Marching Forward

There was still so much to accomplish; within myself and within our marriage before I'd feel ready to raise another child.

In couples' therapy, Fleet asked that we write each other exactly what we needed in order for our marriage -- and life with a newborn -- to work in future. To try to narrow it down to what was most imperative for success.

Jim had one. Be honest.

I chuckle to myself now - I had ten.

1. Nurture me - I'd always been seen as the rock in the family, and was proud to take it on. I needed Jim to see through that and realize I needed nurturing, pampering and attention too.
2. Respect me - I needed him to accept me as I was; different from the organized, Type A personality that he was, helping me to accept that difference as well.
3. Be open to change - I didn't know what the logistics of our life would be like with a baby, but I needed him to be willing to put the family's needs first over his work. He'd been financially successful enough that he should be able to cut back and be a more integral part of the family unit with this new child.
4. Lay off the sexual tension - and increase our intimate time together, finding ways to touch that wasn't in the bedroom. Holding hands during a walk, rubbing my feet as we watched a movie, massaging my neck as I stood in the kitchen. Without my needing to ask for it. I needed that intimacy back beyond the bedroom.
5. Find more alone time together - Jim and I had always been consistent with going on dates or even taking weekend trips alone together, but during the week it was usually business as usual. Dinner, talk of the children, bedtime duties, then he went to bed himself. Logistically, I wasn't sure how this might happen, just that we needed it.
6. Share the parenting role with me - Set limits, back me up, don't undermine me when I'm not around, and spend more time home with us. Or time alone with *them*.
7. Be self - reliant - He never quite understood/understands what I do all day, thinking that adding one more task to my list was not a big deal. I needed him to realize that there was nothing in me that would allow me to be a slacker, that I *worked* all day too. I asked that he take care of himself - not make me a slave to tasks that he could accomplish on his own. And if he was too tired to do these things at the end of the day, either cut back on his work day so that he wasn't, or make sure they were completed before he went to work in the AM.
8. Encourage me to find healthy modes of "escape" - whether that was escaping at night to be with friends, or becoming involved elsewhere. I encouraged him to hold me accountable for my time, have me followed if needed, but recognize that I needed "girl-time" and time away from my "workplace".
9. Find a spiritual couples retreat together that we'd repeat on a regular basis.
10. Help me parent our children - Funny, I didn't realize til now that I'd basically repeated myself here. Should move parenting up higher on the list. My explanation here, however, acknowledged our differences in strengths of parenting. I was good with limit setting and understanding what they needed - he was much better with persevering, holding strong to what we *agreed* upon - agreeing being the key factor.

****Aside/update - in reliving these imperative requests for our happy marriage, I can say that most have greatly improved, though many require continual revisiting and need my regular reminding. Both to myself and him. I've since given up the anxiety and dissatisfaction of needing to do so; I try to refrain from framing it in an attitude of him not really caring about me. It's been many years of my training him otherwise, my training him that I was super-woman, ultra low maintenance that it will take awhile to show him otherwise, and more importantly, to train ME. To train me that it's important to learn to receive rather than give, to take myself off the pedestal so he has the opportunity to nurture, to be an active father. But most importantly, that I can't ask that he be my therapist. That I need to recognize those co-dependent issues myself (or with a therapist or sponsor), the need to people please, seek self-worth opportunities, the need to OVERdo, and adjust those attitudes myself. I need him to be a supportive in that, in fact a cheerleader for that - but I can't expect him to advocate for something that is ingrained to the opposite in his mind - a way in which allows him to be pampered to. The only thing we have never addressed is finding a couple's retreat which I'd still love to do. He's less open to sharing within a group setting, or even to understanding what a valuable gift that is in the first place (even if no obvious dysfunction is apparent in the marriage). I understand that this will be my doing, my request, and my urging, but also know that he would grumble yet come around. And fully love the experience on the other side.


Personally, I was still attending meetings three times a week and meeting with both my sponsor and my therapist. In light of my pregnancy, I'd smirk thinking of God. I knew in my heart that at least one of the reasons that He'd made this happen was to keep me sober for a full year. That my three month commitment was coming up and that I was no where near close to being ready to drink again. I'd just begun my fourth step in AA with my sponsor - the step in which you looked into your weaknesses/faults/poor decisions (which, for those that I wasn't in denial of, I was quite good at. A good self-basher, I was). But there was much more on the other side of the fourth step which I needed to address, allowing me to emotionally and spiritually heal, before I could think about adding alcohol into the mix. In a 12-step program, there is daily affirmation that God quite often does for you what you can't do for yourself. Looking at my subtlely growing abdomen, I could offer up a small guffah.

