Well...yesterday was interesting. H went off to his appointment while I took the kids. At some point, he texted me about using family leave so I could help him watch the kids during future appointments. This was an interesting request, as I won’t be eligible to use this type of leave if we get divorced. I told him I’d get him the paperwork for family leave, and he was all for that.
The plan was always for me to take the kids trick-or-treating, so we went and did that, then we hung out at my house for a bit. I took the kids home around 7:45pm (my house is still mostly unfinished so we couldn’t stay there) and H was not there. We never discussed me keeping the kids overnight, so I wasn’t sure what was going on or what to do. I sent H a text, but got no response—his phone needs WiFi to work, so it wasn’t unexpected. I texted his friend too, in case they were together, and got no response.
My initial thought was that he was at the VFW. They closed at 8pm, so we waited in the car until 8:15pm. There was still no sign of H, so I decided to just go in his house, put the kids to bed, and wait there until H showed up. Once I got everybody in the house, H finally sends a text telling me he’s in a bad place and that I need to take the kids for the night. So I loaded everyone up and took them to where I’m staying. I could tell H was drunk.
The weird thing is that after I left with the kids, H sent another text stating that he wanted to talk and that he wanted to know how I was feeling. I didn’t know how to respond to that, especially because I knew he was drunk. I ended up just telling him “ok” and that we’d arrived at our destination. I also empathized with him about his day and told him I was proud of him for getting treatment. He sent a thank you text after that, and I didn’t talk to him again until the morning.
So this morning, he ended up calling me four times (I was in the shower) because he woke up in a panic and couldn’t remember where he was or where the kids were. I told him I had them and we were getting ready for school. I also told him to take care of himself, but that agitated him, and he abruptly ended the call. He called back a few minutes later though. He was wanting me to bring the kids back. So I took the oldest to school and dropped off the others with H. He seemed fine when I was there...if he was hungover, it didn’t show. I asked him again about family leave, on the off chance that it was a drunken request, but he still wants to do that.
We didn’t talk beyond that, and I didn’t bring up his message from the night before about talking to me about my feelings. I’m not sure what the deal was there. I speculate that it’s either homework from his therapist, or just drunken babble. At this point, I’m trying not to read anything into it, but I see it as a positive overall.
