DH is becoming more aware of the people who are friends, and people who are drinking buddies, and the difference. He has good days and bad ones when it comes to drinking, and he seems to be drinking more and more. I try not to keep tabs on it anymore. Its his life and he chooses to leave me a widow at a relatively young age, that’s his decision.

I grieve. I grieve for the marriage that I wish we could have and must let go. I grieve for the child we talk about having and don’t dare bring into the world. I have to learn how to let go and accept the good things we DO have together.

He made a point of leaving his empty liquor bottle on the desk next to my computer (I have it password protected because of our room mate, so no one else can use it besides myself.), then acted surprised when I told him that I perceived it as a slap in the face. I’m so tired of this.

It is a beautiful morning, with a full, clear moon. I was going to go x-c skiing on the trails around here, but it turns out my boots don’t fit my bindings…so that was out. Now I have all this anger and no way of getting it out except for here. I just want to slap him awake and scream in his face, but what good will it do? It won’t make me feel any better. I’m the bad guy, with him, with his “friends”, because I expect adults to act like adults in my home, with respect and kindness.

I told him tonight that I can see that nothing will ever change about this situation, it will just get worse and worse.
I was cranky all day. I had a dream that he was unfaithful in front of me. In a way, he is, just that the “other woman” is alcohol. I can’t even confront my competition, and I really don’t think I can win. Alcohol is what means the most to him, and when I’m gone, it will be what he turns to, that and the false friends.

I honestly wanted a loud and angry argument when I got home. He is so drunk he just keeps passing in and out of consciousness. EVERY Friday he goes overboard with these fools. “I deserve it, I work hard,” he says. yeah, your life is quite the beer and liquor commercial, isn’t it?

I know Al-anon says to say what you mean, mean what you say, and don’t say it mean. The program is asking sainthood of people. I WANT to make him hurt like I’m hurting to try to get across to him how much his behavior hurts. I KNOW it doesn’t make sense and I don’t care right now.

“I was interrupted. Dumb and Dumber stopped by with Jello shots.”

I started to tell him I was going to hang up because usually these calls rapidly degenerate into a shouting match. He sounded sad about it so I stuck on and just “let it go”…though I really, really, really wanted to blow up. I asked only one thing: “Please tell me you’ve cleaned up the mess.” The last time he did Jello shots with these people I came home to a living room and kitchen covered in Jello because they decided it would be funny to wrestle in it. I am married to the world’s oldest frat boy, I swear.

Anyway, we had a good talk, though not the most interesting or intelligent conversation. We at least both hung up feeling all right about the other.

My period is due right around Christmas…and I have seen that my tolerance for the foolishness goes down the drain the week or so right before. I want to warn him to just tread easily around me when I’m PMSing…but that very sage advice will be ignored when he has a bottle in front of him. His favorite song: “I’d rather have a bottle in front of me, instead of a frontal lobotomy…”

Sorry, so tired after the vet’s today and work. I just wanted to say that I think I’m making progress. It’s so hard to be able to gauge…but I think it has something to do with being able to not taking his drinking personally. When I’m feeling good about myself and the rest of my life, while I don’t like it nor what it does to him, I see it as HIS problem. It’s when I’m worn out and already on my last nerve that the seriously stupid and poor judgement that he possesses when drinking just pushes me over the edge and I turn into that Thing.

Do I want him to stop? Yes! Yes, a thousand times, yes! Does anything I say or do nudge or push him in that direction? NO! I’m saving my energy for the fights I can win.

My husband fixed the hatchback on the Subaru Outback so I could safely transport the goats, first thing in the morning, in the pouring rain. It took him about a half an hour. It hadn’t been closing or opening properly; just doing whatever it pleased. Couldn’t have that with livestock in the back.

Lured Pascal out first. They both detest being in the rain, and even a bucket of grain and a handful of hay wasn’t very alluring for either of them. I gave up with Pascal and picked him up and put him in the back of the car. He sat in there screaming and blatting at me while I went to get Nibbles. She had heard him hollering and wanted no part of going for a ride even though they both normally LOVE going for rides in the car. (I’ve even taken both dogs and the goats…now that looked like a redneck car). Managed to push and pull her in and we were on our way.

To get to the vet’s clinic, I travel on an old stagecoach road that is poorly maintained. It is the shortest distance between here and there. My Subaru was sliding all over the place. At one point there was a tree across the road, which I had to move out of the way.

Even so, I arrived half an hour early. They wanted to see them immediately (thank goodness!). First, Nibbles. She poked along and wanted no part of being in the clinic. His assistant and I held her tightly while he did all her hooves. She gave no real trouble until she got her rabies shot, then kicked hard with her front legs. I was concerned about the assistant, who was fine.

