I have been thinking lately, about how much easier my life has become since I've been married.  And how strange and unexpected this has been.  The day I moved out of my mother's house, I became responsible for everything about myself.  Paying the bills, making sure there's food in the fridge, making sure the trash is taken out, the dishes get washed, the floor gets vacuumed, my clothes get washed, that I have soap to wash them with, soap to wash me with, gas in the car, and the ability to walk around barefoot in the dark without stepping on some painfully sharp object.  Not that my mom always took care of all of these things, but she took care of many of them, most of the time.

Until I was 25, I was on my own and did (or didn't) do these things and reaped the consequences when I fell short.  Which was often in my drinking  years, but I did enough to be functional.  Then I got married at 26, instant family.  I now had a wife and two daughters living with me.  For the most part I was responsble for paying the bills, making sure there's food in the fridge, making sure the trash is taken out, the dishes get washed, the floor gets vacuumed, my clothes get washed, that I have soap to wash them with, soap to wash me with, gas in the car, and the ability to walk around barefoot in the dark without stepping on some painfully sharp object.   Did the wife and kids do any of these things?  Sometimes.  But when I entered that marriage, there was one thing for certain in hindsight:  my life became more difficult.  I had more responsibility within the same 24 hours a day, with much higher stakes.  For whatever reason, I did not hold the rest of the family accountable for their share of the load.  Maybe I tried, and failed, and felt I had no right to make demands of children that were not mine, or make demands of a woman who willingly had sex with me.  It was all part of the price I had to pay to be loved.

This was all as an active alcoholic too.  I was still the over-responsible codependent in the relationship, even with my wife being a very light drinker if at all.  Every hiccup in the marriage was my fault, I needed to try harder.  Each time I failed, my wife contributed less and less and foisted more and more on me.   And I took it on.
It's no wonder that in my early sobriety, that wife turned on me.  I finally had something in my life that was changing it for the better, and it wasn't her.  She couldn't cure my alcoholism by making love to me.  Of course in early sobriety, I read the Big Book and the chapter to wives, and I took on still more of the blame/responsibility.  By the time I was 5 years sober, I was living on a diet of crumbs and loving it.  There was still sex... but otherwise this woman seemed to want nothing to do with me.  And it was all my fault, because I just wasn't good enough for her.  Then came one of the most devastating events in my life: she took away the last crumb, and left me.  I can look back and laugh now, at the image of the Grinch grabbing away that last tidbit before the mouse gets it. 

I went back to paying the bills, making sure there's food in the fridge, making sure the trash is taken out, the dishes get washed, the floor gets vacuumed, my clothes get washed, that I have soap to wash them with, soap to wash me with, gas in the car, and the ability to walk around barefoot in the dark without stepping on some painfully sharp object.  Actually, not much changed there.  Just no sex.  I sought companionship and fellowship with male friends.  I remember someone once telling me to just be myself, do what I liked, and I'd "meet someone".  I said yeah, that's what I've been doing, and I keep meeting other fat guys with beards. 

I met my current wife 3.5 years ago, we've now been married over a year.  I really never had a clue, in my 5+ decades of life, what a relationship was supposed to be like.  I go to work in the morning, and when I come home I find out that this person I married has paid the bills, put food in the fridge, taken the trash out, washed the dishes, vacuumed the floor, washed my clothes (and folded them nicer than I could ever manage), made sure that we had soap to wash them with, soap to wash me with, put gas in the car, and made sure I could walk around barefoot in the dark without stepping on some painfully sharp object.  And after all this, she wants to actually spend time with ME! 

It has taken me some time to get used to this.  To not feel that I'm imposing on this person, who willingly takes on these responsibilities.  To not feel like a codependent alcoholic, to not feel I'm becoming dependent on her and losing my ability to take care of myself.  I have to sit back and say, the people I know who had long, successful relationships.... this is how it worked. There was mutual trust, each took on responsibility to do what was needed.  There was sacrifice, but always for something even better. 

As I sit here wondering how I got so lucky... and how I got it so wrong the first time... I realize that I have absolutely nothing to suggest to the person who ain't got it.  When I was there, I not only didn't know how to get it, I didn't even know what IT was.  I remembered, it gets better if you keep coming back.  I know that's true for me, but I'm still not sure exactly what IT is.  Nobody could tell me how to get where I'm going, because my destination belongs to me.  I could not have done it differently.  Back in 83, when the cute girl fell for me and I was hooked, I had no ability to say "but what about Paying the bills, making sure there's food in the fridge, making sure the trash is taken out, the dishes get washed, the floor gets vacuumed, my clothes get washed, that I have soap to wash them with, soap to wash me with, gas in the car, and the ability to walk around barefoot in the dark without stepping on some painfully sharp object?"   Were those things important?  You betcha... but if you had asked me what the top 10 qualities I wanted in a woman, none of those things would have been on the list. 

I really don't know what I need until I have it.  You don't get what you want, and you don't get what you need - you get what you get.  And when I'm open to receive and perceive, I know in my heard that what I got IS what I need.  I guess that's what IT is.

Barisax