thoughts about exAH who has passed away
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Wonderfully said!
Originally Posted by LovePeaceSushi 
My daughter just turned 16. She's really tough about her father - - until she's not. Just keep being the great mom that you are and acknowledge the teen behavior for what it is....and then be there when she needs a soft place to fall and cry. ((hugs))
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Today's update:
What are the things you don't want to think about? When ex was alive and drinking and delusional and raging and threatening me, I couldn't let myself think about the good times we had had in the past, before he got swallowed up by substance abuse and mental illness. It felt like I couldn't afford any "weakness" or sadness in remembering the good years that went horribly bad, because I had to stay strong and stay tough in order to handle what was coming my way in the present.
Now it's almost the opposite - I can look at old pictures without feeling that sense that it's dangerous to let myself have any "soft" thoughts. I can remember some of the pretty amazing things we did together, like traveling the world.
And now what I don't want to contemplate is the last few years, when ex was deteriorating so badly. I don't want to be reminded of going to court, dealing with the police, various emergencies, the whole sad and frightening business of ex falling apart and lashing out at me in the process. Now that has become the part of my past that feels too painful to reflect on, think about, or be reminded of. It's strange how different parts of my history take on different emotional inflections
What are the things you don't want to think about? When ex was alive and drinking and delusional and raging and threatening me, I couldn't let myself think about the good times we had had in the past, before he got swallowed up by substance abuse and mental illness. It felt like I couldn't afford any "weakness" or sadness in remembering the good years that went horribly bad, because I had to stay strong and stay tough in order to handle what was coming my way in the present.
Now it's almost the opposite - I can look at old pictures without feeling that sense that it's dangerous to let myself have any "soft" thoughts. I can remember some of the pretty amazing things we did together, like traveling the world.
And now what I don't want to contemplate is the last few years, when ex was deteriorating so badly. I don't want to be reminded of going to court, dealing with the police, various emergencies, the whole sad and frightening business of ex falling apart and lashing out at me in the process. Now that has become the part of my past that feels too painful to reflect on, think about, or be reminded of. It's strange how different parts of my history take on different emotional inflections
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Sasha, I find this thread contains information on such an important phase: grieving (or not) the death of an alcoholic.
I lost my mom to Alzheimers in January and haven't cried once. For some reason death doesn't bother me nearly as much as the loss of a friendship. In the last few months I lost a friend. (She was not okay with my sexuality which I had kind of known for a time but we managed to side step it for years.) I have grieved this loss way more than I have grieved my mom. I feel really weird this way.
Your daughter may very well not be feeling much grief. It may come out years later in some other way. Human emotions and reactions sure are weird.
Anyhow I hope you continue to let us know what going through this type of loss is like.
I lost my mom to Alzheimers in January and haven't cried once. For some reason death doesn't bother me nearly as much as the loss of a friendship. In the last few months I lost a friend. (She was not okay with my sexuality which I had kind of known for a time but we managed to side step it for years.) I have grieved this loss way more than I have grieved my mom. I feel really weird this way.
Your daughter may very well not be feeling much grief. It may come out years later in some other way. Human emotions and reactions sure are weird.
Anyhow I hope you continue to let us know what going through this type of loss is like.
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The last few years of my marriage were sad, sometimes awful. I've come to believe (because, why not?) that in spite of everything, he did the best he could. I once posted here how frustrated I was that he didn't even try to quit drinking. Someone responded, He couldn't.
Lord knows, I made and continue to make mistakes. I'm a better partner to my new guy. (There is lots of room for improvement. Still) New Guy and I were talking to an electrician a couple weeks ago, and he commented that someone wanted to hire him to do a massive job: rewire a 100-year-old house, and how expensive it would be. New Guy turned to me and said, "See how much money your late husband saved you?"
Yes, he did. New Guy and I ran coaxial cable through the attic to attach the antenna to the new TV in the bedroom. I was the one crawling through the attic. I'm smaller. If I fall though the sheet rock, I'll be angry at myself, not someone else. It was like something out of the Three Stooges, one stooge short. I honestly don't know how Late AH did all that, ' cause I don't recall helping him at all.
Lord knows, I made and continue to make mistakes. I'm a better partner to my new guy. (There is lots of room for improvement. Still) New Guy and I were talking to an electrician a couple weeks ago, and he commented that someone wanted to hire him to do a massive job: rewire a 100-year-old house, and how expensive it would be. New Guy turned to me and said, "See how much money your late husband saved you?"
