Albuquerque living part 4

[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.