The most difficult thing for me to understand is that I really am getting in H's way by sticking around and picking up the pieces for him. My story about D6 wasn't just about boundary setting it was about her development, she's 6 she can dress herself, not only can she dress herself she can decide for herself that she really ought to be getting ready now if she wants to go to school dressed rather than in pyjamas. By not setting the boundary firmly enough I was hindering her development and leaving her at an infantile stage. Equally My H is 40 he ought to be able to decide for himself that it's time to quit drinking if he wants to lead a fulfilling life and not wake up each morning feeling terrible and letting the work he couldn't complete in the daytime bleed into the evening and weekends. I am hindering that developmental stage by allowing him to continue to behave like a teenager.

This morning I just felt so sorry for him. He had spent time with the kids taking them to the science museum, then he had gone in to his office to get some stuff he needed to do some work. He spent the evening doing that work and then the VPN link went down and he lost what he was doing. All of this could of course have happened whether or not he drinks, but I contend that he could confine his work to the weekdays if he was able to concentrate better on it, then he wouldn't have had to depend on working over the VPN. It tugged my heart strings to see him looking so pitiable this morning at 6.30 when he got up to try and catch up with what he lost last night, and when I know he is struggling to get an invoice submitted in time for this month.

Frankly though his Herculian struggles to keep us fed and housed don't really impress me like they once did. I can't help thinking that he has the few loyal customers he has because of inertia and he won't get any new ones while he goes round looking like a homeless person. I have talked to him about self-care and about how it affects how people see him but he just hears this as me telling him he's ugly. If he has work to catch up with in the evening why does he spend 3 hours on it, opening another beer every half an hour and coming away from his desk to smoke for 10 minutes out of every 30. If he didn't do that he could probably get it sewn up in an hour. Other guys bring a decent income home and still have time to do things like run the under 10's football team, act as school governers, keep themselves healthy and fit, spend quality time with their families etc. The addictions take up a tremendous amount of TIME and they take up a tremendous amount of my time too.

I don't know if any of you guys have seen the comedian Chris Rock - he's black and he talks about niggahs. He has no time for them and one of his lines goes "Niggahs want your respect for stuff they SUPPOSED to do - right? They say stuff like 'I take care of my kids'. Duh! Your SUPPOSED to take care of your kids."

That's how I feel H is, he wants respect for the stuff he's SUPPOSED to do. I can just hear him in my head "I go out and EARN a living".

Fran

if we can be sufficient to ourselves, we need fear no entangling webs
Erica Jong