My Poor Husband

I don't know why it is. Our history. I feel safe. I can unleash my fears, doubts and insecurities and then hide in our dysfunction. Which of course leaves me feeling restless, irritable and discontent and the whole cycle starts again. And of course he's got his own stuff and pushes the buttons both intentionally and unintentionally. But the thing is, I can be a very nice person..notice I said I can be....I am kind, tolerant, patient, thoughtful, empathetic, open minded and loving with everyone ELSE but my husband. The Dunkin Donuts clerk gets more respect from me than my husband does. The obnoxious a*hole at a meeting does too. I feel really bad about this and I'm working on the causes and conditions. I hope and will continue to pray that I can get to a place where he can receive the benefits of my recovery. I have to trust and rely on God that this will come. Until then, I MUST make a conscious effort to restrain my natural impulses. I haven't. But I made a huge step this morning. I apologized. I said all of the above to him. I'd made an amends to him before but this was different. Because this had more to do with now than the past. Every morning when I ask God to direct my thinking...I need to be specific with regards to this man I have been married to for 22 years.

I was thinking this morning that my whole life up to 2 years ago was that paragraph in More About Alcoholism. I had no idea I was an alcoholic for a very long time. In my early 20's I had a moment of clarity when I thought maybe my problems were related to alcohol and I went to an AA meeting. Then I thought maybe it was about God and I kneeled in the back of a church and cried. But I didn't find an answer. So I dropped out of college and got a job. I changed bedrooms in my house. ( a very small geographic cure:), I got my own apartment, I went back to school, I changed jobs, I got married, I had children, I moved again. None of these things changed what was fundamentally wrong. And my drinking increased to the point, Thank You God, where it finally became very clear what my problem was. It was slapping me in the face. I am ever so grateful that while I was blind I didn't kill anyone.