Should I Stay or Should I Go?, Part 2

Until this all settles out, I am still asking myself if I should stay or should I go.  Jack is feeling somewhat frustrated and worried because so much of my decision is riding on him.  He feels like he has to carry both of us up and out of the bottom of this pit with a cesspool at the bottom.  I was talking to my friend Susan yesterday and I came to an interesting thought:  Jack does need to do all of the work.  I can support him in getting rid of his problems, but I can't do it for him.  His problems need to go.  As I've said before, the status quo of a month ago, a year ago, cannot stand.

I ask myself how responsible I am (or was) for these problems in the first place.  My conclusion is almost none, and that is the problem of working with, living with and loving someone with an addiction.  The addicted don't want help, and anything that calls attention to their problem is dismissed.  The critic is the bad guy trying to get between the drinker and the drink.  Make the drink a well paying job, and a nagging spouse is determined to be ungrateful.  How can I have his best interest in mind by asking him to work less?  How selfish of me to interfere with his means of making a living?  (Making a living.  Egads.  What a rich phrase.  Jack hasn't been living.)

Over mid-winter break, Jack and I took the kids to see Spamalot at the 5th Avenue Theatre.  We bought the tickets at the last minute, splurged and got really nice seats.  Before the show, I prepped the kids by renting Camelot and then Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  The show itself was fun and funny.  Afterwards, we went to dinner at The Cheeesecake Factory down the street, where Jack turned his pager back on.  In the middle of the meal, he took a five minute phone call from the hospital.  It was a crisis, of course.  They needed him.  Nevermind that we need him, too.

I did not bitch.  I did not complain.  Jack's Holy Grail is work and never saying no.  I sat there in the middle of the meal and determined that what I was getting out of this marriage was measured in dollars, not love, affection or attention.  I was beyond pissed, but knew there was nothing I could say that would make a difference, make him change.  After all, it wasn't a drink he was having.  He wasn't gambling away the nest egg.  It was work.

But it was like a drink, as far as the kids were concerned.  I can calculate how much money Jack makes, but they can't.  I could potentially find another mate.  They cannot find another father.  Jack cannot take back those moments of lost attention.

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On another note, I am exhausted, but in a good way, I hope.  I think the cumulative impact of lack of sleep over the past five weeks is catching up.  I am falling asleep early and sleeping in.  (My dreams are kind of weird, but hey, at least I am sleeping.)  I indulged myself and took a nap this afternoon.

I also finished a book today.  Before the crisis hit, I was reading Moneyball by Michael Lewis, one of my favorite authors.  I am slowly rejoining the world and getting out of my head and into someone else's.