Who Wouldn’t Want to be a Millionaire?

I bet I’m not alone in this game show co-dependency crisis. I know it’s my husband’s mental illness, but clearly I’m a part of the problem.

The obsession began way back, when Bob would watch Jeopardy once a week. This rapidly escalated to every night. Then he went to harder stuff. A portable computerized Trivial Pursuit game.

At friends’ houses, he’d sneak out to play it. But it made electronic noises. I’d make up excuses to cover up for his beeping. I’d say, “He’s got stomach problems.” I was in denial - big time.

Then Regis came into our lives and I couldn’t kid myself any longer.

“I can stop anytime,” Bob whispered, as we were having dinner with company.

“Then stop now.” I took the remote and sat on it.

“Just one more show.” He tried to get the remote. I squirmed to secure it.

With a stupid smile I said, “I can explain this,” to our friends who looked scared, while Bob knelt by my side burrowing after the remote as I wriggled. They left before dessert.

So Bob wasn’t ready to quit. Every day, at 4 PM, he’d call the game show’s 800 number and try to qualify by answering 3 questions correctly. Know what? He always did. That meant that he had to be available by phone from noon till 3 the following day. Then, with any luck, he’d get a call that he was picked from a random drawing to compete again and hopefully go to New York.

“I need the phone,” I said one day, when it was time to find out the results of my recent biopsy.

He looked at his watch. “Can’t it wait?”

“No!”

“Look,” he said, “if something’s wrong, it will still be wrong after three o’clock.”

It was then that I knew that the disease had taken over Bob’s mind and left a big doo-doo-head in its place.

“Sweetheart,” I put my hands around his face and pivoted it from the phone to me, “you need to acknowledge your illness. And I’m going to stop being an enabler. I’m not going to make excuses for you. I’m not going to lie. And when you lose the remote control, I’m not going to find it.”

His face contorted, in what first looked like pain, then I saw the tiniest tears form in his eyes. He put his head in his hands and began to sob, realizing the depth of his dependency. Now, he was ready to face his recovery bravely. He looked at me with an expression of pure, almost religious agony and said, “Is that your final answer?”

I flushed the remote down the toilet. Then, with astute clinical finesse, I took the pot which had the lukewarm remnants of this morning’s coffee, and dumped it on his head.

“Why do you want the money?” I asked later, when we were speaking again.

“Wouldn’t you?”

“Well, it would be amazing to have enough money to never have to worry.” We sat on the couch sharing milk and frozen Christmas chocolate chip cookies. “And when we couldn’t pay our bills, we were very unhappy.” I wrangled the spare remote from him. “I know that only people who have money say money isn’t everything. But there’s something I’ve never told you.” I removed the batteries. “The two most depressed people I’ve ever met were both millionaires. Money made a huge difference, but it didn’t make them happy.” I dropped the batteries in the milk. “What you’ve always really wanted, Bob, you have today.” I looked at him adoringly and he looked at me the same.

“What!? Your inheritance finally came through? HOLY GUACAMOLE!” And he took the remote, flung it in the air and bounced out of the room to call in a celebratory pizza.