[nomore 56]

My husband celebrated 3 years of recovery last month. He has been under a lot of stress for the last 5 months or so. His brother passed away in september after a long illness and my husband and his sisters took care of him so he could die at home. There were a lot of issues between all the siblings to be worked out, some of it connected to my husband’s gambling. The terrible ordeal his brother had to go through brought them closer then they have ever been. My mother in law also caused a lot of problems and for the first time in their lives the “kids” actually started to act as the adults they are. That is another story though and my husband dealt with it better than one could have ever imagined. He is physically and emotionally very exhausted and that is why I post this topic today. His brother left him a little bit of money, most of it he gave to me to put on my savings account so I would not have to worry about him having it at his disposal. He also inherited a car that he will have to sell because he can’t afford the sales tax in this state or the insurance. Yesterday he complained about some serious stomach pain that is related to his chronic illness and usually starts when he is under stress. So far so good. There I sat at home and started to wonder. Usually my husband and I text each other at night, just some funny things about tv programs and whatever comes to mind. Since I am diabetic, he wants me to answer him just to make sure that I am ok since I deal with low blood sugars often. So I asked him how he was feeling because the illness he suffers from is pretty serious and there is reason for concern often. I got no answer and my thoughts went down the usual path. He has a little money, he has a car. He has used his health problems relentlessly during the last horrible months of his ongoing gambling binges 3 years ago. So what IF? I kept telling myself not to worry, that it is useless anyway, what happens, happens and there is nothing I can do about it anyway. That I am protected now because we have safety measures in place. I came to the conclusion that I simply went into protection mode all over again because I am leaving next week for a 3 week vacation and he will take care of my pets. Back in 2009 we had the same situation and he neglected the animals because he went to the casino all the time. So that’s why the flashbacks came and I couldn’t get rid of them. And what did I do? Soooo stupid, I jumped in my car and drove to his apartment, which is just one road over from mine to see if the car was there. It was. I calmed down immediately and that was that. I tried to analyze what had happened there and thought I just overreact because of my past experiences. There it is again, the rope I am carefully walking across, afraid to slip and fall into the abyss underneath it. I do trust him and I don’t. I don’t really care what he does with the money or the car and if I wouldn’t leave soon, it would not have been a problem at all. I just know that I have to protect myself to have peace of mind. While I am writing this down I feel even more like an idiot, this is insane. I have flashbacks all the time. Don’t know where they come from. I can recall good days and events and bad ones the like. When it starts, I feel like it happens right here and now, I can see, feel, smell and hear everything, I even remember the weather that day and what I was wearing. A lot of it has nothing to do with my husband, happened way before I met him. And it is not always something bad, also really great stuff that happened. I could do without it, I really could. So today all is well again and I look forward to my trip like you all will not believe. I am a strange person…..(laughing at myself now) 🙂

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