I Need (But Not As Much) Help
I've only been reading and writing to this forum for about a month and I want to thank everyone here. Since my original post, I feel I've come a long way and, by comparison, so has my relationship with "the man who is my husband".
I've discovered that the man underneath all those symptoms IS the man I married and we both have to work at bringing him out more often.
Last night, he was doing his usual Warcraft thing and began to start looking at some upgrades for the game. He started lamenting about not having the money in the account to upgrade. I began thinking about the four eggs and tub of margarine in the refrigerator, the maintenance that the truck desperately needs, the winter clothes we're both going to need, etc. etc. and found myself getting angry inside. So I told him, I didn't want to talk about it and we're going to have to agree to disagree about what is important and what is not.
Apparently, that was a trigger of some kind and he started getting defensive. He began blaming me because he was sitting at home all the time and could go anywhere because we didn't have the gas to spare beyond getting me to and from work. We couldn't 'do' anything because the money wasn't there to 'do' with. He couldn't buy anything because the account was overdrawn and only MY account had any money in it. He felt that he had to ask me if he wanted to buy something because he doesn't have access to the household account. (Since day one of our marriage, we've always had a joint account, until last month.)
Thanks to the forum and you wonderful people...I just let him get it out then calmly asked him why it was he was in this situation. He says, "Yeah, I know, I f:naughty:ed up. You keep throwing it up in my face. You act like you don't trust me anymore."
"Let me ask you something...do you trust yourself?"
"No, I don't think I do." he replied.
"I'm not throwing up anything in your face." I told him. "I'm also not going to let you goad me into fighting with you anymore. You understand why I opened the separate account, so throwing it up to me to make me feel guilty about it isn't going to work anymore. Complaining about the things you can't do, can't buy, etc. isn't going to work anymore. In short, the bills come first. Necessities are next, like food and gas. The money in OUR account is separate from the other account for a reason, and you know this. When everything is caught up, then we can reward ourselves with luxuries like getting cable/sattelite tv back, etc. When we agree that you have the coping skills in place so the problems with the finances are resolved, then the accounts will be combined again. In the meantime, the money in the old account is your monthly check. You won't have to ask me for anything. We'll handle the bills together. Anything else is yours so you won't feel you have to ask me for anything."
Silence ensued for about 30 minutes then I asked him if he was still going back to his psychologist when she came off of maternity leave. He said that he didn't see how, we didn't have the money for it and it wasn't going to do any good. "Well", I said, "You told me yourself that something hasn't been quite right with you for awhile now. I've told you about the forum and tried to share with you the things I have learned from it. I TRUELY feel that a lot of the physical pain you are having is directly related to the PTSD. Perhaps not all of it, but a lot of it. The PTSD is never going to go away. BOTH of us is going to have to learn how to deal and cope with it, othewise, the rest of our lives are going to be like they are now. Are you willing to live like this? For our relationship with each other to be like this?"
<Silence> Then a quiet, "no."
"We're both going to have to work at it and that involves going back to Stephanie. Not just you, but me as well. Just so you know now, it's going to involve you learning to deal with the past. It's going to be rough and it's going to be hard. I'm going to have to learn how to better support you while you are going through it. But as long as you fight, I'll fight with you."
Silence again, another thirty minutes or so. During that time, I walked off into another room to give him a little space to reflect and me a chance to take a few deep breaths to calm my nerves down some. I came back to "I sit here all day long. I don't have anything. Can't watch tv. All I have to do is this game. I'm tired of doing without anymore. I'm tired of having nothing!"
I just looked at him and said, "Well, I'm not sitting in the lap of luxury myself, now am I?"
Silence for the rest of the evening. Him on his game, me reading the forums and doing other things on my computer. When it came time for me to go to bed, he chose to come too. When the morning came, it seems both of us slept pretty well. I got dressed for work. He got up and sat with me until time to leave. He took his morning meds then when back to bed for another couple of hours. He called me at work like he used to do and let me know he was up.
He described his day as feeling kinda blah, he had no other term for it. I asked if he felt depressed, felt sick, angry? He said "No, just blah." It rained today, and his rheumatoid felt it. But, mostly, just blah and it sucked that I had to go to my second job.
As for my day...I felt that I had gotten a lot accomplished at work because my mind was more on what I was doing. I was a bit tired, but nothing I coudn't handle. I guess the biggest change in my attitude is that I felt more hopeful about our future than I'd felt in a long time.
So, for the moment (and I'll relish the feeling that moment brings with it) things are doing good. Tomorrow brings whatever tomorrow brings.
Thank you all again for sharing your advice and your lives so that people like me(us) can better handle the day to day.
:Hug_emoticon:
HUGS!!
Robyn
PS Sorry it's such a long one! :wall:
