May 20, 2008

Tonight is our thirteenth wedding anniversary. She forgot it until I sent her an email at work. Not a big deal, really, she forgets a lot of things. It is how she makes it through the days. I was kind of hoping she would stay sober and be there tonight, but I no longer really expect that sort of thing. And sure enough, when she got home from work, she had been drinking. She wasn’t bad, really she was pretty well behaved. But she wasn’t herself, either.

At one point she said something nasty to the kids, but I couldn’t hear her and I don’t think they really caught it either. She wouldn’t repeat it and had that look on her face, like she knows we are all in a conspiracy against her but she is smarter then we are and she “knows” what is going on.  Our son had a ton of homework because he was making up for missing school to go to the funeral and it was pissing her off. I guess my anniversary present was that rather then get into a fight over that she choose to go to bed before nine.

All in all, an uneventful drinking night. But another night without my wife. I am tired of being with this stranger she has created. I am tired of sleeping next to a woman who smells like someone dumped vodka into an ashtray. I miss the woman I married, the woman I could talk to and laugh with. Now my confidences get twisted around and turned into something horrible and get thrown in my face the next time she drinks.

I guess this beats the hell out of our eleventh anniversay which we spent in the emergency room at St. Francis trying to get her into detox and then a rehab. I took her over to the hospital thinking we could get her in and get her started in a rehab somewhere. We pulled in to the emergency room driveway. She hadn’t eaten dinner and begged me to take her somewhere. There was a restaurant downtown we have always wanted to try so I told her if she wouldn’t argue with me and make a scene, I would take her there. She agreed and I pulled out of the driveway. Before we had gone a block she was yelling at me and trying to pick a fight with me. I went back to the emergency room. She begged for food again and promised to behave herself. So I tried again. Six times I tried to go out for dinner with her. Once we made it all the way to the restaurant. Once we didn’t even get out of the emergency room driveway. Finally I had enough and I took her into the emergency room. We waited for hours until they saw us and by then she had sobered up. The detox was full and they wanted to put her in a room with six men passed out in what looked like dentist’s chairs. I couldn’t do that to her and took her back home. So I guess this anniversay wasn’t to bad, all things considered.