a result, assessing this NEW move was cause for concern for us both. He openly stated that he didn't want a repeat of last time and I agreed. We deliberated for months. It got to the point where I was so worried about his thoughts that I almost didn't believe anything he said that was POSITIVE about the move. Eventually, we came to an agreement on the move. He seems genuinely enthused.

Since the move is international, we are having to sell all our stuff. And I mean ALL of it. He texted me the other day when we sold the bed in our guest room. That was the bed he bought for his apartment when we were separated. He said the bed was always a reminder of sadder times and he was glad to see it go. So the process has been good in a way.

Unfortunately, we hit some unforseen stumbling blocks. Our dog of 12 years was getting progressively worse and we had to put her down a few weeks ago. I was a bawling mess. I cry easily. I was a mess. My daughter and H are much more subdued. I knew they cared. They just don't cry. So that day, we got home and tried to get back to life. I went back to packing and organizing. H seemed "off". Turns out he took the loss a lot harder than even he was expecting. He had to take some of his Xanax. When we took a nap later that afternoon, he was experiencing full on panic issues. He took several Xanax that day. Which unfortunately puts him in a semi-drunk like state. He speaks slower, slurs slightly, and thinks he's speaking way smarter than he actually is. It's frustrating. But one thing he also does is speak more freely than usual. Which is when he started talking about how much he was looking forward to leaving so that he could be free of the x-OW. He said that she'd been a semi-stalker and he has blocked her every way he knew how but that there must still be a leak somewhere because he heard through the grapevine that she recently posted a vague rant about international moving. I was surprised to hear that he looked at the move as a way to kind of leave that all behind.

Fast forward about a week. I had to work out of town which meant I had to stay overnight in a hotel. Although I hadn't really thought too much about x-OW in a long time, I thought I'd see if I could find out what her rant was about if possible. Turns out a lot of her posts WERE available on a social network once I WASN'T logged in (because I guess I'm blocked). It went back over a year. She made numerous ambiguous posts about love gone wrong, posts about having to block someone, posts about getting emails and making sure they were sent directly to delete etc. The latest post where she still complained about her horrible ex was only about a week old. She was always vague and didn't name names (although she did post a pic which was disturbing). But needless to say, I was getting upset about the fact that she mentioned that SHE had to block HIM.

By the time I got through reading, it was about 11pm. I texted H and told him that I didn't feel he'd been honest with me about contact with x-OW. He seemed blindsided. He admitted that he had texted her as recently as last week, however, he said that it was a snarky text to her that said something to the effect of "I'm leaving the country so I hope that makes you happy". He said she didn't respond so he didn't know if it went through or not. I told him that was ugly and snarky and she didn't deserve that. He agreed that it was snarky and not a smart move but that he didn't agree that she didn't deserve it. I told him I wouldn't know since he didn't let me in on all the times that they've had contact. I told him I didn't think I could ever trust him and then went to bed. I knew that I probably had freaked him out. But I was unhappy with it all.

Let me say now that at no point did I ever think the contact between them was in any way an attempt at reconciliation. It was clear that it wasn't even from her perspective. It sounded all nasty. But I still felt I should know if they were having that much contact. We had discussed this way back in our days of reconciliation, that he needed to make a clean break.

Anyhow, the next day, he didn't text me at all. I didn't expect him to. A little after lunch, I texted him an update on my progress at getting a work permit for the move. Afterwards, he texted me a few things about what he was doing at the house. He seemed OK although the conversation was a bit strained. On the drive home though, he started to seem off. I will quote our text conversation rather than sum up. Spelling errors are correct. Please note that I rarely respond because I could tell he was having an episode.


Me - Leaving now
Him - Toward trust you can never have. Win!!
Him - Why not just cut your loses? You're young enough to start again.
Me - Do I need to pick up food?
Him - No
Him - Unless you have plans of eating alone
Him - Understannaable
Him - Might be better off with Cracker Barrel alone
Him - From a "trust" standpoint

