Pants on fire

In the last session, I was given the opportunity to start talking about the anger I've been dealing with for the last decade.  Instead, I chose to talk about trust.  As in...I can't trust him because his words are meaningless.  She asked for specifics, and although I could have started anywhere, I started with how he's been promising for years to become more involved with understanding and planning our finances.  We spent most of the session talking about how we can get him to be accountable for what he says, and not make it my problem to remind him all the time.

There really is a clear distinction between the things he is accountable and trustworthy for.  He is trustworthy with the things that he takes ownership of, generally speaking.  But things that I ask of him...things he promises to me...those are the things he is woefully unreliable, untrustworthy, and frankly, a big fucking liar.

I've spent the last decade living with the debris of a thousand broken promises.

It ends NOW.

Hatin' the game

The weekend away was mostly uneventful, except for the rather sudden changing of the rules.  On Saturday afternoon he announced he was having a cocktail...which I believed was not part of the rules we had agreed to.  He said he only agreed to stop drinking for a month, and that time had elapsed.  Oh, really?  I disagreed, but left it at that.  Fortunately, he stopped at one. 

We talked about this in the latest therapy session.  We now have a new set of rules around drinking.  What are the odds that it was 50 minutes and $175 wasted on defining the new parameters that will be obsolete before the check even clears?

This constant rule changing is all part of the pathology of the relationship.  I really can't trust him to do what he says he will.  Whenever he doesn't agree with something he previously agreed to, he simply changes his mind. 

Just. like. that.

The same thing is happening with the homework assignments we have.  There's no longer any accountability there, so nothing really gets accomplished.  Agreements and promises mean nothing. 

...and yet I believe him, every single time.

The result is always the same.

I think it's time to stop tryin' to kick the football and kick Lucy instead.

Blue

In our last session, I brought up that I'm still struggling with anger.  I was able to describe the feelings of despair and hopelessness, the negative impact on my self esteem, and what it was like to live with an alcoholic who was checked out emotionally for the duration of our relationship. 

And for the first time ever, I was heard.

...and then asked to leave those feelings there at the office until we can work on them in a subsequent session.  Which doesn't occur for another week and a half.  I suppose it's no different that usual...I'm quite used to the compartmentalization and denial of my feelings.  Another week or two won't matter much.

We still have the homework to have intimate time each day, but I'm finding that it often gets overlooked.  We've been given the go ahead to progress to the next level in the homework...sexual touching, but not actual intercourse.  Since the last session that hasn't happened.  I think we're falling back into some old habits of neglect, and I'm trying to turn that around now.  But I can't do it on my own, and right now it feels like I am.  Despite not drinking, he can find other things to fill the space and time to avoid being present and accountable.  I get the feeling that I'm losing him again. 

Tomorrow we go away for the weekend.  This will be the first sober trip ever.  I'm trying not to attach too much expectation to it and just enjoy it.