Albuquerque living part 4

[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.