Is Higher Power up to something?

I've spent most of the day at the hospital after finding husband collapsed on the bathroom floor this morning in pain and sweaty with numb extremities. It was such a weird experience, paramedics and all, because I was still angry about the hiding, lying and omitting I'd caught him doing.

Before I left to drop son at school and head to the hospital to catch up with him, I grabbed a copy of Jack Kornfield's The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace just in case I couldn't muster up any compassion on my own.

The thoughts that went through my head reflected the detachment I'd made to cope with the discovery of his addict behavior. For example, I was pissed off that he can't get a life insurance policy because his health is poor. I was much more concerned about son's well being around the incident, and felt that Husband's issues would play out however they did and there was little I could do about it. I was ready for anything in a cool, detached way.

But I realized as I was driving to the hospital that I was husband's only person to turn to in life, and given who he's been for me in many good ways, that he's the father of my son, that he was a human being in a scary crisis, he deserved basic care and compassion, so I did my best to bring that forward today.

Husband did put $110 back into the bank account Tuesday. Was it really at work? Did he spend it and borrow that money from someone so he could continue his deception? I'll never know.

And that's part of where the learning is. How do I take care of myself without creating boundaries that are simply masked attempts to control his behavior? How do I handle his imperfection? How will I know when to cut bait? What is trust? What is faith? What is love? Can I learn to turn something over to Higher Power rather than trying to handle, fix, solve and control the outcome by myself? Can I surrender to the unknowability of life without sinking into an unhealthy relationship?

Anyone can lie. There is no way to protect myself from that completely. This much I know. So then what? What is there left to do? Learn to set boundaries, learn to trust myself, learn to distinguish willingness and imperfection from denial and indulgence, be willing to make the hard choices...

I feel like there have to be consequences, but I also feel like those consequences need to come from a place of authentically trying to protect and take care of myself, and not to punish or control him. What that will look like I'm still sorting out.

His health emergency doesn't overshadow what still needs to be dealt with between us. Compassion and care feel appropriate here, but so does accountability, and so does protecting myself. This recent incident has reminded me that even though he's willing and working his program, slips and all, he's still an addict and I need to protect myself from that aspect of his personality in the good times as well as the bad.