A different kind of enabling

Hub is my enabler. Ya, he is mine. This is a new realization for me. I can't help but wonder.... what the hell took me so long to see this???

Since losing my job back in early 2008, I have had sporadic bouts of employment. The first was a pretty decent opportunity in a physician's office. I worked there for about two weeks. I spent nearly every day of those two weeks complaining about how poorly I was being trained for my position and how I felt like I wasn't catching on the way I should. After two weeks of my complaining, Hub said, "if you don't like it there, just quit". I did.

I started the next job almost immediately. It was an early morning shift at a fast food place. I had actually been offered this one just days before being offered the office job and backed out when I got the better offer. After quitting the first job, I talked to the manager at the fast food place, fed him a line of bullshit as to why I didn't come to work for him. He bought it. (I am an extremely talented bullshit artist. So much so that it is really not in my best interest to use this particular talent.) It seemed logical that working in fast food would not require a lot of deep thought or need for real knowledge and therefor would be relatively stress free. I didn't feel inadequate like I did at the office job. It was indeed fairly simple. Take orders, run the register, bag some food, wipe counters, blah blah blah. It was in fact very, very blah. I would find myself completely done with all my work and still had hours left to go on my shift. That place was shiny clean from top to bottom, which is saying a lot considering how it looked on my first day, after about a month of working there. I told Hub repeatedly how bored I was there. He told me, "No shit! I knew you would hate it. If you don't like it there, just quit". I did.

It was several months later when a very good opportunity came along. Very good. Great pay, better insurance, opportunity to advance, and it was in the field I had worked for several years before getting the axe. It was the perfect job. What was even better was that I hadn't even applied for the job. They came looking for me based on a resume I had posted at one of those online job sites. I was the perfect candidate for the position. I went through all the training and background clearances. I began searching for daycare for Tot. I interviewed two different places. One was a daycare center and it was pretty pricey. The other was a home daycare. I spent an hour in this woman's home and witnessed her kid getting away with attempted murder while another little boy was yelled at if he even thought about breathing. Not a place I was going to take my son. I began to worry about finding the right place to take Tot. I'd be worried no matter what, but with the added effects of an autism spectrum disorder I was terrified of leaving him the hands of a stranger. I shared those concerns with Hub. He told me, "I'd rather you were home with him anyway. Just call and tell them you can't take the job". I did.

The latest job was this past summer. I referred to it as "the monkey job", as in a monkey could do it. (I mentioned it back in this post) Of course I wasn't happy about that fact, but I was willing to deal with it. I hated my supervisor. Hate is a strong word, but I'm standing by it in this case. The people I worked with were unfriendly. I was miserable. Naturally, I shared all this with Hub. He told me, "If you hate it so much, just quit". I didn't. Not right away at least. I stuck it out for a little while. There were days I wanted to just keep on driving and never turn back rather than go to work, but I went. There were days I was literally on the verge of tears, but I continued to go back. Then one day, I just couldn't do it anymore. Hub had told me repeatedly that I should quit if I was so unhappy there, so I knew he'd back up my decision. I left and never went back.

I have so much more to say about the monkey job, but that is a post for another day. This one is about my enabler. My husband who for two years now has enabled my habit of quitting jobs. There are so many mental and emotional factors that go into "why" I can't hold a job. I need strong support to work through them and beat them. I need encouragement to keep a job, to hang in there until I get past the mental blocks that make me want to run. Instead, I get the enabling statement of "just quit".

I have gone back and forth on how I viewed Hub's willingness to have me quit jobs. I have thought of it as him being very supportive of me and my feelings. I have thought of it as his way of keeping me financially unable to ever leave him. I think though, that this time I really hit on what it really is. He is my enabler. Here we are yet again, co-existing in co-dependency.

The Promise

Jenny Matlock threw another curve ball at us this week for Saturday Centus. This week's assignment: Take any other SC stories (yours or someone elses) and using ANOTHER 100 WORDS...tell us the "rest of the story".

