“Every day, you walk a tightrope suspended between two skyscrapers with no net. And there I am, on your shoulders. Somehow you keep your balance. You walk that wire and adjust every time I lean to one side or the other.
“And when you do lose your balance, we hang onto that wire and we hang on to each other. You never let go and you find a way to get back up there.
“You maintain balance against unbelievable odds.”
We built a front patio and it has become a replacement to our patio at the old apartment. It is where we talk. Tonight, Chris and I were talking about a piece I wanted to write about being an enabler. I’ve been struggling with what I wanted to say for about three weeks. So I asked him and he offered me the above analogy. His voice cracked when he described himself as being carried.
“There are two kinds of enablers - enablers who let someone get away with destructive behavior, and those who enable others to live. You enabled me to live, because let’s face facts: if you hadn’t found me, I’d be either of two places – dead or standing on a street corner homeless.”
When Chris and I met, he was in a pretty low place. He drank excessively, stayed home constantly, and slept never. So when I was asked why I allow him to drink or hide or sleep well into the afternoon some days, basically why I would be an enabler, my only answer was, "Walk in my shoes."
He drinks and he smokes. This is his choice. It was also his choice to curtail both. He says because of the environment I created he made that choice. See, I wouldn’t have asked him to stop drinking. On the flip side, I wouldn’t have lived with him spending every day drunk.
However, I understand on some days, when things get to be too much and he doesn’t want to take one of those pills that knocks him unconscious, he needs a drink. I am not enabling him to abuse himself, I am giving him a place where he can be safe enough to make the choice himself.
That place, he explained, a place where he is not judged, where he is safe, where he is not defending himself against anything or anyone, is a place where he feels the ability to make clear choices. He dismissed that I might possibly be an enabler.
“What behavior do you allow that is destructive?”
I don’t believe that what I do is ‘allow’ anything. He is a grown man. He has choices and it’s up to him to make them good or bad. One thing however, on the subject of physical abuse, whether or not it’s accidental during a flashback - this I would not allow. But Chris has never once made any sort of move causing me to believe he would take that direction.
He does, however, have bouts of anger. Sometimes, they go too far and he breaks things. I tolerate a certain amount, but in the end we both end up laughing. My focus then is about defusing the situation. Last year, he broke the vacuum cleaner during an argument. In the end I told him he needed to break his own toys and not his playmate’s. We laughed, cried, and made up. The other day, he kicked my printer because it was out of ink. I still get that funny feeling I get when I’m about to laugh over the whole scene. It was and still is comical and it was easily defused even though at the moment I was red hot mad over how ridiculous he was acting.
I tolerate, but I do not enable his anger. In the end, I give him a place where he can make choices. We’re lucky because we’re at that point. I know many couples are not.
“You are the most selfless person I have ever met. That’s the key. You don’t think about your own emotions, you think about me. About how if you indulge your anger it will create a situation where I can’t control mine.”
I don’t agree that I’m selfless. I want him to get better because I need him. I need him in my life and I don’t want to be alone. As the solar lights came on lighting our newly built patio he said the clear thought I couldn’t get out of my pen.
“You give me a place where I can live almost normally. You make me happy.”
Short and sweet - enable happiness.
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