Blast from the Past

There's so much that I haven't shared about my husband. Why would I? I normally have enough shit going on in the present to avoid talking about painful past horrors. But something has come up that has taken my brain and my heart and hurled it into the past and the emotions/memories/thoughts welling up are beyond my control.

When I met my husband, he was just a super catch. He was a college graduate, driving an Acura, dressed to the 9's, was so un-womanizing that one would almost think he was gay and was majorly serious about his job. What more could a single mother ask for?

Weirdness ensured early on in our relationship. His constant need for his friends didn't help me with the whole thoughts of him possibly being gay thing, nor did it help that he struggled with a constant impotence problem. Yeah, I said it. He did.

Skip over 2 dramatic years of highs and lows and I'll protect you from all the drama. Turns out that Mr. Perfect had an oxycontin addiction.

I found out much later that before dating me, he was a weekend dabbler with pain prescriptions. He had no pain, he was just a punk who liked a Vicoden at the club. This is how the story goes and after being trained in how to detect lies from my husband, I believe this to be truth.

He was so smitten with Luke and I that once we began dating seriously, he decided to totally kick the dabbling. I was his first serious relationship and he planned to kick the pills and dive head on into what he always wanted - a family of his own. However, the more he tried to quit without help or support, the further into his own personal hell he drifted.

The lies became out of control and I later found out that about 90% of that time that he was "hanging with Scott" whom I assumed to possibly be his gay crush or even lover, that he was actually hanging at his mother's house waiting for his "dealer" to call him and let him know he could go pick his stuff up. Oh and I guess you've figured out by now where the impotence was coming from...if not then google side affects of opiate addictions.

He was so embarrassed by his addiction that even his closest friends had no idea that he had fallen off the deep end.

By the end, when I finally gave up on his unidentified weirdness, he was a full blown addict with a $100 to a $300 a day addiction.

How could I be so stupid? Well, I won't defend myself except to say that until the last few months, when we were together he was my absolute best friend and was amazingly adept at hiding his addiction...until the end when I put it all together and had the AHA moment.

So of course we break up, he hits bottom, he climbs out from bottom, regains his health and we reconcile and he's been clean/sober for over 3 years now (we've been married for almost 2 years).

I rarely think of those times. In his sobriety he has embraced being a husband and a father and other than being a typical manhole every so often, everything is good. We never underestimate the power of the disease and we still work hard at staying humble and on the sober path.

A friend found him today. A friend from the past called him. A friend he hasn't talked to in years. Now, of all of those friends, this guy is probably the safest. He was also duped as much as I was by Ziggy's addiction and while this guy was a drunk and a pot head, he had no idea of the low that Ziggy had hit.

Ziggy did the model thing. He called me right away, before even talking to the guy to tell me that he had called and that he wanted to be sure that I was ok with calling him back and that he has no intention of even being around him except just to shoot the shit and catch up a bit as old friends.

That's when the panic set in. While I have honestly gone through so many steps to forgive him, a well of almost hatred boiled up in me as every memory came rushing back in as if yes, the forgiveness IS there, but I realized that forgetting will never be possible.

Anyway, that's where I am right now. I wonder at times why I even put myself through this. Why didn't I just change my cell phone number as EVERYONE advised me to do when he was at his bottom? And then I look down and see my belly and I remember how far we've come and how much we've grown and changed. We've seen the fires of hell together and we managed to walk away from it, and that is something that can cement a relationship more than most people can imagine.

I honestly believe that I sleep a wonderful man every night, but damn I sure do wish that this guy had never found him so that I could just be pissed about the dirty clothes on the floor again.

I have no happy ending yet. Ziggy is a little upset with my reaction and is being a little jerkish right now, which after some down time I know he'll have his own AHA moment. I can't really talk it out because it's not Luke's bed time yet - so I have no idea how this will play out.