Waking the Hell Up

My second child was six weeks old when I sought out counseling from Catholic Social Services. I couldn’t stop crying. Sobbing; I couldn’t stop sobbing uncontrollably, and I didn’t exactly know why. I was told by several people that it must be post-partum depression and that it would pass. My husband of less than three years was dismayed, and then irritated that I wouldn’t stop crying. He never acknowledged that when I told him I couldn’t stop, I really meant it.

Fed up, he was the one who suggested I seek help. So I did.

Marjorie met with me, and within the first fifteen minutes of gathering my recent history, she stopped, looked up, took off her glasses, leaned forward and asked me softly if my husband drank often; was he an alcoholic. I laughed and diminished and protected his behavior at first, of course.

When I think back on it now, I smile at my stupidity; my naivety. What a rube.

We broke it down, and yes, it seems by her distant — yet accurate — assessment on that first day that I met Marjorie the social worker, that he was indeed a drinker at the very least.

I was thrilled that within the course of less than 50 minutes we figured it all out and I was going to be okay! The essence of my problem was that my husband wasn’t coming home after work to help with two small, demanding babies and a physically depleted and depressed wife who desperately needed support. He didn’t want to. It was really hard for him. Instead, he would bide his time at the bar or go to a friend’s house to drink.

“Oh! He just has to stop drinking; then it will all be okay!” And I could have my happy-ever-after. I went from sobbing to giddy in exactly 2.5 seconds.

Marjorie was understandably worried about me and my cock-eyed optimism. She wanted to meet with him.

“Sure! Of course, I will tell him,” I smiled jubilantly. I mean, why wouldn’t he want to get this whole thing under control and take care of me and his children? I saw no problem with that at all.

My husband, on the other hand, didn’t see it that way at all.

He was PIIIIISSSSSSSED!

That was the beginning of a very long and difficult relationship with my alcoholic, drug-addled (didn’t even know about that at the time) money-addicted (didn’t know that either), passive aggressive (another new discovery) husband.

That was over 2 decades ago. We were divorced after 17 years of marriage. My six week old son is now engaged to be married. I had a lot to learn. A LOT. I had never dealt first-hand with an alcoholic and didn’t have any idea how to connect the behavior with the label, let alone deal with the excuses, lies and manipulation. I also lacked the introspection needed to understand my own reactive behavior. Get this: I had never heard of the term “codependent.”

As with everything I turn my intense focus on, I became obsessed with figuring it out and conquering it. I was never going to surrender and divorce this man. I was madly in love and I wanted my family. I vowed to myself to fix it.

I read, I joined CoDA, I joined support groups, women’s groups, I went on retreats and I went to therapy. And I dragged my husband to therapy too. His resentment for me grew like a quiet cancer that I couldn’t see. Everything I asked him to do to try to save our marriage and recover, he interpreted as leverage over him. I became the face of authority and he was the angry rebel. And I never knew it. The passive-aggressive sabotage that followed every interaction with me was nothing short of hateful.

What his addictions created felt like a dynamic of infidelity. I was never his “number one.” I couldn’t even put into words how incredibly betrayed and lonely I felt all the time. Everything was more important than me; more important than what I wanted to do; more important than spending time with me. His work, golf, golf leagues, friends, work dinner meetings, sporting events — he owned season tickets to 7 different teams — and even vacations without me.

I couldn’t put my finger on it, but the lying and manipulation increased over time. And worse, in sad attempts to maintain some semblance of order, I was adding to the dysfunction by creating habits and narratives of my own to accommodate his rotten behavior. Terrified he would leave me, I couldn’t face his bad treatment of me head on. Our pattern of relating became increasingly corrupted and unhealthy.

So I went on that journey of learning. And my journey was kind of like learning to drive in my lane at crazy speeds by repeatedly crashing into the guard rails and never tapping the brakes. Painful. Destructive. My heart broke 10,000 times.

My codependency is about my behavior; my patterns, my motives, the quiet voices in my head that justify his bad behavior; my bad behavior. Justify not speaking up; not standing up for myself. At first, I reassigned responsibility of my husband’s behavior to myself. Part of what they call “crazy-making” that I did to myself. This struggle then resulted in difficulty regulating my emotions. I was a mess. And I was exhausted.

By this time, baby number three had come along. He had colic. My body and mind were worn out. I never slept. I didn’t know what day it was. I never remembered where I parked my car when I went to the market.

But all the while, the work that I was doing — the therapy and the reading especially — was slowly making a dent in my thick codependent brain. Our seventh therapist (my husband would want to fire the ones that were starting to figure him out and call him out) was a ball-buster.

She busted my balls first. Ouch.

Called me out on my covert narcissism. Yeah, quietly in my head, I was the pure martyr; the good one. The holier-than-thou good girl, and my husband was the villain. While I was now assigning his bad behavior to my husband, I was also now so full of myself.

This new therapist got right up in my face and told me that I was an addict with a superiority problem. I condescended to my husband instead of understanding him. She was right. I had grown to be comfortable portraying myself as the victim; the hardest-working, never-drinking, always-on-deck responsible one while my husband was the unreliable drunk. I wanted a trophy for my selflessness. Every way that I could prop up my image as the martyr, I performed.

These days, I can recognize my own steaming hot bullshit as well as addiction of all sorts — drinking, drugging, money, codependence, etc. — by how I feel when I interact with someone. My gut alerts me to alcoholics and drug addicts, and I grow instantly exhausted when a fellow codependent starts talking “at” me.

I count myself lucky for the lessons that finally broke through the steel walls of my belief systems. And I am incredibly grateful for the authors, the therapists and especially my ex-husband for wearing me the hell out so I can now feel — almost instantly — when I am being manipulated, used and bullshitted by an addict.

And the only one I am trying to be better than now is the me I was yesterday.

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