OK, this is me this morning….On Saturday I spoke with my husband for the first time in more than a couple of weeks. It was a good conversation, it was good to speak to him. He is also in a difficult situation because he has no money at all and was saying he would sell his clothes and shoes…which he has done often in the past and has very few clothes. He is used to just selling everything. And it is also Cuba. I know it is all his own doing, but the situation…makes me feel…sad. His growing up very poor, often without food and needing to go and ask for bits of food from neighbours led to him seeing the potential wins of gambling as such an allure, and just the crazy economy of Cuba. I tell him his situation now is all a consequence of his actions and his responsibility and he says he knows. Anyway, he asked me to send him money for living costs…send me 100$ he said…and I said it sounded like a lot and I couldn´t and it would be like sending heroine and he said he knew that. He also said he really isn´t going to gamble anymore….but…yes….waiting for actions not words. He talked about the house he had found for us and said he needed to sort out the contract and he needed money for this. I don´t doubt him that the money would be for this (and the price is normal) and this is not his way of trying to get money out of me, this has never been his pattern (so far…). (He´s never tried to persuade/trick me to give him money *intending at the time* to use it for gambling, but then if he has money….he has the compulsion and the means. He has taken it by force in the past…taking bank cards without me knowing, selling the car and going on a long binge, selling things when I have not been there). So I believe him there. The risk is that he could then have the money in his hands fully intending and wanting to use it for the house, but then use it to gamble…or even if not gamble…just spend it on something else “urgent” before the house as he is going around with zero money. I agreed to send him 60 Euros…40 for the house and 20 to pay for his expenses and pay back people he has borrowed bits of money from recently to live off. I felt ok about this for the rest of the day, but then yesterday I felt very uneasy. I just thought…what if he spends the money…and I am giving him the temptation…the alcohol, the heroine…I did it badly. I battled in my mind between letting it go and waiting and seeing if he “passed the test” and thinking no, I have done it all wrong and am enabling and giving him the temptation. I wrote to him that I had sent the money and that I was waiting here in Mexico to see how he went and that I hoped he wouldn´t mess it up and afterwards I would make my decisions about if and when to return to Cuba. But this felt wrong to…like I was imposing too many “if you do this I will do that and reward you´s” so to speak. I felt uncomfortable. So last night before I went to bed I wrote to cancel the money transfer and this morning had to argue a little with their customer service to cancel it as they had already processed it and ignored my email (and had changed their processing to how they had it on their website so the money had gone out automatically). But finally they cancelled it and I plan on sending him 25 Euros to see how he goes and just so he has something to live on. I told him if he is serious about changing then he will understand and accept what I am doing. Ideally I would send him nothing, but don´t know how best to deal with the situation that without money from me he has zero and really no way of getting any money at all. 25 Euros is the minimum that can be sent. I told him that he can send me all the details of the house and if necessary I will then send the 40 specifically for that and that we have to take it day by day, step by step and rebuild the trust. He knows that he needs not to mess up for me to return to Cuba. This all feels hard! I am even all the time concerned he will be annoyed with me and then how I deal skillfully with that. I keep apologising and telling him I hope he understands! It is such a new situation really for both of us, although he says he wants me to manage all the money (it hasn´t worked for more than 1-2 days before in the past..he has just resented it in the end and “broken out”). I definitely don´t know how to do this well. And yet I feel it is such a good life lesson for me…the boundaries, the assertiveness, the clear communication and messages. Just that still I am really not very good at it at all and this doesn´t help him at all. It definitely feels very hard, yet would help him and me and our dynamics so so much.
……..
And in the end…I thought he´d already moved too fast as he was expecting the money and has been so long with zero. I just got an email to say he had already received the money in Cuba, the 60 Euros, before they could cancel it. But I tried to find out if this was the case and in the end they managed to cancel it without him having collected it. But…the games! It feels terrible. And really it stems from my indecisiveness.
So these are lessons I have wanted to have for a long time and the universe has sent me them! But I feel so upset right now. Everything is so messed up between me and my husband…all the money stuff has just become so hard…the power dynamics around it, everything to do with money connected with the addiction.
I know it´s the actions of my husband that count, not his desires or intentions or words. But I am a mess. I´m no support to him. So much has happened.
I want to support him, and help him feel that he can do some of the “everyday things” in his life he needs to do…organise, but I don´t want to be an enabler. I know I have to focus on myself and sort out myself, but the power balance, trust issues, fixation on money are so hard around this all.
And trying to learn not to let other people´s opinions affect me. I am here in Mexico, very socially isolated, because I decided not to go to England (my father offered to pay the flight) to be with family because I wanted the mental space to think without their opinions (also because I wasn´t ready to take the step to go further away from Cuba and I like Mexico and was based here before I went to Cuba). Yesterday I talked to my mum and I get into negative patterns with her…somehow she brings out me highlighting the negative things too…she says things like: It was him who got you into this situation. When I said I might buy myself a cheap smartphone for Cuba she said: Huh, that will disappear. I then start saying..yes..because last time…such and such happened, I know, and also defending myself.
I am living with someone who is telling me I need to be at least 3 months away from my husband and have zero communication from him and always pointing out the negatives in his behaviour…(so I feel I need to be furtive about communicating with him)…what is going to make him change, etc….people who grew up on the street tend to be very good manipulators and things like that. Perhaps he is just trying to give me a “dose of reality” but it doesn´t help me.
I just have one friend at the moment who is a very good friend…not here in Mexico, of course…who is supportive, always listens, and telling me mainly not to beat myself up.
Too many negatives this morning! Will need to take a long walk in the park! I know the theory….I know!…but it is so hard to put into practice!