Originally Posted by
anvilhead 
i'm trying to imagine if hank had some court thing coming up, for ANY reason, and didn't talk to me openly about it???? especially if the results were going to have such an IMPACT on both of our lives? if he was facing jail time, loss of license, etc etc....
liz, if you took some to reflect...can you think back to when you two had open honest free flowing communication between you on any and ALL topics? cuz i suspect that's more at the core of the trust issues.......when the other person shuts down or shuts us out, puts us on a "need to know" basis as if we are inconsequential or ancillary, after the fact.
if you took you car in for repairs, when it came to time collect the car you'd expect MORE than them just telling you "that will be $600" - you would have wanted to know the estimate AHEAD of time, agreed to the estimate, and an itemized bill of all work that had been done, as well as parts replaced. that's a minimum expectation. in a relationship we should have at least as much communication as we would with our mechanic!!!
i think this next month will be very telling....that MUCH more shall be revealed to you. this may be an excellent opportunity to detach and observe....LET him show you who he is, and what his true intentions are........
To address the court issue thing: I had told him when he got the DUI that I was going to take a hands off approach. It was his crime and he was going to have to take care of it himself. He had asked me to find him a lawyer because I'm so good at research on the web, but 2 days prior to that he had thrown my research skills under the bus when I tried to warn him about taking Paxil with alcohol. So, I told him NO, find your own lawyer because I don't want to resent myself for enabling when you're perfectly capable of doing this on your own. So, what he heard is: I don't want to know anything about the DUI because it's your mess so don't bother to include me. Every time I ask about the DUI he gets all bristly and defensive and his favorite saying is, "I'm taking care of it, don't worry." He even reminded me of that this weekend when I told him I would go to court. He said, "But, you didn't want to be involved." He still doesn't see how this could be important to our family. He wants to keep ALL of it away from our son, which truly isn't possible. He's hiding behind his guilt and shame and self-loathing and he's keeping me at arms length.
As for if we ever had open communication: yes, there are times when we can talk to each other openly. It was on and off through our marriage but he was always prone to angry outbursts(prompting me to recoil in fear and anxiety) and days of depression where he would lock himself in a room for days on end and then I'd write him a beautiful letter telling him how he's valuable to us as a family, I'd give of my heart, body, and soul and then he'd magically loosen up and the depression would lift. And, we'd be good for a while. The cycle would continue though. He'd get depressed, anxious, angry, etc and I'd step in and lift him out of it all the while losing myself in the process. Being the rescuer and enabler can be very draining and I finally hit MY bottom last year. I've stopped being the rescuer and I wonder if this is part of the problem? I'm trying to get out of our codependent ways, and maybe the drinking was part of the rebelling? I was tired of being his mother, wife, garbage dump(you know, where they dump all their negative emotions, complaints, pity parties, and self loathing in), etc.
He has grown more and more difficult to have a conversation with. He seems mired in his work, dealing with his fear of jail time, hiding from his emotions, and hiding from me because he knows that I want to talk. I swear it's to the point where if I walk into a room, he'll walk out of it. Maybe he's resentful of me? Maybe he's mad that he's not drinking right now? Not my problem, really. If he doesn't want to heal himself or find recovery, I guess that's his loss. It's just sad that the family has to be collateral damage.