It has been a really really long time since I have posted here.  Life has been rolling along for me.  I have been taking my ups and downs pretty well I think.  Let's see, to sum things up:

My exAH and I have been back to dating since Oct 2008.  He lives with his grandma & I live in my house with our kids whom I have full custody of.  Our 16 yo son had been giving us A LOT of trouble. He was kicked out of school last winter b/c he never went.  He got into some legal trouble and ended up in the Drug Court Program.  He has been working this program since June 2009.  He struggled with it for a long while, spent some time in juvie, lived in the county group home for 4 months and has been home for about a month.  He is working a part-time job and loving it.  He is going to school to get his GED and is almost done.  He will hopefully be enter phase 3 of the drug program before Christmas.  He has been clean of drugs and alcohol for over 4 months and has turned back into the boy I remember before all of this trouble began.  I realize he still has lots of work ahead of him and worry about him constantly.  For now though, he is doing well and I am sooo proud of him.

My exAH is the cause of my worries and stress these days.  If it isn't one, it is the other.  He has been having some serious back trouble for the last couple of years.  This prompted him to make a very big decision in his life that deeply effects me and our kids.  He quit his full time back breaking job and went back to school full time.  So now he has no health insurance and is struggling with money.  He works a part-time job but doesn't make enough money to pay his bills, including my child support!  I am having a very tough time making ends meet without that money.

A few things make me sad here....1) I swore when I divorced my exAH-BF that I would never be in a position to have to rely on him or anyone else for that matter for anything every again.  Well, now here I am relying on him for child support that he cannot seem to get to me.  2) I see him struggling with his money issues and the toll it is taking on him mentally & physically.  He is depressed all of the time.  He has been using prescription pain meds for his back and various other prescription pills just to get through the days....and I worry it is turning into an abusive situation.  Hell I know it is.  He is flushing what little money he has away by buying pills.

I worry about him so much b/c I see how easy it is for him to get down on himself for his situation.  He cannot provide financially for his family.  He is living w/his grandma and I think that embarresses him.  He is having the worst luck with his vehicles, a couple of wrecks and bad decisions on buying replacement cars.  His grandma is pretty sick and he is worried about that.   As much as I worry about him, I am pissed at him too.  All of his bad luck that he is suffering, I am suffering with him and he doesn't see it.  His money problems have become my money problems.  His car troubles are my car troubles.  His sick grandma is practically my grandma too and I worry for her just as much.  His pill abuse is a constant worry on my plate.  It is just so frustrating.  If I can make it through the day without abusing alcohol & drugs, why can't he?

The only thing I am fortunate of is the fact that I have never allowed him to move back in with me.  And boy has that been an tough issue to deal with....he has tried to get me to let him move back in, guilted me into, gotten furious with me over it but I refused to let him cross that boundry....thank goodness.  If he was living w/me and going through all of this, my life would be total Hell.  I can at least shut the situation out of my mind if I want to when he is not around.  If he lived with me, there would be no escape in my tiny house for me or for our kids.  Just last night he came over for a visit.  He had drank a few beers at a friend's house and taken a couple of pills.  He comes stumbling in, ate some dinner, became incoherent rambling some nonsense and fell asleep in the recliner.  I had to wake him a couple of hours later to tell him we were going to bed and he could sleep on the couch.  I didn't want him driving.  He decided to drive himself home.  Not much I could do about that but pray he made it there without incident, which he did thankfully.

So here I am half living, half dead I think.  I love this man with all of my heart.  I spent 2 years without him and where I didn't exactly want him at the time, I didn't want anyone else either.  I find myself wondering what I am doing with my life.  I don't want to live with him, especially not like this.  But I don't want to set him loose either.  I feel like I am his life line.  I feel like he is trying to get his life on track for me & the kids but the world just keeps kicking him in the butt every time he turns around.  He has the ability to make me so happy but at the same time so utterly miserable.

I just felt compelled to log on here and write all of this out after last night.  It is the holiday season  and that is usually when he has his biggest problems.  We got through Halloween b/c he was working that night & I didn't see him.  Thanksgiving was horrible....he picked a fight with me the night before and didn't spend Thanksgiving w/me & the kids.  We usually get into a fight on Christmas Eve and he goes home vs staying w/me to see the kids open up there presents.  So we shall just see....all I know is we are off to a very rocky start.  As always, I refuse to allow him to bring me down on the holidays.  I carry on just like nothing is wrong.  But deep down, I feel it pinching the breath out of me and breaking my heart.  I wonder how long I will allow myself to suffer the bad stuff just for a few breaths of the good stuff.

thanks for listening.
QOD