Wednesday, February 4, 2009

What You May Learn

OK. So this disease got me. I found a person who was an alcoholic. Just when I ran from home and went to college never to return except for Christmas, I am now running again. Far away from the disease. Except the disease is in me too. I may not be allergic to alcohol, but I have been infected - and inflicted and affected.

I expressed my love in my marriage by "allowing" my wife to write checks out of what we both thought was my personal checking (it turns out that it is ours under marital statutes). And the checks I "allowed" her to write were paying off the bills.

I now have found a bunch of checks from 1995 to the near present where she was writing checks to herself! Yikers! Normally I would be pissed. Or should I be pissed. These are not small checks either. They are for $1,000, $1,600, $3,000, $2,600, $1,500. A lot of these size checks. Not $100 here or $150 there. And I don't have all the checks - I may have about 5% of them.

I never paid attention. The joint account grew, it just seemed not to grow as fast as I thought it should and would and could.

Now I know why. She was writing checks to herself. And it didn't stop there.

She had her own personal AMEX Card. I see now she was paying from our joint account at $1,600, $1880, $450, etc. too. A lot of these too. I mean almost every month. What the hell was she buying????

My "trust" was to allow her to take care of the bills while I worked.

But you may think, as my lawyers do/did, "you are an idiot."

But, in my defense, I did not know she was an alcoholic!!! I just thought she had - I am sorry - PMS 25 out of the 30/31 days a month. In my defense, she comes from a very good family. A family worth - several million dollars. Who would have thought an alcoholic could come from such a nice home??

And she has several hundred thousand of her own money. Her money really grew over the years AND now I know why!!

Now you would think that this would be easy to figure out in court and mediation. Wouldn't you? Nope. No one wants to look at the details. No one gives a shit about details.

And just for the record - all lawyers aren't that frickin' smart either. Some are - some aren't.

Man - divorce sucks. It is an emotional drainer. I am dealing with an alcoholic on the other side of the table who is "pissed that I left her." But what about me??? She left me!! She was drinking all these years - a closet drinker - whom I thought had an "equilibrium problem" and/or a PMS problem. ALL THESE YEARS?!

Now as we separate the finances, she wants more of my money. She wants me to suffer. So my disease wants me to think. I almost feel like giving in. Then at Al-Anon I shared and a guy came up to me later and told me about his partner. And the advice from his sponsor "Don't give way because you feel guilty or you mistake compassion for 'allowance' - you have to stand up and fight for yourself."

OK. Good advice. I needed to hear that. My therapist told me the same about 6 months ago. Don't you quit!!

It will either work out or it will work out.

5 comments:

Wait. What? said...

AND - I either way it works out, you will be OK!

Reading stories about divorcing from an alcoholic marriage gets my attention these days as unfortunately I may be heading in that direction if things do not change. BUT either way things will be OK.

Thanks for this post today!

Syd said...

You are right that it will work out. I've been wondering how things have been going. Once lawyers get involved, then the shit hits the fan. It's good that you have your sponsor and program to help work through some of this. It would be a serenity breaker for me.

Di-Git said...

One gift I was given and I feel it works is prayer.
Praying for someone for whom we are angry. I forget to practice this but it's nice to know it's there for us at all times...

Anonymous said...

I saw this great poem on a blog about never giving up. Where did I see that?

Homemaker's Heart said...

Hang in there and remember...This too shall pass! My sponsor taught me this when I was in a deeply stressful time early in my recovery.

Just keep putting one foot in front of the other and only focus and today. Your recovery depends on it.

God's peace.