»

Sunday, April 13, 2008

The truth comes out...

Well, DH went to Spenders (after a lot of prodding by me--he didn't want to get out of bed) and he came home to tell me how great it was and how glad he was that he went. The topic was "Taking Responsibility" and he said he really got a lot out of it. He told me how he understands why I am the "parent" in our relationship, but that he hates it. I told him that the "parenting" would probably disappear if I saw him making consistently good financial decisions. He said he understood, and that his drug of choice has mostly always been food. And that's where most of his debt came from and where most of his spending still is currently. He told me that he spent all of the $50 his mom sent him on food. I had suspected that, since that's been the way things have gone for quite a while, but I was hoping I was wrong. He talked about maybe giving up the Emotions Anonymous group and maybe trying an Overeaters Anonymous. I am all for that, I guess someone in his Spenders group already goes to that, so he would know someone.

Anyhow, while we were having an honest, straightforward conversation, DH decided to tell me this: "I know you aren't going to like this, but I have to tell you something. Remember how my brother asked me to hang on to his guitar for him while he got his stuff moved and his divorce done and all that? Well, back before Lithium, I wanted to go out to eat and you wouldn't give me any money. I think this was in January or sometime around then....? Anyhow, I pawned his guitar for $65 so that I could go out to eat. The guy just called and said I have until Monday to get the guitar back."

I didn't know what to say. Honestly, he's like a little kid who waits until "Mom" is in a good mood before he tells her he broke her fine china vase. I hadn't seen the guitar for a while, but I had just assumed that DH put it away so that DD wouldn't play with it or something like that. I just sighed. I don't know how to handle these things. Do I let his brother's guitar go, knowing that I can save it? Do I let DH deal with the fallout of his stupidity? Do I rescue him? I already told him "never again" when I unpawned his other stuff. I wish I had a little therapist to tell me what the best thing to do is....If I say "tough luck", then I'm a meanie. If I say, "Ok, lets go take care of this", then what does that make me? A pansy? LOL

What I decided to do was this: The appraiser is coming to appraise the house on Monday afternoon. We need to have a LOT of things cleaned before then. I am not a good cleaner, and also, I work a lot more than DH does currently, so I told him if he would clean the porch, plus the cat litter box room, plus the bathroom, I would get the guitar out of the pawnshop for him. I don't know if that was the "right thing to do", but I really don't know what the "right thing" is.

2 comments:

Craig said...

What do you think about Al-Anon and CoDA?

perphila said...

I never know what the "right thing" to do is either. I am hoping to get a better idea of how to handle things by seeing my own therapist. My husband and I both went to al-anon. He used to go once and a while by himself but I began going with him for support and to try and understand what he went through and was going through. His mother began saying how she went and how she didn't like it and how it didn't help her. I think she just may not have been ready to stop enabling her husband. Eventually my husband stopped going thinking he was ok with his past. The truth is that he wasn't and is still running away from it. I have looked back on what I thought I had learned from those years of meetings and NOW see I was doing the same thing. Learning to set limits is something I am still working on. I have been successful at some and slip on others and just try again. I wish I had implemented these things years ago. Regret is something I am also working on..now that things seem too late.