I’m Okay. You’re Okay. Oh wait…

In steps the counselors. I should be happy. These are the men and women that can fix the psyche! They can root around the busted and broken mind, tweak this, tune that, slam the top down and, voila! No more drunken binges! No more depression! No more body dysmorphia! No more eating disorder! No more suicidal thoughts! Kids will be safe! We will be happy! Life will finally rock!

But I have been in this part of the cycle before. I have spent time, money, and a lot of emotion pretending that this was the highly anticipated end game; all the anger, and hurt, and injury that preceded this moment would soon become a distant memory because now we are in COUNSELING! I know this isn’t true. The thing is, now that I understand that this is just signaling that another revolution on the merry-go-round has started, I find my hopes have stayed completely dormant. I imagine it is like playing the Lottery a lot: at first, every time you scratch there is that bated breath just thinking how cool it would be to uncover a fortune. Years later, it is more automaton rather than a nervous excitement that winning may just be a scratch away. Sure it could happen, buy now you are sober to the odds.

The problem is, now that she is talking to the doctors, she is acting as if everything is okay and my lack of any trust in her is unfounded. I guess if love is blind then I am in trouble because I feel like for the first time I really see things the way they are. But more on this later.

If there are any other brothers in a similar position…

Just another day in paradise…

Got home last night to find the living room in shambles. A metal statue I bought in India had been broken, another wooden statue scratched up, a Tibetan prayer wheel and the Om Mani Padme pulled out and ripped. The kitchen floor was very sticky…what the hell happened here? I just sat on the couch and started rerolling the prayer scroll pack into the wheel casing…I also needed to fortify and collect myself before I went to ask my wife what happened.

After I finally managed to get most of the prayers back in, I went to our room and asked…”Oh, the boys were going nuts.” Well, where were you? Where was the maid? (No, I am not that rich or spoiled…we are expats living in Asia…it’s the only way to get a babysitter and stuff really clean) “I was washing clothes and she was doing the dishes.” I asked if she was drunk and she claimed no. By this time it was almost one as I had been delayed a few hours by an accident on the bridge on the only road that leads to our house.

The next morning I noticed that a once nearly full fridge was now all but empty. Driving my son to school I asked if he had broken the statue….no, he said, his brother did it. Where was Auntie or Mom? Auntie had left for the day and Mom was asleep. We tried to wake her by putting all our toys on her but she didn’t move.

Shit. It was only a few weeks ago when I came home to find my wife passed out on the kitchen table with my oldest son walking around in his pjs scared that mommy wasn’t moving and he couldn’t find me. I has come to the point where I am afraid to leave the house…

The greatest thing you’ll ever learn…

I ran across some good information here. It made me realize what a blind eye I had turned for so long in a attempt to pretend that life was okay and that my all these distortions would soon pass. With kids, however, that sense of laissez-faire approach to real, pressing issues vanishes.  I do struggle with the last part though: “If you are worried that your girlfriend or wife is anorexic, then the first thing you need to do is keep loving her. Try to learn more about the disorder and try to consult with someone as to how to best approach her. Offer to come with her to a doctor’s appointment and either wait outside or see the doctor with her, depending on what she’s comfortable with. Usually there is a very deep-set reason that she has gotten to this point. It didn’t happen overnight and it won’t change overnight either. But more than ever, she needs all of the love and support she can get. Get her a small gift to congratulate her when she is making progress or write her a nice note on a day she is feeling down. While anorexia is very scary, it is also treatable and by continuing to treat her with love, you can be part of the solution.” 

What does that mean, to love an anorexic? A bulimic? An alcoholic? All three? I thought I was, but at times it seems that my love is not compelling any change, but rather enabling the diseases. If I love her as is, if I stay and care and nurture, it seems that any impetus to take real, lasting steps to health diminishes. My love is but a crutch that allows here to hobble along without demanding change in herself.

When I feel fed-up, older than my age, desperate, lonely, and foolish for having been blinded by desire (and perhaps by the very love I am support to continue with!) I wonder if it is even possible to love that my wife when she does not take the time to really learn to love herself.

Can it ever be the most loving thing to leave? It feels so selfish and cowardly to imagine. The thought also fills me with twinges of hope and excitement. But I don’t want to abandon her. And yet…I have done the counselling thing. I have done the caring confrontation. I have read books, professional journals, websites. It just does not seem to change. I don’t want my boys to be raised in a split home, but I don’t want them around this sickness either.

So what does it mean to love a person who clings to disease as a lifeline? What does it mean to be a loving, responsible father in such a scenario? What does it mean to be loving towards myself? Can all three merge and be left uncompromised?

The greatest thing you’ll ever learn…

                                                                                                                                                            …is just to love and be loved in return.

Because there may be others.

Actually, with a world of 6 billion plus, I know there are others. Many probably. And if for no other reason, this may be the healthiest thing for me to do. I am a father and a husband. While the first presents enough challenges as it is these days, this blog is dedicated to helping me understand, discuss, and work through the latter: being married to an anorexic/bulimic wife with a growing drinking problem. I don’t know what subtopics I will be discussing, but I am guessing that it will come naturally as time and events unfold.

So far I can feel myself slowly shutting down emotionally towards my wife. I have weathered a lot through the six short years that I we have been married, and have  been able to muster up the desire, love, and endurance to hang in there through suicide attempts, fits of rage and depression, cutting, moving in and out of our house, divorce proceedings…shit that I wouldn’t wish upon anybody. In the six short years some days I feel I have aged twenty. Don’t get me wrong…there have been long stretches of great peace and happiness. There has been very healthy counselling and genuine desires/attempts to change. Then months, perhaps a entire year passes and the demons come out to play again. I just don’t know how many cycles of this I can take. 

And I probably wouldn’t if it were not for our two sons and the fact that we semi-recently moved to a foreign country. That and I genuinely believe she can change…I am just quickly losing faith that she will.

As I start writing I can see how much more I could add, but if anyone comes across this, I would love to hear how others who are/were in a similar position manage(d). Am I simply on a sinking ship refusing to acknowledge the obvious?