Then I got Pascal, who was no trouble at all through the whole thing. I was amazed because he’s usually very assertive (I assume because he’s so small). He wasn’t happy about it but took it.

Getting them BACK into the car in the parking lot was a workout. I finally managed to get them both in and had to climb in after them, shut the hatchback and get out a side door to go pay the bill. $80 for hoof trimmings and two vaccines for both goats. I don’t think that was all that bad.

NEXT: Porter the pig gets HIS shots. I don’t think I’m going to attempt to get a headstrong animal that weighs more than I do to go anywhere he doesn’t want to first. I think I’m happy the vet will make housecalls.

DH finally cleaned up the paint and has put in some new shelves. He did well last night. His “friends” wanted him to go do a beer run for them last night…or borrow our truck or his snowmobile and he told them they were idiots and hung up on them. There may be hope for the man yet.

It looked like there had been a murder committed. Straight out of CSI, all over the walls and floor and stairs. I panicked at first, then saw the open paint can on the stairs. “Someone” had spilled a full gallon of red paint on the stairway and didn’t even try to clean it up. I woke him up, and asked him if he’d had any of his friends here. He said no. I asked him what happened on the stairs. He said he didn’t know anything about it. I said, “Well, if you’re not lying to me about people visiting, then it had to be you or our room mate”. “Our room mate must have done it.” Yawn, back to a boozy sleep. I was so frustrated, and I wasn’t going to clean it up for him but had to go to bed, so I grabbed his work clothes and put them on the stairs so I could walk upstairs. It’s now Tuesday and he still hasn’t cleaned it up. I’m not cleaning up his drunken messes.
And I found out last night that he DID have visitors that night. I confronted him about it and he said, “You told me you don’t want to hear about when I have visitors.” What I told him is I don’t want to know every stupid drunken detail that he and his stupid friends do because I don’t find what they do interesting nor amusing in the least, and it just raises my blood pressure.

Anyway, the weekend went amazingly well. I decided to say nothing about it. He did come clean when he sobered up about the paint and cleaned up what had been tracked on the carpets before I even got up Saturday.

We had had a “date” to groom our doe, Nibbles, on Saturday, but he was too hungover to do anything but lounge on the couch and watch TV. We hung around together and didn’t do much, together.

On Sunday, we brought Nibbles the goat inside, bathed her in the tub with baby shampoo (she was grubby looking and it really showed with her being white). He then held her still while I attempted to trim her hooves. That didn’t go very well. The hoof knife I bought was useless on her hooves, so I was reduced to using toenail clippers and a file.

Needless to say, I made an appointment for both her and Pascal to have their hooves trimmed at our vet’s for tomorrow.

I decided last night to let go of the anger and resentment about being given the extra work. I was appalled at how things were being done and have improved it immensely. I think since we have a new supervisor who is much more “hands-on”, he is testing me to see whether I’m flexible. Now that I’ve been able to incorporate the extra work into my nightly schedule I really don’t mind it all that much. At least I have less downtime to stress and worry about what’s happening at home. I save that work for last so that I don’t rush through it in irritation, worrying about whether I’ll get the rest of my work done.

He really lit a fire under my co-worker’s butt. He spoke to him on Tuesday, and comes through at least once a night to check on his work. My co-worker is finally doing his job. I thanked my supervisor and asked him what he did with the box of matches that started that fire under his butt. My co-worker had a bad habit of leaving about 1/2 an hour before breaks and coming back about 15 minutes after breaks…now our supervisor shows up right around then and the co-worker doesn’t dare. I love it. I also know that if I was slacking I would definitely be on the shit stick too.

I’m going to do some Christmas shopping after caring for my livestock. It’s 3:30 in the afternoon and is so dreary outside that it is nearly dark already. ARGH. My second daughter, Sarah, who is 16, wants to be an entertainer. She is talented and dedicated. She’s performed at Disney Orlando several times already. I’m so proud! Anyway, she is going to be trying out for the part of Lady Larkin in her highschool production of “Once Upon a Mattress” and her fondest gift this year was a request for the soundtrack of “Once Upon a Mattress”. So, that’s what I’m buying today.

He bought a junk Firebird off of a friend for $50 and dragged it home last night to become a lawn ornament along with the other project car he has done nothing with since the novelty wore off this past summer. He says it’s an investment. He tried to hook me several times during our 8 pm phone conversation: “Do you want to hear about my night so far?”, he said. I said, “Only if the police aren’t involved.” He then rattled off how he went to his friend’s, had “A beer”, and went out to hook up the car to our truck. Apparently they nearly missed another vehicle in the yard when it slid. It now sits on our lawn. He then made a big point of telling me NOBODY is at the house and NOBODY has been there all night, going on and on. I put the phone down while he went on and on, and when I heard him stop, I spoke to him again.