Yes, he did. New Guy and I ran coaxial cable through the attic to attach the antenna to the new TV in the bedroom. I was the one crawling through the attic. I'm smaller. If I fall though the sheet rock, I'll be angry at myself, not someone else. It was like something out of the Three Stooges, one stooge short. I honestly don't know how Late AH did all that, ' cause I don't recall helping him at all.
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My psychiatrist had something interesting to say about this phase. I was trying to articulate what I was feeling - it's not grief exactly because I don't miss ex or wish he was still alive, but it is ... something big. Psychiatrist said "you're not in a grief process, you're in a trauma process".
Her analysis was that the past few years have been like a slow-moving trauma - not any one definable incident but a constant ratcheting-up of threat and danger with me as the target, amplified because of the risk to Kid. She said that with people who've been traumatized, even when the immediate cause is removed (the war ends, you get out of prison, [in my case] the harasser dies), even the most resilient people don't flip right into a healthy and happy state.
Neurologically, emotionally, physically and spiritually, it takes time to work yourself into a "new normal", in which trauma is something that happened, not something that is ongoing. That's why they call it post-traumatic stress. The work of getting to the "new normal" is what I'm doing now, instead of grieving in the sad-and-mourning way.
Her analysis was that the past few years have been like a slow-moving trauma - not any one definable incident but a constant ratcheting-up of threat and danger with me as the target, amplified because of the risk to Kid. She said that with people who've been traumatized, even when the immediate cause is removed (the war ends, you get out of prison, [in my case] the harasser dies), even the most resilient people don't flip right into a healthy and happy state.
Neurologically, emotionally, physically and spiritually, it takes time to work yourself into a "new normal", in which trauma is something that happened, not something that is ongoing. That's why they call it post-traumatic stress. The work of getting to the "new normal" is what I'm doing now, instead of grieving in the sad-and-mourning way.
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Today's update: I don't know if this counts as funny or as an instance of the chaos that addicts create from beyond the grave, or both, or what ...
Because ex never got his affairs in order, after his death I'm the one left holding the hot potato that is his estate (assuming that there's anything other than debt, which is unknown because at the moment there is no one who has the legal standing to put the estate through probate). This requires me to play multiple roles:
Role #1: Kid is his only heir and beneficiary of his estate (if it contains anything), but she's a minor and I am her guardian.
Role #2: He didn't leave a valid will, which means that everything goes to the Office of the Public Guardian to be administered on behalf of Kid. The OPG has agreed to petition the court to appoint me as the executor of ex's estate.
Role #3: Because ex owed me $23K in child support arrears at his death, I am also the major creditor so far.
So I am trying to sort out the paperwork in accordance with the laws and statutes that govern intestate deaths.
In order for me to be appointed executor of the estate, I have to notify the beneficiary(ies) of the estate that a petition is before the court. This meant that I (in my capacity as nominated executor) had to serve myself (in my capacity as the guardian of the only beneficiary) with notice that I was seeking to be appointed executor, so that I would have the opportunity to raise objections before the court if I so chose. I then responded to myself indicating that I did not object to me being appointed executor. The next step is for me as creditor to serve myself as executor with a notice that I have claims against the estate.
This all involves literal, sworn documents addressed to me from me, and being "served" by my lawyer handing me the document I just signed and saying "okay, you've been served". It is surreal. It is also a giant metaphor for role confusion, mixups and transgressed boundaries associated with alcoholism.
Because ex never got his affairs in order, after his death I'm the one left holding the hot potato that is his estate (assuming that there's anything other than debt, which is unknown because at the moment there is no one who has the legal standing to put the estate through probate). This requires me to play multiple roles:
Role #1: Kid is his only heir and beneficiary of his estate (if it contains anything), but she's a minor and I am her guardian.
Role #2: He didn't leave a valid will, which means that everything goes to the Office of the Public Guardian to be administered on behalf of Kid. The OPG has agreed to petition the court to appoint me as the executor of ex's estate.
Role #3: Because ex owed me $23K in child support arrears at his death, I am also the major creditor so far.
So I am trying to sort out the paperwork in accordance with the laws and statutes that govern intestate deaths.
In order for me to be appointed executor of the estate, I have to notify the beneficiary(ies) of the estate that a petition is before the court. This meant that I (in my capacity as nominated executor) had to serve myself (in my capacity as the guardian of the only beneficiary) with notice that I was seeking to be appointed executor, so that I would have the opportunity to raise objections before the court if I so chose. I then responded to myself indicating that I did not object to me being appointed executor. The next step is for me as creditor to serve myself as executor with a notice that I have claims against the estate.
