When Things Seem Hopeless

There are times when I get very down because plans that I think are solid turn out to be less ironclad than I had hoped.

When I decided to get married I needed something to be reliable, to have an honest connection with another person. To a large extent I have that. However, when my husband is feeling depressed, although I have known that he got depressed from the very start, his sadness sets me off, and I begin to have trouble coping with even my minimal lot of responsibilities.

Today's trigger is that someone stole one of my husband's personalized license plates which is a very expensive problem in the state where we live. First, you have to get the plates. Then, if one or both are stolen you have to turn in the remaining plate, and register the car again. Whether or not you want another personalized plate, you have to pay about $50.00; there is an additional fee to keep the old license plate number.

I don't think that it's fair; it's not like he begged someone to steal his plate. He's the victim, and has to pay and pay and pay. Most likely it was stolen off of his car at work. As a result of the intricate web of fees, he is unable to have his previous license plate number. He is not even allowed to keep his remaining plate (a word of great personal significance to him) as a souvenir. Last- he had to take off time from work to take care of this. It's just a last little kick in the ass.

Dealing with all of this for a well person, with a well wife would be difficult. My husband, however, is now upstairs in bed, for lack of a better word napping. We don't have the money to register the car. He wants to take Obama's buyout plan because his car is ten years old. I don't think that it is a good plan because in taking the deal, the old cars are wrecked- perfectly good cars are destroyed. It never occurred to me that this would be the outcome of the buyout plan. I figured that many of the cars wouldn't run, or that they might be sold for their parts enabling more buyouts. So- I said I wouldn't get involved in such a wasteful endeavor.

Note: since I wrote this last part, I have discovered that the reason for destroying the engines is to prevent unscrupulous car dealers from reselling the cars. First of all, the cars wouldn't actually be off of the road and would still be guzzling gas. Second, by taking the $4500, dealers agreed to sell the clunkers for scrap and salvage. It has come to light that some of the dealers are actually reselling the cars as vehicles anyway. Sigh. I hate being right but for the wrong reason. It makes me sound both ignorant and cynical. Bring it on.

Anyway- so my husband and I disagree about this and about many other financial matters. These are large issues, not small ones, and they don't go away. He keeps his job because it pays for our benefits although they pay him a quarter of what an employer in San Francisco, New York or Boston would pay him. So, he can't afford a new registration, let alone a new car. He's angry, and I am upset. And so the fight is ongoing. I am so sick of fighting.

I married him because there was something so lovable and comfortable, so familiar about him. Neither of us likes fighting, neither of us likes being poor- but we are both too sick to do anything about it. We are trapped in a weave of each others' depression and bad habits.

Thus, the downward spiral to deep, dark, doomed, damned if we do, damned if we don't depression. I don't know how other people deal with this type of thing. Perhaps it just doesn't happen to them. Some people are just able to get paid what they are worth and like dealing with this sort of thing. I hate money- it causes nothing but trouble.

Whatever.