The title just about sums it up -- I spent about 20 hours over the weekend addressing over 50 invitations (53 to be exact) with the potential for about 3 more once I confirm with my mother if they should be included.  Before the 3 additional invitations, I was surprised at the symetry of the fact that although husband-2-B has about 80% of the potential attendance, it actually turned out that I was sending invitations to exactly 25 households each.  But since a couple households had grown children who would be getting their own separate invitation, it through the number off a bit, and now if my mother approves the two extras, it won't be symetric.  Yet in a way even weirder, since that would be 27 households for me and 25 for him -- yet the vast majority of mine will not be attending.  It's just weird that I have so few coming, yet I'm sending more invitations -- I hadn't foreseen that.  Anyway, caligraphically hand-writing out the reply envelopes, as well as the main envelopes plus return address on back with caligraphy -- left me bleary eyed and head-ached.  Not to mention using the paper cutter to divide up the invitations, reply cards, reception cards, folding the direction sheets -- and keeping the two sides separate (his family will get differently worded invitaitons and differently addressed cards due to them knowing me by a different name than my side of the family!).
In other news -- hub2b has been extremely depressed about an increased skin-acne flareup ever since I went away to cancun and came back (for the last 3 weeks then?).  It happens that I react "in kind" to however he is reacting to his skin.  If he's sad, I'm sad and concerned with him.  But if he's mad, then I get mad too -- mad that he's all beligerant and throwing himself around the apartment (or alternatively sleeping in the middle of the day) - I get mad and say my peice -- yesterday at dinner I said he should be contacting his therapist and learning to control his emotions and deal with this, because I've done everything I can possibly do, but if he's just going to sleep through these episodes or yell through them -- instead of taking practical measures to learn to handle this -- then he's not going to get anywhere.  And that I wasn't looking forward to living with his rages for the rest of our lives.  I was expressing my own anger that after two years of these rages, he still wasn't taking any practical measures to control his rage -- he made enough trips to the doctor to get new medicines, that's for sure -- and I've certainly tried everything nutritionally and herbally -- but if these breakouts are going to continue -- it's time to deal on the emotional/mental level.  In fact it's long over due and long promised.
He angrily insisted he IS going to contact the therapist (yeah, but WHEN?!?!?) and suggesting I was out of line to be mad at him about this and how would I like to reverse positions and see how I deal with it, etc.  So after dinner he made a big show of yanking his shoes on and getting his coat while I washed the dishes (I knew he was planning on getting out of the apartment in reaction to the argument from me, which is exactly what I had been planning on doing except that I still had to finish the invitations).  So then he was at the door and saying "I'm leaving" and I was like "and WHERE are you going" and he was like "I'm not saying, but I'm not coming back" and I was like "WHAT the hell are you talking about?!?" and he was like "I'm just going to kill myself, I'm doing YOU a favor".  I was like "you are NOT".  I've had it with his threats -- like somehow he has to prove how desparate he is to spur me into motion to do what I can for him, to take him seriously.  Like I haven't already tried EVERYTHING in my power.  In fact, pressuring him to see the therapist IS something I'm doing to help, still.  At this point I already know his tactics and I don't really take him seriously when he threatens to kill himself, I understand it's more of his [albeit manipulative] way of underlining the communcation to me (or anyone) of how sad, mad and hopeless he feels, as well as a way of impelling me into action.
After I sort of called his bluff he backed down from his threat and reverted to a more straightforward plea to just DO SOMETHING to help.  I said "but what, I've done everything, I can't think of anything more" and he settled for letting me take another look at his skin on his back in case I could get any infection out with the tools, or inject anything with the cortisone to get the swelling down, which I did, and it seemed to molify him - doing something, anything -- anything at all, appears to be better than just bearing it through.
I do understand how frustrating it is, and after 20 years of trying one thing after another and continuing to just bear each breakout and each new wave of occasional worsening, without respite, can make it hard to just endure without doing SOMETHING.  I'm at a point where I'm just almost at a loss myself, the mystery of it on my mind even while I'm trying to fall asleep -- what, WHAT is poisoning his system?  There for a while it seemed when I finally convinced him to forgo the junk, sweets and grains (november?) that he was improving.  And any and all worsening periods were directly tied to weekend indulgences in candy, chocolate, desert, what have you.  But this time - what can I understand from this time?
As far as I know he didn't eat any junk, grains etc. while I was in Cancun - though the stress itself may have brought it on.  But after two weeks later he can't be stressed out still, and even his usual IBS and cramping that I point to as a sign that toxins are being held in his intestines and released into his body leading to breakouts -- even his IBS has been at relative by these last weeks -- so what could it be?
In the last couple days it may have gotten a teeny bit worse - but in the general worsening it's hard to say.  In the last couple days - the sugar-free cheese cake is the only addition -- could that be it? But what is in that except for cream cheese, cream, eggs, and sucralose? Nothing.  Which would mean cream cheese would make him worse - but that just doesn't seem right.  But could it be?  I will cut out cream and cream cheese after this batch runs out, and see.  Which is sad since it's his only source of pleasure when he craves sweets in the evening  (cheese cake, or whipped cream etc.), and leave him with only my homemade yogurt -- I'm not even going to bother to tell him my thinking this time, since everytime I say "it may be the ...(fill in the blank)..." he derides my foolish attempts to pin the cause on food and says it's just him, he will always break out no matter what, it's not food, it's nothing we can ever fix...
I however, will continue in a scientific manner, exhausting all possibilities, one variable at a time.  The other thing I wonder about is if there is a general hormone imbalance that could be causing this - since I've noticed that while certain foods do make ME break out (though not like his), there are also times of the month where I break out independant of what I eat, because of the monthly hormone changes.
If it's hormonal for him, I don't know what to do.  I suggested he see a specialist to test those aspects - but I don't even know exactly what sort of specialist could determine this and if they did, what could they do.
The bottom line though, is that something is poisoning his system - whether it's stress toxins, hormonal imbalance toxins, digestive failure induced toxins, or junk food related toxins... it's a kind of toxic poison and I can't identify where it's coming from.  I was so confident that I could at least minimize the contributions made from what he eats -- but I'm beginning to feel at a loss.