When I came home, he wasn’t very awake, which isn’t unusual, since it was 3AM. It was Tuesday, and he always gets a bottle of vodka or rum on Tuesdays. I could set my clock by it. If I look around I’ll find his bottle, likely under the kitchen sink in the back of the cupboard. If not there, in the truckor the chest freezer. I’m not going to look for it. It really IS his life and how he wrecks it is none of my business. All I can do is minimize the impact his drinking has on MY life. He does work full time, is loving to me and doesn’t cheat on me…as far as I know.

He was very sweet when I arrived home. He had made me dinner and put it in the fridge for me.

On another subject, I’m dreading going out and trimming my doe’s hooves. I’ve never done it before and I don’t want to injure her. My animals are teaching me so much about unconditional love…even if the reason they look forward to me arriving every day is because they’re hungry. At least they’re always happy to see me.

Today is my hardest day of the week at work. I’m very frustrated right now with my job. I got passed over for a promotion and they gave the guy who had the job more money to stay in the job. That would be fine…but they gave me some of his workload starting this week without compensating me for the extra work. I’m feeling very resentful. I told my supervisor that my workload is already quite heavy and that while I’ll do my best, I’m not making any promises that I could get it done every day and will keep him posted. I’m not going to quit my job, particularly in this economic climate, but I have started a job search. I have three teenagers to support (my eldest is grown and on her own).

What I want to do is go back to college…but I run into the same problem I ran into 20 years ago: what do I want to do for the rest of my life? and can’t justify putting out that much money into something that might not pay me back. I suppose the opposing argument would be that I certainly don’t want to be doing what I’m doing right now for a living for the rest of my life so change would be good. Seven more years and Claudia (my youngest) will be 18. Can I hold on for seven more years to the relative security of this job even though I dread work every day to ensure my children’s continued financial security? I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up and I’m 40. In many ways I think I was more “grown up” in my 20′s than I am now. I certainly know and understand myself and others far better now but I was less self-centered then.

I need to go do my “morning” devotions. (I’m a devout, practicing Pagan). I put morning in quotations because right now it’s 3 in the afternoon, but it is more about greeting the day in a positive manner. I also do “evening” devotions before retiring in the morning. I really need to go out and trim those hooves on my goat, too, and there is a baby shower for one of the women at work tonight and I need to go get something for her. I won’t attend the shower as I can’t stand hen parties but I do like the girl and wish her well.

We played board games Sunday night and we have been trying very hard to keep from backsliding. He’s trying to let me know his whereabouts and I’m trying not to give him hell for it.

i didn’t make it to the meeting on Sunday as we were having such a good time playing Life I  forgot about it until several hours later.

I’m trying to maintain serenity and keep the good feelings from yesterday. I think I will go to that meeting this afternoon, as I need to learn new ways of being with him. I was snappish when he came in a few minutes ago because of the beer can. There really is no point if he’s already been drinking of bringing it up. I have to assume that he’s lying to me about it so why even go through the charade of asking and producing evidence? It doesn’t make either of us feel any better so why do I do it?

It’s because of days like yesterday that I stay. I see the man I fell in love with and want to see more of him.

When we were dating, he saw a homeless man on the side of the road, holding a sign. My first husband would have yelled something insulting and drove away. My husband had me stop several hundred feet from him, walked up to him and talked with him a short while then had me drive up. He had the man get in the car and asked me to drive to the grocery store where he bought him a week’s worth of groceries, and gave him his employer’s number, then had me drive the guy to the local shelter. That was when I fell in love with him. Sometimes I get so caught up in this cycle of hurt and embarassment that I lose sight of the man he is inside.

How the argument began on Friday night was that we were talking fine, until it came time to say goodbye. I said, “I love you.” and he said, “I really don’t think you do love me.” I said, “What makes you think that?”, and he lit into me. It was like a starter’s pistol and we were off! Some of the things he said were justified. I am controlling at times and sometimes (like Thanksgiving) I can hear myself going on and on and am cringing on the inside because I can’t believe the awful things I’m saying to someone I supposedly love. Niether one of us are perfect and I have to keep that in mind.

We are going to go do some winter clothing shopping after I shower and get dressed. I want to use the x-c skis he got me this fall and do some ice skating and not spend the winter shivering inside. It does me a  world of good to get outside every day. I’m grateful for the livestock because caring for them forces me outside daily for at least 30-45 minutes a day and gets my blood moving. They are so unconditionally accepting and happy to see me (even if it is because I am the Bearer of Food) that I usually feel so much better no matter my mood after being with them.

__._,_.___

__,_._,___