My evening was a bit strange. It was day 2 of not initiating any cell calls to H and I think he is feeling the withdrawal. He called me at the end of the afternoon to ask a couple of questions. I told him that I was going to get some groceries after I left work. He said oh, well I'm going to go out and do the work in the barn (that didn't get done the previous night because he stayed in the bar). I said ok!
I got some groceries and came home. He was in the house and complaining of being sore. I didn't baby him, but said I could bring in the groceries. He did help me. As we were unpacking stuff he dropped a bomb on me about some negative effects of the recent road work, and what he had agreed to let them do to try and repair the problems. That was it! I tried hard not to, but I began to cry. It caught him totally off guard and then he began to act like he was mad I was crying. I grabbed the broom and went out to sweep off the back deck. It's a big deck and there were lots of leaves on it. I also treated the hot tub, so I was outside a while. Pretty soon he came out with the binoculars and began to look for deer. After a minute he asked why I was crying. I told him that the changes he had agreed to, without talking to me, were going to make a material change to something on our land that I liked and really enjoyed. Further, it was a pending issue that he had known about for weeks, and done nothing about, had procastinated and then just caved when approached by the contractor. I told him that he was a drunk "F" and that though he might think my reaction was silly, it was something that I liked and had meant a lot to me. Then I let it drop.
We went inside and I began to put away the rest of the groceries and clean up the kitchen. I had recorded the college football game on Sat., so we re-watched some of the highlights from that. I could tell that he was thinking about some of the things that I had said, because he finally said "Do you really think I'm a drunk F?" I said "H, I am not going to fight with you, I've had a very rough day and I want to relax."
He woke up first thing this morning and asked the same thing. I said "Well, H, you're running with a pretty fast crowd." He said, but I'm not in the bar more than 2 nights a week, usually." I said oh H, try 3 or 4. He said, do you think (our friend) Bill has a drinking problem? I said, It breaks my heart, buy yes I do. Then I went downstairs.
That was it, but I can tell some wheels are turning. And he was not angry or defensive with me, which I think was key.
Most of us are about as happy as we make up our minds to be.
