Time Marches On

"You are still responsible for the financial welfare of our family. Figure it out", I said with as much strength as my nervous insecure self could muster. I had called on my courage and God stood right beside me to bolster what little I had. There was not much of a response, so I turned and walked away.

Life became weird. I just can't describe it any other way. We were more like roommates who attempted to exist in spite of each other. I avoided him because I was swimming in a cesspool of emotion I needed time to work through. I was in counseling at the time, and knew I couldn't just push those emotions to the side, but acknowledging and processing them proved to such a daunting task I wasn't sure how to move forward. 

I also had to consider my 14 year old daughter and the severe trauma she had experienced. Every night as she tried to fall asleep, she was consumed with a rush of emotion that resulted in an intense anxiety, I could feel her uncontrollable shaking as I lay on an air mattress beside her bed. Together we talked, and prayed, and sang late into the night, until exhaustion won out allowing her weary mind and body to finally settle into a fitful rest. She too, was in counseling, however, healing proved to be slow and painful. Sometimes  progress was significant, but much of the time it was 2 steps forward and 3 steps backwards.

From mid October to the end of May we all just did our best to survive. I was angry, and hurt, and that all came to a head for me. I had no patience, and I was tired of non stop talk about his pain in his feet, his back, his neck, his arms...it just went on and on. He would do yard work and repairs around the house as needed, but avoided attending church with the family, supporting school events our children were involved in, helping out parenting/discipline issues, etc. His reasoning? If he did anything extra it would cause him to miss a week of work, which in turn could cause him to lose his job...and then what? And the accommodations he "needed" were more than overwhelming. I'd been dealing with all of that since 1996 and I was weary. For 16 years I was cooking special meals, preparing breakfast, lunch and dinner to meet his needs. The covers at the end of the bed were rolled back and folded precisely, with a fan perfectly positioned at the end of the bed year round to keep his feet cool. One night I spent 20 minutes (no exaggeration) trying to adjust it to his liking. He came home pretty much every evening from work straight into the bedroom and watched TV until 11pm or midnight. He became obsessed with different movies that he would watch over and over again, night after night, replaying different scenes and watching ALL of the bonus features. At one point I realized I'd been trying to go to sleep with the movie "Jaws 3" playing in the background for 6 months straight (again no exaggeration). He bought water from a bottled water store and kept a thermos filled with (boiled and cooled) water with  him at all times. He spent an exuberant amount of effort shopping (usually online) for socks with perfect thickness, shoes and sandals (worn with socks to protect his feet) purchased in multiples, and pants with seams and waistband least likely to cause discomfort with his lower back, as well as an assortment of machines, supplements, and gadgets, desperately seeking relief/healing. He went to multiple doctors and specialists spending thousands of dollars for treatments that were not covered by insurance. With our meager income stretched as far as it could possibly stretch, the needs of other family members much of the time going mostly unmet, and emotional health issues of my own, I was drowning. His declaration that he could no longer go to work, and his suicide attempt a few weeks later, ultimately pushed me over the edge. I had come to the conclusion I would never BE enough, nor would I ever be able to DO enough to satisfy him.