Does the beer can have such a distinct sound when you crush it?

A sound that has become like an assault on my person.

There are two things I hate about dealing with his drinking.

Well, more than two really when it comes to living with an alcoholic of course.

But two things that are relatively minor in the scheme of an alcoholic marriage but are crushingly annoying and painful.

The site of beer cans on my kitchen counter in the morning.

And cleaning them up.

Of course I don’t have to clean them up.

But I hate looking at them, having my kids look at them more than I hate cleaning them up.

And there in comes that dreadful sound.

The crushing.

My environmentally conscious side won’t let me just toss them into the trash.

They take up too much room (that’s how you know you have too many beer cans in your recycle!) if I don’t crush them.

Hence…

Minor in comparison I know but still…

Another assault.

It’s 3 o’clock in the morning.

I don’t know why I am up.

Though I guess I do.

I lay down with my daughter, fall asleep and then wake up around now with a “second wind.”

It wouldn’t be so bad if I could be productive with this “midnight” burst of energy but mostly I do what we all do these days: Internet, Facebook…cry about what my life, myself and my family have become.

I had such better hopes for this blog.

It was going to help me, help you, help women like us in this wretched situation of life with an alcoholic husband.

But the energy just hasn’t been there for me.

Then it occurs to me, this isn’t much different than my life.

I had such high hopes for my life.

Myself.

My family.

I can’t believe who, what my family is turning into.

I love my family (as in my children) like any other mother in the world.  To the depth of my very soul but we are such a sad, broken family.

We tried watching Christmas movies the past two nights together, “as a family.”

The first night an undercurrent of tension and hostility sat down on the couch with us.

The second night my husband started screaming before the movie even started.  My son knocked into the table with our snacks and drinks on it and spilled a liter of soda.

I said,

“Stop screaming at him.  He tripped.”

“WELL IT WAS CARELESS!” My husband screamed back, added a few more choice words and then stomped off upstairs.

My other son was manning the tv controls and after a few minutes, I asked,

“Are you going to put on the movie.”

He said he was “waiting for dad” to come back.

My daughter said,

“He’s not coming back.”

How could my son not know his father by now?

Here’s the thing:

In the past, I would go talk to my husband.  Encourage and conjole him into coming down.  I did it for my kids. I wanted to give my kids that family.

But we AREN’T that family.

We’re that OTHER family.

I can’t tell you the depth of my pain over who I have become.  Who my children are to one another.  Who we are as a family.

But then I suppose I don’t have to tell you.