A week of chaos and unpredictability

Ohhhhh boy. Just a bit of a preface here…I am feeling better today…as in…I don’t plan on getting drunk and killing myself. And I think I can…hesitantly say that my husband and I are back to normal. But it took a while to get there.

Life this past week has been nothing short of absolutely freaking insane.

I’ve said it in the past, and it’s absolutely true…the biggest determining factor in the health and strength of my marriage is my husbands mental health.

He has finally come to the conclusion that he’s probably depressed (yeah, that’s not news at all. Just news that he’s admitted it now).

This has been a bad week. A really, truly, incredibly bad week. There’s no room for me and my mental health when his deteriorates. We’ve been through this once before, so I’m sure it’ll all be fine in the end. But shiiiiiit.

The biggest issue between my husband and I are his conflict avoidance, and my severe issues with attachment.

When he threatens to run or leave, it shatters the most fragile parts of me. And when things get hard for him in his own head, he sees EVERYTHING as conflict. I can’t say anything to him without him interpreting it as me “yelling at him” or whatever else.

So, then I start shutting down. And getting afraid of him. Not of him, but afraid of upsetting him and making him mad at me. Because then he’ll threaten to leave. And then I’ll feel absolutely awful.

That happened a few times this week. He packed his bags with the intention of leaving.

See, I’m all about free will. And trust me, I don’t want to be with someone who doesn’t want to be with me. But I know he’s reacting. It isn’t what he wants. What he wants is to run away from the moment. From the conflict. From what he sees as conflict.

But the thing about him is that if he leaves…he’s the kind of person who would regret it. Immediately. But he wouldn’t come back. That’s my fear. We’ve talked about that (when we’re good) and he’s agreed that that’s likely to happen, given his personality.

So because of that, I have to deescalate him in those moments. I have to out logic him, reason with unreasonable, and provide facts as to why he’s being stupid. (So you’re willing to throw away 90% good for 10% bad? Every relationship has conflict, running away doesn’t solve anything. You want to be happy, do you think you’d really be happier if you left?) And then ultimately leave it up to him.

He’s never actually left.

But it does enough damage to me to seriouslyyy fuck me up.

I didn’t do good things this week.

My drinking started most days at 6 or 7am, a shot or two midday, and picked right back up at 7:30 for my nightly drinking routine. Which, also significantly increased.

I self harmed in probably every way you can think of. And for literally the first time ever, in visible, not hidden places. So, I’ll be wearing long sleeves for a while. Which is fucking weird for me, because I’m ALWAYS hot. And people will probably think it’s weird.

Saturday day was the worst of it. We agreed to try Saturday night. And it started out being a great night. I really felt like he was there, and loving me. But there was tension, and I was absolutely terrified of unintentionally upsetting him.

By Sunday day we were committed to loving each other, and by Sunday night I was calling 911. And if you’re wondering, yes! New trauma unlocked. Fantastic.

He started getting a migraine, and it didn’t get better. His blood pressure spiked up to 170/120…and it didn’t decrease too much over the hour we were tracking it.

He’s the guy who ruptured his eardrum and suffered all night with internal bleeding instead of letting me take him to the hospital. He gets migraines a lot. So when he tells me to call an ambulance? You know he’s scared.

He’s feeling better today, and he’s gone out of his way to make sure I know he’s thankful for me taking care of him.

I told him I needed about a billion and one hugs. He said he’s on it. So far, we’re 3 down.

Things feel very normal between us now. I have therapy tonight…and so does he. His second session with his therapist. He doesn’t want to go, but I think he will.

And I hope the tension from the….things that will be discussed during therapy (at least on my end) won’t be enough to ruin our night.

There’s only up to go from here…I hope.