A little something I had overlooked

I was so excited when DH paid off all of his debts. He's very proud of himself, too. He told me that his one brother has already squandered his money and can't even remember what he did with it. And then, for some reason, it hit me like a ton of bricks:

DH USED HIS OWN MONEY TO PAY HIS OWN BILLS.

Now that might not seem like earthshaking news, but even before he wasn't working, he had stopped paying any of his bills at all. He had credit cards that he maxed out and never made one payment on. And then when he "lost" his job(s), it became impossible for him to pay anything. Hopefully the bankruptcy takes care of all that, we're still waiting for it to be finalized, but haven't heard of any snags...but....when I thought about it, I cannot remember the last time when DH did something "responsible" with his money, like pay a bill.

There have been times where he has cried to me, about how bad he feels about how hard I work and how he "doesn't help out", but mostly that's all been talk. Up until last week, it's been a case of "If DH has money in his pocket, DH is wasting money on stupid stuff." Not so last week, though...

When I realized that, I got really proud of him, and really hopeful, too. So I had to repeat my mantra, "LOWER YOUR EXPECTATIONS." a few times just to calm myself down. So at that point, I focused on the folded laundry that I had carefully placed on the kitchen table for him, it had been there for three days. "Lower your expectations." He's doing as much as he can. Apparently, I just need patience.