I have only been doing this for a few weeks, so I didn't have a lot to choose from within my own work. I didn't really need choices though, because there was one story that I knew I wasn't done with. It was easy to choose Kitschy as the story I would build on. I have added another 100 words (after some serious editing and cutting) and I still don't feel like I'm done with this one. So don't be surprised if you see this one continue at a later date.

My original story is first in italics, followed by the rest of more of the story.


Sophie loves to drag me along to estate sales. She calls it searching for treasures and loves to make comments about how "kitschy" or "retro" things are. Personally, I find estate sales depressing. The whole reason to have one is because someone has died. It's sad to me to see a person's whole life spread out on tables with price tags. Every single item had a story, a memory attached that will now forever be lost.
Last week Sophie met with an estate sale agent. I listened to them from my perch on the top step and didn't know whether to laugh or to cry...
as she made arrangements for our mother's estate sale, my sister finally understood me.

I ran my hand along the faded patches on the wall where Mom's paintings once hung. As a little girl I would stare at them, imagining myself playing in the streams of that beautiful Scottish glen. I watched as Sophie shook her head. "I just think maybe I should hold on to these," she said. "It was Mom's dream to visit Scotland. Dad bought her these paintings as a promise...”

I hurried to her side. “We can’t keep it all Sophie. You have to let some things go.”

Tears streaming from her eyes she sobbed, “She never made it there.”

Fed to the wolves

It was the first day of school and I was dropping Sonny off at the middle school. As we approached the drop off zone I noticed several tiny kids walking toward the school. It was some of the new batch of sixth graders. Their sixth grade status was obvious due to both their tiny stature and the nervous look in their eyes. They looked so cute that I couldn’t help but utter, “aaaaaaaaaaw! Look at the little sixth graders! They are so adorable.” I am a mom after all and the sight of those tiny sixers brings back memories of the days when my own kids, now giant teenagers, were tiny little things off to their first day of middle school.

Just as Sonny was hurrying out of the car, I spotted the cutest little sixer yet. He was even tinier than the others with a mop of white blonde hair on his head and a backpack nearly as big as he was on his back. I was opening my mouth to utter another “aaaaaaaaaaaaw” when I spotted something else about this little guy. My aaaw suddenly turned into a “noooooooooooooo”. The poor little guy was wearing shorts, and he had on gym socks! How could he not know? What about his mother? Where was she when he got dressed this morning? Does she work early? Is she not there when he gets ready for school? Surely she must not be, because what mother would let her child go to middle school wearing shorts and long white socks? It is the equivalent of dressing him in a sheep costume and setting him in the middle of a pack of wolves. He’ll be eaten alive!

I had an overwhelming urge to burst out of my car, run over to him and pull his socks down around his ankles. That was, of course, overpowered by my desire to not be arrested for accosting an eleven year old. I had no choice but to simply drive away.

Rest in peace adorable, little sixth grader. Rest in peace.

the climb

Co-dependency. I refuse to let it define me. To do so would be to let it control my life. I've been at that point before and for too long. My life is so much more than that. I am more than just the wife of a sex addict. My past is more than those moments of heartbreaking betrayal. There is joy there as well. Honestly, there are more moments of spectacular blessing than there are of gut wrenching pain. Somehow, I have found it within me to make the choice to look back and focus on the good. While I will never forget the pains of the past, I can now look at those moments and say, "screw you! you have not damaged me. you've only made me stronger, wiser and more capable."

I was going to say that I am a new me, but that is not true. I am the same me I always was, just a better version of me.

My life may still be on the rocks, but it's not at rock bottom anymore. I truly feel like I am finally making the climb.

Hang in there Baby

I took Tot to the dentist this morning. His appointment was at 8am which meant I had to wake up at an ungodly hour to get him there. We arrived a few minutes before 8 and had to wait to check in because they were having their morning staff meeting. 8:05 and we were still waiting. Why schedule 8am appointments if you're not going to even check people in before then? Make them 8:15 appointments and actually get going on time! I could have slept an extra fifteen minutes for cripes sake!

Now that all that is out of the way I can get to my actual point...