This all involves literal, sworn documents addressed to me from me, and being "served" by my lawyer handing me the document I just signed and saying "okay, you've been served". It is surreal. It is also a giant metaphor for role confusion, mixups and transgressed boundaries associated with alcoholism.
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Today's update: looked through my banking information and realized that because I am no longer spending a quarter of my take-home pay each month on lawyers to fend off ex's craziness, I will be able to pay off my car loan by the end of the summer, and will be completely debt-free except for mortgage (no line of credit, no loan, no credit card balance, etc). I work hard, I'm not extravagant in my desires, I make a decent income, and ex is no longer diverting a big chunk of it to his craziness, whether by spending our money on alcohol (when we were married), or by crazy lawyer antics in the last few years. This is another good thing - another chance to finally breathe a little.
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More chaos from beyond the grave (or more accurately, beyond the package of ashes in my office that I literally cannot give away):
I got an email from ex’s work colleague who has undertaken the job clearing out ex’s office (we work at the same organization so I’m grateful to the colleague for taking this on so I don’t have to do it). Ex had not actually worked for almost three years before he died - he was on various medical and disability leaves - but his office was maintained.
It appears that although he wasn’t using his office for its primary purpose, he still had his key and he was using it as a place to store hoarded items. The colleague wants to know what I want done with all the bags and boxes of unworn clothes, shoes and electronics that ex purchased over the past year and left in his office, many with tags still attached and receipts in the bag. I asked the colleague for a ballpark figure of the value of tagged and receipted items - are we talking tens of dollars or thousands of dollars? If the latter, I’ll see if I can return them to the seller for a refund; if the former, I guess I’ll take the high-quality things to a consignment store and the rest to Goodwill. What I really want to do is just dump the whole mess on the sidewalk and put up a sign saying FREE STUFF. But I think that would not be consistent with my responsibility to manage his estate for Kid.
One of ex’s hobbies while we were married was buying luxury items (also known as “random crap”) he couldn’t afford and then returning them, getting into arguments with store staff if necessary. I believe he is the only person to have ever returned a four-seater hot tub unused to Costco after it sat in the basement for a year.
The objects could at least be returned (most of the time); the services he purchased (e.g. a course of private sessions with a “dream analyst”) could not be returned to their point of purchase. Shopping was another one of his compulsions, along with substance abuse.
More is being revealed.
I got an email from ex’s work colleague who has undertaken the job clearing out ex’s office (we work at the same organization so I’m grateful to the colleague for taking this on so I don’t have to do it). Ex had not actually worked for almost three years before he died - he was on various medical and disability leaves - but his office was maintained.
It appears that although he wasn’t using his office for its primary purpose, he still had his key and he was using it as a place to store hoarded items. The colleague wants to know what I want done with all the bags and boxes of unworn clothes, shoes and electronics that ex purchased over the past year and left in his office, many with tags still attached and receipts in the bag. I asked the colleague for a ballpark figure of the value of tagged and receipted items - are we talking tens of dollars or thousands of dollars? If the latter, I’ll see if I can return them to the seller for a refund; if the former, I guess I’ll take the high-quality things to a consignment store and the rest to Goodwill. What I really want to do is just dump the whole mess on the sidewalk and put up a sign saying FREE STUFF. But I think that would not be consistent with my responsibility to manage his estate for Kid.
One of ex’s hobbies while we were married was buying luxury items (also known as “random crap”) he couldn’t afford and then returning them, getting into arguments with store staff if necessary. I believe he is the only person to have ever returned a four-seater hot tub unused to Costco after it sat in the basement for a year.
The objects could at least be returned (most of the time); the services he purchased (e.g. a course of private sessions with a “dream analyst”) could not be returned to their point of purchase. Shopping was another one of his compulsions, along with substance abuse.
More is being revealed.
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Wow, Sasha. He really is the gift that keeps on giving, isn’t he.
I must confess I laughed out loud at returning a year-old unused hot tub...to Costco no less...but I also feel so bad for the underpaid customer service guys on the receiving end of his return policy.
Get rid if the stuff in the easiest way possible...maybe to a DV shelter charity or something. Getting to “done” via the shortest route is a worthy goal; god knows you’ve paid your dues with all of this.
Sending you a hug.
