Going Crazy!!!

My husband, once he decided that all the events of the last four months were judgments from God for my leaving the church and his asking the questions that instigated my leaving the church, will not let that thought out of his mind.

I am going out of my mind. I've said to him that if everyone who left the church had their houses burned down, there would be a heckuvalot more homeless people. Sometimes that will calm him down, and other times he'll continue to argue.

Here's what's happened in the last four months:

• He got a nasty cold. No big deal, except that he so rarely gets sick that to him it's a huge deal.
• After the cold went mostly away, he had lingering sinus issues.
• He got a really bad case of food poisoning.
• Our oldest dog died.
• Our house burned down. (Okay, not literally down, as in to the ground, because if you just drive by you wouldn't know anything had happened. But all of the interior and the roof and rafters have to be gutted and rewired, rebuilt, etc.)
• The manager at the hotel we're staying at until Friday, when we move into an apartment for the duration, has been extremely nasty.

So yeah, a really sucktastic period for him. But I still don't believe in the cause and effect correlation. I don't believe all these things happened because I left the church. Here's why:

• Colds happen to people all over the place all the time.
• When colds mostly go away, it's possible to develop bronchitis or have lingering sinus issues.
• If you eat food that has something toxic, you get food poisoning. He was in another state, and ate some Chinese food that had chicken in it, so I'm assuming it was from that. Chicken's tricky if you don't use proper methods of preparation and cooking.
• Our dog was old and tired. It was just her time. It doesn't make it any easier, but there it is.
• Our house was built in 1954, and at some point someone put a fuse (I think that's what it is--I'm not a mechanical/electrical type of person) that was 100 whatevers instead of the 50 whatevers it should have been. There have been extremely high temperatures here this summer, so there was a lot of drain on the air conditioners and electricity demands. And I don't know what else happened, but the result was a house fire.
• The manager at the hotel is an asshole. There are people who are lovely to work with. There are people who are ignorant and hard to deal with. There are assholes. That's just part of life.

So I'm trying not to let all his negativity get to me. When he tells me not to drink coffee or wine, I tell him that I'm an adult and will drink whatever I feel like drinking.

I'm hoping things will get better when we're into the apartment and out of the hotel. If not, it's going to be really craptacular.

WTF?

Yesterday after work, my husband met me at a restaurant near the hotel for dinner.  The restaurant really had the air cranked, so I was quite cold.  When I told my husband how cold I was, he said, and I quote, "That's because you're not wearing your garments."

WTF?

My response: "I'm cold because they have the air conditioner cranked up."

Things That Make You Go WTF?

My husband asked me the other day if anyone from TSCC had contacted me about the house fire. I told him no, but then again, I haven't been in contact with anyone to tell them.  He then told me that he'd called our bishop.

Hmmm. Fat lot of good that did, eh?

Okay. Here's the thing. If I were, say, someone's visiting teacher, and I learned that she had requested no contact with the church, I would respect that. If, however, I learned that the person's house had burned down, I would be calling or visiting not as a representative of the church, but as a fellow human. What can I do? How can I help?

And then today I've been thinking some more. I am actually "friends" on Facebook with a few members from our ward. And of all the people who responded with commiseration or well wishes, none of them were those people. I may be doing some unfriending tonight.

It goes back to what I said before about my loving visiting teacher who showed me only too clearly that she didn't love me at all. I was just a duty for her. And while I requested no contact from the church, I very clearly emphasized that it was me, and I did not speak for my husband in any way. For him to reach out, and be rebuffed, just pisses me off even more.

(Please note that I have friends who just happen to be members of the church, and this isn't directed at them in any way, shape, form, or fashion. I am referring specifically to the members of the ward in which we reside and which my husband would love someone to reach out to him not as someone who's falling away but in genuine compassion and kindness.  (Did you just laugh there? Did you snort? Oh--the snort must have been from me. Sorry 'bout that, she says unrepentantly.)