I went out to dinner last night with my husband. Part of the way through the meal, he reached across the table, took my hand, looked me straight in the eyes and said sincerely, "I'm really struggling right now. There is a woman over there and she's dressed in a costume. I want so much to be present and here with you right now and I want you to know I'm struggling." I turned around and sure enough, there was a woman who was dressed in a uniform that, given the amount of cleavage and leg she was showing, clearly wasn't an actual uniform.Mark seemed sad and bewildered and anxious. "Why is she dressed that way? Is she in a show? Does she want to be the show?" I could tell he was thinking, "Why was she taking the focus away from our dinner together and onto herself?" And I said, "Honey, she's messed up." And thought, "You would know better than I why she's doing it." "She's the show," he said, shaking his head, and seemed to focus again.
Then I found myself laughing, because I looked at this crazy woman in her "I want to be your sex fantasy" costume and my husband struggling against his addiction, and that classic Bugs Bunny cartoon popped into my head: the one with the two starving men on the raft, each hallucinating that the other is food.
And when I looked at the woman again I saw this:
And this:
And this:
And I laughed and laughed and laughed.
Enjoy some Bugs Bunny:
Another fitting quote from the great Bugs Bunny:
ReplyDeleteHow Halloweeny can ya' get!
While you're on a Bugs trip, here is my favorite with Marvin the Martian.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6aDXytNq3c
Great post!! Made me laugh to!!
ReplyDeleteI hated that part of the addiction. He was never totally with me or 'mine'. I loved the humor you found while writing about it ;)
ReplyDeleteI love that the two of you have come so far that he can just reach out and TELL you what's going on in his head. What a gift in his recovery.
ReplyDeleteSometimes, you just gotta laugh! What else can you do?
ReplyDeleteTagging you for a meme, if you want to play!
Thanks for sharing your hilarious images! Seems like laughter WAS the best response for you, and perhaps him too?
ReplyDeleteHugs and blessings,
I agree ... how great it is that the two of you have come so far that he can reach across the table and say "I'm not present." Wow!
ReplyDeleteAnd good for you for seeing her as a woman with her own issues. I loved the pictures.
You guys are amazing... him for how he communicated his feelings, and you for seeing the humour in that :)
ReplyDeleteLaughter is the best medicine, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteWow thats so interesting. Makes me wonder about myself. I tend to check out every attractive woman in the restraunt as much as I can get away with. Im sure I have many other habits I would consider normal but which would be call triggers or even "acting out" from your hubbys perspective. Maybe they arent normal. Hmmmm. Maybe normal is necessarily healthy.
ReplyDeleteYou amaze me.
ReplyDeleteto know that this was not about you, but about him, and about this woman needing to be something.
and then to have the perspective to just laugh? You are a rock star!
These pictures had me rolling.
Ah, those pictures are worth a thousand words, lol!
ReplyDeleteWe're gonna have Roast Rabitt!!
ReplyDeleteWe're gonna have Roast Rabitt!!
I loved that cartoon as a kid and apparently I still love it.
Thanks for the memories. To echo what everyone else has been saying, I'm so happy to hear that your hb is in control and can tell you about his feelings without you getting mad or upset. Props to him and props to you too.
D
http://thefightofourlife.wordpress.com
Your courage and your ability to separate your husband's addiction from his feelings and relationship with you...those things inspire me. It's also valuable to have a window into your husband's recovery. Thank you for sharing these moments.
ReplyDeleteOh man...if my imagination saw the cigarette costume, I would have gone and started humping her leg.
ReplyDeleteSilly rabbit...
look at that. that made me happy to hear that he could just say what was on his mind, like i do when i see the dessert cart go by. I want that badly but know it's bad for me. And that he resists. And for you nutella lovin' lady. For your response of not being that pissy woman and seeing it as some silly temptation. That is why you are the bestest.
ReplyDeleteI do think it is quite amazing that your husband is able to tell you those thoughts going through his head.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, though, it upset me that you would see this woman as "fucked up" and "crazy". OK, chances are she probably is, and I know I wouldn't dress that way, but why can't a woman wear what she wants without being judged for it?
Slutty, we wear clothing to express our personalities, to display our status, to make a statement. I hope we'll make our way to a place where people aren't judged for that, but I can't imagine a world in which people won't continue to be assessed based on that.
ReplyDeleteI did think from the way this woman dressed and carried herself that she had body and self-esteem issues. Her clothing said "I want to be viewed as an object of sexual fantasy," and I'll admit that I have a hard time imagining a healthy person wanting to make that statement.
However, I didn't actually feel my statement as a judgment but an expression of how I perceived things. (e.g. "She's blond" is a judgment only if there is a tone and assumption attached to it that indicates that blonds are stupid.)
I would also describe my husband an myself as messed up. I saw this woman as one of us, dressed the way she was for the same reasons that have brought my husband and me to where we are. That tone and expression of compassion don't come across in the post, although they did to my husband.
And yet I laughed. Maybe it seems I was laughing at her or my husband, but I was laughing at my new reality. Laughing at a new way of perceiving that made my old habits of taking it personally, of feeling confused or angry or scared, seem ridiculous.