Resentment.
I'm over it now but I had a big wave of resentment yesterday and D copped for it!
His flying start on Sunday dwindled and I found myself angry and resentful, partly because he was cranky with me too.
I tried lots of things to stay reasonable and up to a point managed but then I found myself even more resentful of the effort I was putting in to stay reasonable!!
I didn't do anything or say anything that awful but I was critical, maybe too critical. I got caught up in calling a spade a spade - that always sounds so good but in reality it usually means judgement, criticism and self justifying things that aren't exactly constructive!
My problem is this:
I never know what's reasonable to expect, I know he's ill, I know that doesn't remove ALL responsibility. I know he's done what he can to get help, I know he's been let down by our health system.
He's talking so normally and he doesn't sound ill or sad unless it's something he's sensitive about where in the past week he's been tearful (not crying but on the edge of it alot. He talks so positively about plans for what he'll do, he sounds so ok that I get cross when he doesn't do them.
Meanwhile he's teaching himself to write programmes in 'C' and (might have this wrong) he's set out to build a compiler in C so that he can practice - only he hasn't worked in C for years (since he was a teenager I think). He sits in front of page after page of commands he writes while seeming not even to look at them. It gets done before recovery stuff, it gets done when recovery stuff is hard, it gets done instead of what he's said he'll do for recovery. I used to say if he's doing his own thing then he's not so depressed he can't keep responsibilities but I don't know if this isn't just slightly manic. In the confusion I get cross!!
Expectations and boundaries.
Should I have a boundary that says he should do x amount of time on recovery stuff? Because he'll loose any chance of the psychiatric treatment if he drinks again - and that effects when he can begin to pull any financial weight. Do I say he has to pull his financial weight knowing he needs treatment that they won't give him, knowing I might be asking the impossible?
My boundaries have always been that I'm treated with respect and dignity and I am. I also said if he refused treatment and ever chose to just drink himself to death I couldn't stand by and watch.
He's always paid half of everything, I never considered boundaries for that because it was always there. Now it isn't because he's ill - so my expectations of recovery have got muddled with what's fair boundaries financially.
To add to the confusion it's hard to know what is or isn't a super effort - day to day I don't know how well he is, I get to find out when things go wrong! I know he's seriously depressed, I know his self esteem has disappeared into a negative, I know he's dealing with random and big anxiety - but I never know when or how much!
I guess what I'm saying is even if I get mad I don't know if it was justified, it's understandable but I don't know if it's justified.
After and initial argument D is so supportive and tells me none of it is my fault, not even me being angry (while I try to tell him that IS my fault). Last night that lead to me losing it and crying for hours while he held me - all the time I felt how can I be dumping this on him? Then feeling guilty for that just made me cry more!
So today I feel tired, a bit lost, very confused, and silly because nothing has really happened except me behaving in a way I don't like and not really having a clue what's reasonable.