This may shock you.

Well, DH had almost a week of being the exact person I married.  Helpful, considerate, frugal, honest....and then, well, I'm not quite sure what happened.  I'm inclined to believe his story since the ending is rather amazing, but I honestly don't know what to believe any more when it comes to stuff like this.

The thing that foiled it?  Probably my car.  I had to get my brakes fixed in my car as they were grinding badly and I had managed to save up the money to get them fixed  (since DH got a paycheck 2 weeks ago, this is really the first pay period where he hasn't gotten paid, so we aren't hurting much worse than usual yet).  DH volunteered that I could take his car to work.  So I did.  While I was at work, DH called me to say "hi", which he used to do all the time, but since he's been sick, he hasn't bothered.  He told me he had pain in his hip.  I told him to take Advil.  He didn't.  Then, right around the time I was leaving, DH called and said that he had gone in to the E.R. for his hip pain and they had prescribed him Percocet and could I please pick it up on the way home?  To me it came across as very sneaky.  I determined that he had attempted to do this without my knowledge and, in fact, would have, except for the fact that I had his car and his "Benny" card (flexible spending card that can only be used to pay for prescriptions) was in the car.  Since he has no job, and I had the Benny card, he had no way to pay for the Percocet so he had to 'fess up.  Of course he said that was not the case, but it was pretty obvious to me.

So we went through another few days of me being the Percocet police.  I kept the Percocet in my safe, he asked me for them when he "needed" them.  This is because of the times before this when he took nearly the whole bottle at once to get a better "effect".  If you have only started reading recently, please do a search on "Percocet" and learn about this never-ending battle.

He didn't seem to notice, but his "pain" moved around.  First it was his left hip, then it was his right hip, then (of course) it was his back......and he needed Percocet for all of those.  When I asked him what he'd done to help alleviate the pain prior to taking Percocet (heating pad, Ibuprofen, muscle relaxer pills), the answer was always "nothing".  I was pretty disgusted and I told him so.  I told him that things were going to go back to being just like they've been.  And that I was running out of patience.  He continued to ask for his Percocet, I went to bed.  Same thing happened the next night after work, as soon as he saw me he needed more.  I got very angry, told him "I don't care any more, do what you want." And went to bed feeling like a huge burden was off of my shoulders.  (Really, though, it's a whole 'nother post, but I've kind of been turning more towards "I'm going to live my life and if you want to tag along, well, fine, but I don't care if you don't like it."

The next day I had taken the day off for a meeting at the nursing home.  DH approached me and said that he had been thinking about things.  I figured he'd come up with some new excuse.  What he did say was: "You are right.  I do have a Percocet problem.  I can go all day long without one, but as soon as I know you're home, I come up with all sorts of pains.  I will tell you anything to get some.  If I know it's in the house, I'm going to want it and I'm not going to stop until it's gone.  I want you to get rid of the rest of the pills."  I asked him if he was sure.  "Yes, if I know they are there, I won't leave you alone until I've found a "reason" to take them all." I asked him if he wanted to watch me dispose of them so he knew for sure that they would no longer be in the house.  At first he said "no", but then he changed his mind.  I know you're not supposed to flush them any more, but I did because it was the only way I could think of to get rid of them completely without waiting around to bring them somewhere or whatever.  I told him I was proud of him.  He told me that he was tired of lying to me and that he has a lot to lose if he keeps on doing it.  He said he is going to work hard to be honest and accept our situation and not insist on stuff that we can't afford.  I was very proud of him.  He has never done this before.  And I so much want to buy into it.  But.....

That's not to say I really believe that most of it will happen.  But I do know I have seen some good things in the past two weeks and it's possible that things could improve.  Unfortunately, I know that despite his good intentions, history shows that things won't likely be that way.  And he'll probably get some more Percocet.  But I hope I'm wrong.