It's at this point that I arrived home to find him in the kitchen cooking. I was perturbed with him due to his texts but knew from experience that Xanax was playing a factor. I put my stuff in the bedroom and went in the living room to check some email. Shortly thereafter, he brought me a plate of food. He slowly handed me the plate with a GIGANTIC portion of food and slooooowly handed me a fork. I thanked him and he walked away without saying anything. I set the food down and went to grab a drink. When I went in the kitchen, I saw him stumbling around, barely able to walk straight. It's then when I realized he was totally drunk and cooking with hot oil. Plus I was pissed to see him so drunk. I've never seen him that bad. I pushed him away from the stove and told him to go lie down. He refused mumbling that he had to cook. I yelled at him to go lie down and pushed him towards the couch. Having no balance, he totally fell down and crashed into some pictures that we had sitting nearby waiting to be packed. Glass strewed all over the floor and he just lied there mumbling incoherently. Due to the noise, D16 had come into the kitchen and saw the whole thing. I decided to cut my food in half since it was so large and gave her the other half and told her to go and eat. After lying there for less than a minute, H got up again and tried to go back to the kitchen. I kept trying to get him to lie down but he wasn't listening and starting mumbling about whether I was going to leave him. I was so pissed. I yelled at him and screamed "Is this how you want your daughter to see you?!" I was freaked out. I had no idea what frame of mind he was in and clearly he wasn't listening. I got up, went into the back room and found D16 bawling (remember when I stated much earlier that D doesn't cry? That's how you know it's bad). Anyhow, I told her to get her shoes on. I grabbed my purse, grabbed the keys to his car and we left. I told him we were leaving. Once outside, I just hugged D16. I was crying. She was crying. I didn't know what to do.

We got in the car and I turned my phone off and told D to do the same with hers. We ended up going to an IHOP for a drink and to calm down while I pondered my next step. I knew we couldn't go back to the house. It was too toxic. So I found us a hotel for the night. Unfortunately, we had nothing with us. I asked D what she needed and planned to go back to the house after a few hours because I was pretty sure H was going to pass out soon. Turns out I was right. I snuck in to my own house and grabbed my travel bag that I hadn't even unpacked (that was handy) and grabbed a few things for D. I considered cleaning up the broken glass because my two cats were wandering around but I didn't want to wake him up so I left it.

Considering the situation, I slept OK. But I was glad I had the phone off. Here is the stream of texts I received once I left.


0908pm - Un....wow. OK
0911pm - Nice. Jesxx fxxxx Chrixx
0912pm - Amazing
0930pm - I don't know wtf, but so goes I guess
0932pm - Wtf
0946pm - I concur but so it goes
0948pm - Enjoy your island time
1150pm - Hope it was worth it
0722 am - Albuquerque, I don't know happened last night. Literally. In the brain damage sense. Please talk to me.

So that's when I knew it was time to go back. I was not surprised to hear he remembered absolutely nothing. He didn't remember me even coming home. He said he woke up in the middle of the night and had no idea what had happened, the kitchen was a disaster, glass was on the floor (glad I left it!) and his family was gone. He said he was so scared. So that's when we had a "chat"

I said in no uncertain terms that he has a substance abuse problem. It must be addressed. He had mixed Xanax with alcohol. He only remembered one drink. However, he reeked of alcohol so I think he lost track. He couldn't disagree.

As for the x-OW issue, he agreed that he should have been more open. However, his thinking was that all the back and forth had been getting nastier and I guess she had/has a lot of vitriol towards me because she blames me for their demise. Since we both work in the same field, he was terrified that she'd besmirch my name. He was also terrified every time we'd just go out to eat or go to the store etc because he worried we'd have a run in. That's part of the reason why he was so looking forward to leaving it all behind and not have that worry any longer. He admitted that he has a nasty streak which can result in him sending snarky comments rather than leaving well enough alone. After his stream of texts, I can totally get why someone would want to block him.

So where do we stand? Well I'm not sure. He's taken some significant backwards steps. He threw all the alcohol in the house away. But he's done that twice before. So I know that won't do anything. I've had to work out of town again so I won't be back until tomorrow. In talking to him, I know he harbors great guilt about the x-OW. He feels like he ruined her life and she is not shy about telling all that she would agree. He doesn't regret his decision but I think he has a hard time living with the fact that he hurt someone so deeply. I don't think he knows who he really is and I don't think he likes the person that he is right now.

When people say this is a marathon, not a sprint, THIS is what they mean. We are 3 years past the bomb drop and I think we have many years left of work.

[Albuquerque]

Reading through this last post many years later, I felt like this last post, made nearly 3 years ago, probably deserved an update. This was a very bad day indeed. Things improved after this though. We moved overseas and things slowly got better. Being away from the xOW was good from a mental standpoint. Unfortunately, H never got formal help for the alcohol issue and it was always a sticking point for me. Because of this issue, anytime he got remotely tipsy (and his speech pattern changed) I became immediately irate. Kind of a minor type of PTSD I suppose. I didn't mind when he would become drunk before. We'd had fun sometimes. But now, it was just a bad reminder of bad times. But it was never super bad and he knew I hated it so he worked to make alcohol a very rare thing.

