Where, o where, hath my husband gone?

“Who are you and what have you done with my husband?”

I’ve been thinking this often lately. I’m going to poke fate right in the eyeball here. I almost hate to write this post because memorializing the happy occurrence of something I’ve been hoping for these last 17 months seems to be not just tempting but actually taunting fate. That’s all thanks to the effects of my betrayal trauma and PTSD. Nonetheless, I suppose that if I’m being duped or suckered or made a fool of, this blogging community and all of my supports will again lift me back on my feet. For now, please do a small, conservative but jubilant, happy dance with me.

Handsome 1.0 appears to have been replaced with Handsome 2.0. He FINALLY seems to have had the necessary shift within his heart for his recovery – and our healing together – to really take off. That place where I really hoped he’d be a year ago? Where he assured me he was a year (and longer) ago? Yeah… just getting there now. Better late than never.

How did this come to light? First, he hasn’t really felt any of the resentment he so feared after signing our post-nup. That surprised him (and me). In doing some self-examination and trying to figure out why that’s the case, he concluded that if I ever actually need to use and enforce that document that (1) he probably deserves whatever befalls him and, more importantly (2) that I would be deserving of and entitled to anything I would receive as a result and he would want me to have it. Those are two things he has not been capable of recognizing until now because he had struggled to truly believe that the issue isn’t my response to his behavior, but his behavior itself. He has, since seeing Dr. M, been able to talk a good game in this regard, but his actions indicated he never really believed it in his gut before. For example, he often viewed my boundaries as punishment rather than as a means to establish safety. That appears to be changing.

Second, I have written here of Handsome’s fraught relationship with alcohol. To be clear, he was never drunk in front of our kids or drinking at work or anything like that, but he would have at least three or four beers at some point every single day. Every. Single. Day. I learned after DDay that what I thought were 3 or maybe 4 beers a day bloomed to 8-10 beers a day during his peak acting out. He would drink, alone in our basement, while he watched tv or porn or sexted his harem. At a minimum, he and I agree that he has abused alcohol during our marriage. (He disputes that he is an alcoholic and I’m tired of arguing over the label as long as he agrees he abused it.) We also agree that his excessive drinking impacted his acting out and his anger management issues. After two failed attempts at maintaining a year of sobriety from alcohol, he is now 5 months into that renewed commitment. My issue is that he fully intends to drink again once that year is up. He has made no secret of that. I have made no secret of my fear should that actually come to pass. And it is, very literally, fear. I’ve realized that a tremendous amount of my PTSD is rooted in his beer-fueled angry outbursts. As recently as two months ago, discussion on the topic would result in him being furious and me in tears. Handsome is a foreign and craft beer fanatic. (In Prague? It must be Pilsner Urquell time. In Lancaster PA? Let’s try something from Lancaster Dispensing Company!) I believe he viewed my insistence on his sobriety from alcohol, not as a protective measure for me and our kids, but rather as an effort to control him by taking away something he loves.

Now? In planning my 50th birthday trip later in the year, Handsome disclosed that he was nervous about doing a few things on my agenda (Warsaw, Vienna, Bratislava, and Budapest) knowing that he couldn’t have a beer. In past years he loved walking around the European Christmas markets with a beer in one hand and a pretzel or sausage in the other. We had actually had that discussion months ago and at that time Handsome wanted/ expected me to say “hey, it’s okay if you have a beer here and there.” I didn’t say that. I don’t feel that way. This time, because I want a trip completely unmarred by his drama, I sighed and suggested that I would look for a different destination for the trip. Handsome 2.0 insisted that I didn’t need to because it is more important to him that I have the birthday trip I want than that he be able to have a beer.

My reaction? I initially thought, quite frankly, that he was blowing smoke up my tush and that he’ll get there and expect to drink. So, I pressed the envelope. I told him that I fear that he believes that he can resume drinking the day after his year is up and that my opinion is that there is a lot of prior consideration involved, including consultation with his shrink, his SA sponsor, our CSAT… and me.. before he should touch a drop of alcohol. I told him that even if everyone is on board with him “trying” to drink in some form of moderation, his drinking may look different from what it did before. Maybe it doesn’t occur in front of our kids. Maybe there is no beer kept in our home. Maybe it only occurs on date nights or on days that don’t end in “y.” You get the picture. He paused and thoughtfully said that he hopes that I can get to the point where I give him a chance to prove to me that he can manage a beer or two a month but, at the end of the day, I’m more important than a drink. If it’s me or the beer he just won’t drink any more. I started to cry. I told him that I wasn’t trying to control him, but that the thought of him drinking literally terrifies me because of how it impacted me and the kids before. He said that he knows that I’m not trying to control him and, for the first time, he actually meant it. He told me later how great it felt to say that and to know it was true.

This is going to sound ridiculous, but up to this conversation I questioned whether my husband really loved our kids and me more than beer. Seriously. He was always so unwilling to even consider limiting or eliminating drinking, regardless of the impact on me or the kids. Being able to believe that he prioritizes us over his ability to enjoy a drink is a big thing for me. (I think that one day Handsome will be appalled that I ever had that doubt, or that he ever could have led me to that doubt. But for today? This is huge.)

Handsome seems to have finally realized that my boundaries and concerns about certain things (future use of alcohol, what kinds of interactions he can have with women, etc) are not an effort to control him, but rather a real, legitimate means to protect me and our kids and to keep our family together. I think Handsome 2.0 is deeply ashamed and sad to know that I feel we need that protection, but he gets it now.  He is hurt but recognizes that it is his own behavior that causes us to need protection in the first instance.

There are other great signs too. He is throwing himself into working through his SA steps. He is making calls to his list of supports. He is being more present for me. He is still working on expressing empathy like an adult, but he’s much better at it than even a few months ago. I shared with him my trigger about the Kentucky Derby and he responded with much more empathy than I expected. His response seemed a little canned, maybe a little too SA “when they complain about x, you say y” ish, but I could tell that he tried. He told our CSAT that it’s really hard for him, in the moment, to think through the steps of what he’s supposed to say and that trying to personalize it to the specific issue is harder still. Yes, my 56-year-old husband is having to learn a step by step process for making a sincere apology. But he’s trying. Handsome 2.0 has realized that “I’m sorry” is meaningless to me. He is making effort to do better.

Mind you, there is still work to be done. Lots and lots of work. But the possibility of successfully crawling out of the pit we fell into 17 months ago seems a little more realistic today than it did before. That calls for a little happy dance.