I must confess I laughed out loud at returning a year-old unused hot tub...to Costco no less...but I also feel so bad for the underpaid customer service guys on the receiving end of his return policy.
Get rid if the stuff in the easiest way possible...maybe to a DV shelter charity or something. Getting to “done” via the shortest route is a worthy goal; god knows you’ve paid your dues with all of this.
Sending you a hug.
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Sasha, I'd agree w/what Aries said about getting to "done" the least painful and most expeditious way you can. As far as managing his estate for Kid, I think you handled the most important part of that when you split from XAH. You said you make a decent income and will be debt-free except for your mortgage soon. IMHO, Kid will benefit more from having you less stressed and busy and living on your (entire) income than from having the money from XAH's foolish purchases.
Is it possible to donate these items to a shelter? I know that there is an organization in my area that specifically asks for nicer clothing, the sort of thing that a person could wear to an interview, since getting a job is such an important step up for those who are trying to move past addiction, abuse, homelessness, etc., and not having decent clothing can be a handicap in getting hired.
Is it possible to donate these items to a shelter? I know that there is an organization in my area that specifically asks for nicer clothing, the sort of thing that a person could wear to an interview, since getting a job is such an important step up for those who are trying to move past addiction, abuse, homelessness, etc., and not having decent clothing can be a handicap in getting hired.
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Unwrapping someone else's life after they have passed is a weirdly invasive feeling process under the best of circumstances. I can't begin to imagine what this has been like for you, your dear Kiddo, or even for the folks at his (your) work. SMH...well, maybe there will be something really good in there that can be returned and the money can be used toward the future college fund 
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There is indeed a homeless shelter/drop-in centre in town which has "job-readiness" sessions for homeless men - and they do look for new, high-quality clothes for interviews - so unless ex's hoard includes thousand dollar suits from Italian designers with liberal return policies (never say never ...) I may just take everything wearable over to the shelter.
I know from Al-Anon that I need to be focusing on my own recovery and not obsessing over the alcoholic and why they do/did what they do/did - so I'll report that my own reaction to the news about ex's office hoard has been a couple of nights of disturbed sleep with dreams about ex (something I hadn't been troubled with before), which led to waking up in the middle of the night and having to remind myself "no, he's dead, so [bad thing in dream] isn't real and won't happen". This in turns suggests to me that forging ahead getting rid of ex's crap (literal, financial and psychological) as rapidly as possible is the right thing to do.
I know from Al-Anon that I need to be focusing on my own recovery and not obsessing over the alcoholic and why they do/did what they do/did - so I'll report that my own reaction to the news about ex's office hoard has been a couple of nights of disturbed sleep with dreams about ex (something I hadn't been troubled with before), which led to waking up in the middle of the night and having to remind myself "no, he's dead, so [bad thing in dream] isn't real and won't happen". This in turns suggests to me that forging ahead getting rid of ex's crap (literal, financial and psychological) as rapidly as possible is the right thing to do.
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It's hard how much the subconscious holds onto. Is it the subconscious which suffers from PTSD I wonder? The hoarding seems to be an alcoholic thing. My dad did it and my EXAH bought silly bugger stuff-boy's toys. Very impulsive.. Weird to shop with. We'd go out to get nappies and come back with some funky back massage.
Hopefully when his office is cleared it might bring you a step closer to closure.
Hopefully when his office is cleared it might bring you a step closer to closure.
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... and in an almost perfect example of our unconscious mind mulling over things that are not accessible to our conscious mind ... Last night I had a strong urge to pare down my possessions (mainly books). My place suddenly looked like I had way too many things in too small a space. So I started pulling out books I never read, clothes I never wore, random kitchen objects, and ended up with half a dozen big boxes and bags full of things to go to my church or to Goodwill.
My place is not really that cluttered, and I don't hang onto things, so this desire to get rid of stuff wasn't caused by some trigger in my immediate environment. It wasn't until now that I figured out - aha, this is some part of my mind fussing about all the stuff of ex's that I now have to do something with, and this decluttering is my way of attempting to exert some kind of (largely symbolic) control over the proliferation of stuff.
My place is not really that cluttered, and I don't hang onto things, so this desire to get rid of stuff wasn't caused by some trigger in my immediate environment. It wasn't until now that I figured out - aha, this is some part of my mind fussing about all the stuff of ex's that I now have to do something with, and this decluttering is my way of attempting to exert some kind of (largely symbolic) control over the proliferation of stuff.
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