I remember going to the dentist as a kid. A lot! I was genetically doomed to bad teeth. Add to that a terrible Lik-m-aid habit and a tendency not to brush and it equals fillings in nearly every tooth. All those cavities meant plenty of hours in the chair. During those torturous visits to the dentist, reclined back in the chair of tortures I had one thing to amuse me.

After about the 8th filling or so, you could say this particular bit of amusement lost it's ability to amuse. Sure he's cute and all, but after awhile I started to imagine him falling. Sometimes he would plummet to his death. Other times he would leap ferociously down upon me and cause my death. When I was feeling especially fed up with the whole dental care thing, he would leap down and attack the dentist. He may look like a sweet ball of fluff, but in my imagination he was a kitty ninja!

Times have changed at the dentist office. No stupid "hang in there baby" posters for kids these days. Nope! Tot got to lay back and watch the Disney Channel on a tv in the ceiling. The kid next to him? He was playing Xbox on his screen in the sky. Five 19" screens installed in the ceiling with cable tv, dvd, and video game systems installed. All of it controlled from the computers that the hygienists used to pull up dental records, xrays and most likely contact NASA if they felt the urge.

Somehow I think I was better off with the ninja kitty.

Welcome Back Hope

For years now I have taken an agnostic view on the world, life, and creation. I didn't really believe and yet a part of me was afraid not to believe. I couldn't see how such a thing could really be possible. Life felt like such drudgery. How could there be purpose? Why would someone have created a place and beings that were all so random? None of it made sense. It was all too illogical for me. And yet....
I wanted to believe.
It was a huge realization for me. I wasn't just afraid not to believe. I actually wanted to believe.

A few months ago I felt that want growing. I began to seek out answers to my questions. I wanted to not just ask "how?" and "why?", I wanted to know the answers.

My search for answers led me to a church. Now, this was an extremely important step in my journey toward belief. The wrong church (many of which I have attended in my lifetime) would have pushed me right back into that agnostic view in which I'd felt comfortable for so long. Or worse, it could have pushed me beyond agnostic and right into the depths of atheism. It was a matter of pure grace that I landed in the back row of the particular church that I did. A place where their very purpose is to reach those who are lost, those who are searching and those who have nearly lost all hope. A place for people like me.

I have never been one to spout religion to those around me. One aspect of organized religion that I truly hate is the act of pushing that religion onto others. My strong feelings on that mean that I will not spout religion here on this public forum, nor will I push for others to believe simply because I do. I bring all this up here today simply because it is important to my climb from the rocks.

Today I heard a message that helped me to take another step up in that climb. I wish to share it here as a way to journal that step.

I don't understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I don't do it. Instead, I do the very thing I hate. I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong, and my bad conscience shows that I agree that the law is good. But I can't help myself... what a miserable person I am! Who will free me?
Romans 7:15, 24

I found this message powerful in two ways. One, I have felt that way myself. And two, because I know this is how Hub feels. He has said to me almost this exact message. Not the same words of course, but indeed the same thoughts and feelings that it expresses. This is the very way his SA makes him feel.

There have been many times that I heard Hub saying the words, but I never really let the true feelings he was sharing sink in. I never allowed myself to view him as a tortured soul. I only ever looked at myself as the injured party to his weakness, to him allowing himself to do the things he did. What a miserable person he is. It is something he recognizes and I think that recognition is a sign that there is hope.

Hope is something I've not felt in a long time. It's good to welcome it back in our lives.

The Drive

This is entry #2 for me for Saturday Centus this week. It's a story that just had to be told. So why not do it in 100 words?


WHAT I DID OVER MY SUMMER VACATION

My fingers gripped the handle of the car door tight enough to turn my knuckles white. This was the most nerve wracking ride of my life. I realized I was holding my breath and had to remind myself to breath. In, out, In, out.... oh crap! DEEP BREATH IN! I wanted to close my eyes as we whipped around the corner at way too fast of a speed, but that was not an option. I had to keep my cool, had to remain calm, had to remain in control of the situation. I had to teach my daughter to drive.