I'd change it up from time to time from my regular meetings, though I continued to feel that I was divinely led to each one, each providing a characteristically special gift to me. Yet, to not grow stagnant, out of curiosity, and sometimes out of need, I'd find another meeting. I went once with a newfound friend, newly sober (for a month and a half, who, incidentally, has since disappeared). The meeting was smaller than any of my others - I believe besides my friend and myself, there were four others. In amazement, I learned that one was a pastor! He shared stories of being on religious workshops/retreats and being shocked that not everyone went for a drink at lunch. And humbled when he realized that he was being shunned by the other pastoral staff on his return, because of his inappropriate boisterousness and comments, being told later of how much he wreaked of alcohol.

Addiction is an equal opportunity offender. It doesn't just strike the weak and slime of the earth -- though it certainly lowers many of us to act on that level. That was a good realization for me. There was so much shame involved with using meth-amphetamine, that I was something "less than" for even getting involved - or more, for letting it take control. It was relieving to know that there were active professionals and even the (usually) morally straight, virtuous clergy doing the same thing. That it had nothing to do with some morally deficient gene or inner derangement on my part.

I was also able to look at my alcohol use from another angle. A young college student was one of the other four that sat the table that day. He said he was impressed that I could speak so openly about my drug addiction; that he too had dabbled with drugs quite a bit and although he could admit that he was alcoholic, he was still unwilling to look at his drug use. That maybe, in hearing my bravery in my honesty of my drug use, that he needed to look a bit closer at his own. I responded back (a bit of crosstalk, in the smallness of the group, was tolerated at this meeting)that I was just the opposite. That I could readily see my addiction to stimulants and nicotine as well as addictive behavior in computer usage, but frankly, that I was offended by the suggestion that I might be an alcoholic. There was nothing in my drinking habits that suggested alcoholic behavior. I didn't carry any of the same stories, desperation to use alcohol, or feelings of relief that many of those spoke of around the tables. In fact, I'd become irritated with those that encouraged me in this pregnancy, saying "Just think, you'll be raising this child *sober*!" I WAS sober while raising my kids, I didn't have the same stories of neglect that many of them did. I've since come to understand that "sober" has many definitions, the least of them (for me) being alcohol-free.

On my way home driving in the solitude of the car, however, I began to allow myself to see how much my alcohol usage was increasing at the end of the time I was using drugs. Though I was not hiding bottles, I relocated them to the dining room so it wasn't readily apparent to my family in the open design of kitchen/family room that I was going for a refill. My switching to a coffee cup to drink out of, readily answering that it was wine within if asked, but disguising it from first impression. Though I never lied about my alcohol usage to others, drinking helped me to lie to *myself*. It helped to keep my head in the sand, assuaging those negative feelings so that I could continue to tell myself I was living a happy, fulfilled life. It helped kill the anger.

Hmmmm.

At the same time, my experiences were allowing me to be a mentor to those around me. Part of a 12-step program is in mentoring another as a sponsor, and though I still felt way too new to do that, I couldn't help but utter my new awareness and learning to those around me. My children, my husband, my small group - so many of us living in Christian servitude, and living the life of people-pleaser, but especially my mother. My mother, God love her, who was one of my best and fervent teachers of co-dependency. Not only was I learning to set small boundaries with her, but I was able to help her recognize her own co-dependency with my father so that she could live more in harmony with him rather than complaining about him to me. Especially when I held *him* in such high esteem, it was always difficult to hear.

But more specifically, I was able to use my own learning in adjusting my attitudes about this pregnancy to help her deal with some of her own health issues and upcoming decisions. She had had colon surgery a year before, which had caused subsequent problems that resulted in her being on a clear liquid diet for most of the following *year* in an attempt to correct the problem. Not only that, but the pain and discomfort from the resulting problems caused her to drop out of many of the physical activities that she greatly enjoyed. She'd since seen another doctor that promised her that he could fix the problem, but my mother was extremely fearful of going through another procedure. All doctors could utter assurance and confidence, but she often was left with results that were less than expected. She didn't feel she had it left in her to go through yet another procedure.

Just as I thought I didn't have it in me to go through another pregnancy and child rearing.

I urged her to realize that it didn't have to be the same picture. That she knew SO much more now, that she could make demands for her treatment that she was unaware of before. That she was so much further down the line of understanding and awareness to ever allow it to be the same picture. Even if the worst happened. That the alternative - living her life greatly altered in diet and exercise - was a lifelong, emotional (and physical) strain. Just as the alternative for me (aborting the child) would be a lifelong emotional strain I'd carry.

Thankfully - maybe in part to my mentoring - she signed up for another surgery to correct the first. And I flew out to New York to be with her and my father, helping to alleviate her fears of surgery and recovery, and to provide my father with domestic help.

Little did I realize the trauma that I'd be met with while caring for them.