Making it work or making it worse?

So, I know that I've mentioned on my blog before that my father is an alcoholic, has been for as long as I can remember. He would go to the bar everyday right after work and drink a couple? beers there before heading home to finish just another 12-15 or so. I think my mom said that at his worst he was drinking 3 30-packs a week, just at home. Well, I don't know what she said to him or what made him stop with the 12-15, but about 5 years ago he stopped drinking beer at home and started drinking non-alcoholic beer, but he would still drink wine with dinner usually. It was a drastic move, one that I thought could be a turning point to more sober behavior.

In the past year or so, however, my dad has been drinking more and more at home. First one regular beer, then my mom said he could have 2 (of course this is still on top of the beer he drinks at the bar). Then he got all "technical" and started drinking more wine at home. My mom complained and he said "but you said I could drink two beers, you didn't say anything about wine." Ugh, duh, she meant two drinks, but to an alcoholic, or maybe just my dad, he got all pissy and literal. So now, he's drinking two beers and half a bottle of wine every day, plus the 2 or 3? beers at the bar. He's so anal about making sure that he's gotten all his intake for the day, he holds up the wine bottle to the light making sure he got exactly his full half a bottle. All in all it's about 6-7 alcoholic drinks a day, which for someone who does enjoy beer and can handle quit a bit, seems to be quite a lot. Did I also mention he takes medicine for his "anxiety" (which you're not supposed to take while drinking) as well as pain medication for arthritis (he's had two hip replacements) and that he buys drugs on the internet from the UK that are technically illegal in the US because they contain codeine? Yeah.

Anyway, my dad's behavior aside from his obvious drinking problem was never one that I approved of in any way. He's crass, lude, rude, likes to go on vacation with his guy friends and throughout their marriage has treated my mom as more of a mother and/or servant than an equal/wife. My memory is full of being witness to his verbal and mental abuse. Needless to say, I do not like my father very much, actually not at all. In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that he was married to my mother, I would not choose to spend any time with him at all.

For some reason, the fact that my mother has been soley devoted to him for the past 35 years wasn't enough for him and he decided that he needed to get some extra attention. He's been seeing a "massage therapist" for this hip pain for a couple years now. Well, apparantly when my mom went to check an email sent from my dad's email account about a warranty for a purchase they recently made (since his name was on it and for some reason we all know his email password), she discovered emails with explicit and inappropriate content to this woman. He made comments about her phsyical features and also mentioned leaving my mom for her, to name a few.

I guess in order to "spare us" my mom didn't tell anyone. She bottled it up until she had a broken heart, literally. It was almost two months ago now that I got a call at work saying that my mom was in the hospital because she had a heart attack. It wasn't severe or the kind where they remove a blockage, but it was still a heart attack nontheless. In the aftermath that ensued, which went from her wanting a divorce, to wanting a separation, to wanting to "work things out," I have been on an emotional rollercoaster from hell. I agreed with the divorce idea, supported the separation downgrage, and reluctantly fell silent to the final decision, which was to "save the marriage."

I know that my parents grew up in a different generation, one where it's important to try and work things out and stay together, but it's so difficult knowing that just because you were in love with someone at one point in time does not mean that they have remained the same person for the past 30 years. Oh, did I mention they've been together since they were 15 and never dated anyone else? Yeah. It's so hard because of the fact that they have decided to stay together, I am now torn between two people, one who I love, respect, and want happiness for, and the other that I do not respect, like, or want in my life anymore.

I know that I have absolutely no relationship experience whatsoever and maybe that doesn't give me the right to judge, but at the same time, I have in some ways chosen the life I now live because I have chosen not to blindly fall into a relationship when I know that somehting is off. I have been asked out and turned men down because of the stupidest little things, but maybe these are the things that have in the end saved me from being miserable 20 years from now. Maybe the things that peopls say are little and can/will change are things that in the end will be the downfall of that relationship.

I guess, though, I have never been "blinded" by love, so much so that it dominates my decisions and leads me to places that I might not normally go. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. In one sense, it seems like the thing that I've been wishing for all along, to truly love one person completely, with the good and bad, for the rest of my life, but I also want to think that I'd be strong enough to know when a relationship becomes so destructive, where in the process of supporting them and helping them get through their crisis, that I can recognize that I have been dragged down to a point where I will not recover and ultimately save myself before it's too late.

I don't know, all I know is that I don't want to see my mom unhappy anymore and I don't want to see my dad treat her like she is not the most amazing woman that she is.

*Sigh*