The following is a re-telling of an event that occurred on the night of Saturday June 8th into the morning of Sunday June 9th 2013.  It is on a very short list of the most shameful experience of my life.  It has taken me literally two weeks to process everything that occurred, get multiple perspectives on the chain of events, mend the most essential fences and finally have the nerve to re-live it.  I chose to write this now because I realize that this blog may one day burn some bridges with it’s brutal honesty; and I want to show future readers that I am just as willing to hold myself to the same proverbial fires.

June 7 was The Auteur’s birthday.  She and a friend had tickets to the Pitbull concert that night, so we were going to get a small group of people together Saturday night for a belated celebration.  I was EXTREMELY anxious about giving The Auteur her birthday presents that night.  This is primarily due to the fact that the STBX never really cared for ANY gifts that I ever got her.  Seeing constant disappointment over the better part of 18 years made me think that I was just a bad gift-giver.  Then of course, there were the years when neither of us could afford to exchange birthday or Christmas gifts.  Combine those lean times with the inevitable disappointment that occurred when I tried  to give gifts and after a while, I simply stopped trying.  Don’t get me wrong; it’s not like I ever bought the STBX a can of bug spray or a vacuum cleaner.  In fact, I put a great deal of thought into every gift I ever gave her.  But, as I’ve come to realize  like every other aspect of our marriage – nothing, and I mean NOTHING was ever “good enough”  for the STBX.

We had all agreed to meet up at Sis’s apartment.  I wrapped up The Auteur’s gifts there and was really panicking.  Planning to have a drink or three before going out, I brought along my Jagermeister and Red Bull.  Hey, beer had been bothering my stomach the last few times I drank it – this was my rationale in my anxiety-ridden mind.  Rather than taking my second Inderal to help settle my nerves, I decided to self-medicate the way alcoholics do.  Rather than do it through beer, as I always had in the past, I reached for the Jager.

Oh, and it worked all right.  My nerves were calmed…i.e.  I had a pretty good buzz going by the time The Auteur and her friends arrived at Sis’s.  God she looked so beautiful that night, as she does every night.  I remember a moment there in Sis’s kitchen where we were holding each other, looking deep into each others eyes and I had an epiphany:  I realized that everything would be okay as long as we were together.  I was just ecstatic to see her.  And so relieved when she like the gifts I had gotten her.  I had realized then how dumb it was of me to be so worried about whether or not she would like my gifts.  Neither The Auteur nor any other woman I have ever met could ever be as impossible to please as the STBX.  Holding any other woman to that low of a standard is a disservice to them all.  Anyway, I was feeling pretty good at this point.  the problem with me and hard liquor is that I don’t realize just hard the sauce is hitting me until it’s too late.  When I had my epiphany, I should have put the brakes on the drinking then and there, but I didn’t.  I should have heeded the wisdom of my epiphanic moment, but I didn’t.  Little did I know that i was about to completely lose control that night.

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• Why Gifts Are Treacherous (esquire.com)