The Morning Breaks

He came back to bed last night in a somewhat penatent mood. It was late. He had probably been gone an hour or so. He muttered something about being sorry and probably needing more sleep. I sniffled and he thought I was crying. But I didn't look at him. I wasn't crying....I had been before....but I wasn't at that moment. I kind of wanted him to think I was. He asked me what was wrong and I said nothing. And then less than a minute later he was snoring. And I cried for real.

How many times in our last did he do something like this, blow up for no reason, and then retreat to the basemt for the pleasure of someone else's company? He said he wouldn't be in the basement at night alone. Whether he relapsed or not, he broke the rules. I hate that we have to have rules.

This morning he tried very hard. He said he was sorry and that he needs to learn more loving ways to say things. He asked how I was feeling. I didn't want to tell him because I hate that I'm suspicious. I hate that this is the person that I am. 

I told him that he doesn't hate when people eat in beds.....he sometimes hates when people other than him eat in bed. It isn't consistent and it doesn't apply to him. And I didn't mean to offend. He hadn't been paying attention to me all evening....which is fine. I don't need constant attention. And he was watching a movie with headphones on. I didn't know that he had stopped the movie. 

I didn't tell him that this was the way my father treated my mother. That my father would chastise her and make her feel guilty for swearing or yelling at the kids when the truth was that he yelled and swore, too....and the darker truth was that he followed through on his threats. He was a hypocrite....a word I don't like because I think it is misused and overly used. A hypocrite is not a person who believes in a higher law that they are striving to live up to but can't always achieve it. A hypocrite is someone who holds others to a different standard than they do themselves and then judges the others more harshly when they fail to live up to those standards. That's what my father did. He was far from perfect, and he seemed content with that. But we were expected to be perfect. And when we didn't live up to his expectations, we were chastised and berated and beaten.

My husband would never beat me. But he gets into these moods and he berated me. That's how I felt last night. I was lying in bed feeling like the fat girl who eats everywhere she goes...while her husband whacks off in the basement looking at girls who are actually attractive.

I know it's not about me...intellectually I know that....but sometimes it doesn't feel that way.

But back to this morning....

So then I started to cry and I couldn't get the words out. And I said that I hate myself for letting my brain go there but he has a problem and he made rules and he broke the rules. And he apologized sheepishly and said that he had forgotten about the rules. He wasn't thinking about the rules. He said that I should have reminded him. And I said I had just been yelled at by him....I didn't want to accuse him of something so that I could get yelled at again. 

He apologized a lot then. I didn't ask. The bishop told me that I should ask, that I have a right to ask. Jonah has told me that he wants me to ask. But I couldn't ask. From the way it all played out, it doesn't sound like anything happened. He has promised to tell me if it ever does happen again, and he didn't offer any confessions of the sort....so I can only assume he is still clean...but I'm not sure that I would want to know if he weren't.

But he did say he felt better knowing how I feel. I do, too. But I still feel sad. I feel bleak....not hopeless or scared. Just....foggy and bleak. There is hope...and there is a chance for life to be better than this...but the odds are against us.

I guess, though, that bleak is a step up from the dark places we have been in before. Every step forward is a step that didn't take us backwards. And maybe that is the road to trust...through the darkness and into the fog and maybe someday into the sun.