Fast forward to January of the next year and we were back at the annual conference we always attend. I was with him while he and his fellow coworkers were kicking back after a long and stressful day. One guy made moonshine and was passing it all around. Despite him knowing I hate him + alcohol, he partook. The moment he started changing, I opted to leave and made it known I wasn't happy. I expected him to follow soon after. My expectations were wrong. I went back to my hotel room where my daughter was and we watched a show and then went to bed. My daughter is a night owl though and stayed up playing on her computer. I was woken up several hours later by my H being escorted to the room by his best friend who was essentially propping him up. He asked me if I wanted him to take my H to his room. I said yes, seeing how blitzed he was. My H refused however and pretty much collapsed on the bed. I was furious but couldn't manage to get a drunk H out of the room in the middle of the night so recommended that my daughter either come on my bed or move near the bathroom. She opted for the latter. I tried to fall asleep but was seething. Causing a scene with my daughter around wouldn't have been good and talking to him in his state seemed pointless since I was pretty sure he wouldn't remember anything. Anyhow, after a bit, I heard H moaning or groaning and then heard the sound of fluid running. I was confused. Then I got scared and finally looked to see what was happening. H had apparently gotten up and decided that the carpet on the side of the bed was the toilet and was relieving himself on the floor. Once I realized what was happening I hopped up and ran to find my daughter crying and holding herself in the fetal position in the bathroom. At that point, I told her to stay there. I got dressed, grabbed some stuff for us and prepared to leave. H was standing there confused. I pushed him onto the bed and he remained there collapsed and bare assed. I covered him up enough for D to get by and we spent the next hour in a car desperately trying to find a hotel that wasn't full at 3 in the morning (we finally did but it took awhile).

The next morning, we eventually had to go back to the room. I don't recall now exactly the events (it was LONG ago now) but H seemed to understand why I was mad, but it became apparent he had no idea what he had done. When he was informed about his nocturnal urination event, he was shocked. I was pretty much done at that point. My thoughts were of how to leave and how not to ruin my D's time there. Since we had flown there, I couldn't easily go back without great cost and it didn't seem worth it. So I stayed but I pretty much was not on speaking terms with H. In the past, this would have pissed him off. But this was not the past.
Despite my being super cold and super against talking to him, he remained calm and patient. He never seemed to get fed up with my attitude and sent several emails to me and D apologizing and being remorseful. Of course, I'd heard that before so it didn't matter much to me. But what bugged me was that his behavior was noticeably different. Our patterns of how we normally fought was different and it caught me off guard. The fact that he refused to give up really had an effect on me. We spent about another week there and eventually we went back home. After about another week, we had a heart to heart.

As I mentioned, I was pretty much sure that the marriage was over at that point. But his behavior was so unexpected. Rather than get mad that I was mad, he was calm. And his calmness made it harder and harder for me to continue to be upset. And it led to our eventual conversation about things. I told him that his lack of formal treatment upset me and that it was clear he cannot handle alcohol. He agreed completely. Unfortunately, our options overseas were limited in terms of treatment. But since then, I can say that there have been no further incidences. Alcohol is not off limits, but it is always limited. A drink with friends occurs, but nothing more. We rarely have alcohol in the house and when we do, he knows I'm not happy about it. It's kind of sad for me that we lost the ability to drink together and have fun getting tipsy together. But it's better this way. He clearly cannot handle it well and he knows it. Many would say that if he's not completely abstinent from alcohol then it could still be a problem. I can't deny that. But life is unpredictable. Lots of things COULD happen. So far though, it's been good.

We spent a little over 2 years overseas and have recently moved back to the US. I have a job I love and my H's job is going very well. We are not perfect and I will never gush about our relationship because it feels fake in a lot of ways. I see people post on FB for anniversaries or birthdays about how their SO is the love of their life and they can't imagine my life without them etc etc. Sad to say, but I HAVE imagined my life without H. And while it wouldn't have been my choice, it probably would still have been a good life. I've chosen to stay with him because life WITH him is also a good life. I'm happy WITH him, not BECAUSE of him. I love him and he loves me and we say it more now to each other than we ever have before. We still argue, we still have conflicts, but I've learned to be happy and he's learned to be happy and as a result, we can be happy together. That's the lesson learned. Will it be forever? Who knows. I've long ago lost that youthful optimism. My realism says that for now, it's good and I hope that it continues.