Well dinner went great the other night, and we ended up watching the allstar game afterwards. H seemed kind of distant, but not in a bad way, more of a tierd way.

Now the next night (wed.), was a complete different story.

I have to write about this in detail, since I think it will help a lot of DBers here understand more. Not that I completely understand any of this either, but it may be insightful.

When a MLCer comes back to the LBS, it is often so hard to piece things back together. I think many MLCers come back prematurely only to realise later they are still looking for something but they dont know what. That is often why many teeter back and forth. My H has done it several times himself. H & I are piecing but I still see his unsurness of himself & his decisions pop up.

This is where I am coming from:
Last night I was busy all day & night and I told H I would call him when I was done. When I called my H, He was wasted and at a bar with friends. He invited me over. I awkwardly said o.k. & went to his place for the night.

The evening started well. My H was babbling since he was drunk and he was full of energy and wanted to just talk to me. He was extemely excited and said he had such a great day and ran into many old H.S. aquaintances that he used to be in a band with. It was like he was on cloud nine to express to me how great & nostalgic it was to see all these people in the same room once again. He remenised about the old parties they used to have while I was away at college. It is like he loves running into any one from our life that wastnt a big part of my life, but now hates all the people that are still stongly in my life.

H said things like I dont want to turn 30. He also said he used to be such a personable person but people have worn on him so much that he hated what he turned into. He kept thanking me for listening to him and being here for him and he said he knows he is a handful and he doesnt know how I put up with him. He also was saying how he knows he has done nothing good in this apartment he is in and he wants out of it. But then how he loves its location and going to the bars all the time. He also said, I also want to be with you though and I just have to balence it out.

I just listened. He would say one thing and then contradict it in the next sentence. He was saying how his head felt like it was spinning, but not from the booze - just because his intense emotions. I could see his head about to explode in front of me, due to his being so torn about his life.

Then he told me about his earlier part of his day and how he ran into this great friend at the bar (he makes this guy out to be a super hero & even said that he would take a bullet for him). This guy named John he met about a year ago when my H started frequenting the bars. John talked to my H about being a fireman. John is one himself and was informing my H about the job & what it is like. He was not offering him a job, but just pumping it up.

Much to my surprise, this is now what my H wants to be. He is certain this is what he has been looking for and wants to pursue it. It will be hard to get hired though and there are not a whole lot of positions available. I was happy to hear my H's excitement about such a worthy job. I told him it seems like he would be great at it. He is just so unhappy owning his own roofing company and has been searching for something new for about 3-4 years now. I sure hope this is it. Let me tell ya, he has thought about & pursued becoming a nurse, an auto mechanic, an a.c. technition, a landscaper, a carpenter, a fence digger, a real estate agent....
you name it he has thought about it or even dabbled in it.

I think that my H is so excited about this because he is now seeking to be a better person than what he was. He always made me happy, but not himself. I think H wants to prove he is not a coward, and to become a hero through being a fireman that is definetly not afraid to die (last year he was near suicidal). I hope that this is really gonna work out for my H. I do believe that he would be good at it and it would make him feel good about himself.

Another really big part of the evening was when H started to talk to me about the trip to the bahamas & florida that I won and he agreed to go on with me over our anniversary in Aug. He started out by saying how great it will be, and how much fun we will have and how badly he needs a vacation. Then out of the blue it was like he flipped a coin and turned into a MLC alien. H then starts to tell me how afraid he is to go on the trip since we dont have a lot of the info needed for it yet. I cant help it, that we are at the mercy of the place I won it from , its not like I planned the trip through a travel agent. So my H started to say he doesnt want to go on it, he has too much anxiety. I didnt say anything, I was shocked and hurt, and getting screamed at for no reason, so I just sat there and listened.

Instead of getting pissed as I used to, I just let him rant & rave to me with out speaking. When he was done after about a half an hour schpeel. I tried to reassure him that I dont know the facts yet, since I was told all the airline info would be sent about two weeks before we leave. I said, I have all the other info and I would be happy to give it to ya, if it would make you feel better.

He said yeah, and now is insisting that he has every phone # and address and map directions, and airline #'s that we will be using before he will agree to still go with me. Normally I would have lost it there, and gave up on going with him. But I think I am just learning how to deal with his MLC/bipolar/alcoholism/or whatever it is... better. If I allowed myself to freak out at him due to the painful disrespect he shows me and allow my emotions to get in the way, I would have said "fine, I will go alone then and would have got up and left". Instead I remained calm and told myself not to get mad. He kindof apologized to me when he saw that I wasnt reacting much, and we setteled things.

We ML that night and he was nice to me in the morning. He went out & got us breakfast and came back and we watched a movie and ML again. I left this afternoon so we can both do errands and he wants to get together tonight.

Well now i am thinking back over our evening and it is all summed up in a few words, My H is still in MLC, still searching for his answers yet to be found, and definetly still acting like a teenager that is trying to find his way in life. I hope this doesnt go on forever. At least right now he seems to be sure that he loves me, cant keep his hands off me, and is thanking me for being here for him in his troubled times. So I need so much patience right now, because I am just going along for this MLC ride with him until he comes out of it, or leaves me again in search of more answers.
TIPPER