Thanks everyone for your comments. I don’t know why I have taken so long to get the hang of this alcoholism thing. I have been very dense about it.
Garden Mary : My DH quit drinking 6 years ago, and the change is amazing. His behavior was VERY similar to your DH's.
What has been striking to me is the number of people who report exactly similar behaviours from alcoholic partners. I think this is what is finally making the penny drop for me that it’s not just us. I am not in a R with H I am in a R with alcoholic-H and that is a completely different animal and not the man I married. As Lou said he is an alien. Generally speaking H does not turn into an alien until after the kids have gone to bed, this will not be the case as they get older and go to bed later. He will relax more about drinking around them (he doesn’t hide it from them anyhow). I have read a few things on alateen about teen relationships with their alcoholic dads. The realisation I had a couple of weeks ago that I am not protecting my kids from the minor level of abuse from him they occasionally get at the moment makes me sure I don’t want them growing up in conflict with an alcoholic father. Conflict is inevitable, when H is spoiling for a fight with me I have likened it to being run over by a juggernaut, there is really nothing you can do to get out of the way (except leaving the room). The chance of a teenager having the maturity to understand that is pretty much nil.
Cally But I do know alcoholics that have changed. So there is hope.
Yes and I hold on to that hope. But everything I read tells me HE has to be the one to hit bottom and HE has to be the one to change for himself. I do not know if it would be right to somehow “force” that bottoming out by filing for D. Other areas of his life are pretty together, his business is going well, he never drives when he has been drinking so unless (God forbid) there is a medical emergency I cannot see something drastic happening anytime soon.
Gel said: I look back on my decision to leave my XH now and wish I had left the door open for him, instead I let my anger take over and held onto resentments.
I guess this is what I would strive to do when it comes to it. Force the issue, force him to hit bottom (if D from me even is his “bottom”) but leave the door open.
LIL My bf is a recovering alcoholic also. You CANNOT deal with them when they are "active," meaning they still engage in the behavior. You cannot reason with them, you cannot get through to them.
I understand this. It is hard, I literally NEVER get a chance to talk to him when he is not “active”. He comes home and the first thing he does is open a beer. There is stuff to do like dinner and getting kids off to bed before we can sit down together, by which time he has already had at least 3 beers. At the weekend as I’ve said he has requested that we split up into my day/his day (for keeping the kids out of the other ones hair). To me this is unnatural and not even that necessary as they are not toddlers anymore. Again by the early evening he will start on the booze, so we have absolutely NO alone time together when he is not already affected by alcohol.
Lou Fran, drugs, alcohol having another woman, etc (not that he has more than alcohol) all things that spell your H is in alien land. People with those and other problems have no or very flexible rules and will pick one of their own rules and will use one suits them at the time. Usually the rule that proves them right and you and everyone else wrong.
Absolutely right Lou, that is what I find so difficult, he has no “moral compass” when he is an alien. In fact I think it is that lack of rules that makes them addicts in the first place. It is a lack of control, self-indulgence. Sometimes I do wonder if by DBing and accepting him back after the A I just added to his feelings of entitlement. You know, he “got away with it”. Michele’s book (and others) pretty much straight up say, don’t try this if your SO has substance abuse issues. I am learning why. It does nothing for your self-esteem to continually be examining yourself and what you are contributing to the failure of the relationship when you are in fact dealing with an alien. Acting as if doesn’t work, it makes you even more false and cover up for the hurts the alcoholic is causing you. 180s don’t work if you switch direction the alcoholic will just head you off at the pass. GAL is about the only part that is of any use.
The C session is booked for next Thursday. I will talk to H about letting C know H is alcoholic. He knows he is, he as mentioned doing something about it, I will say to him that it is unfair to the C to not talk about this and that it would be unfair of me to “shop” him to the C so he has to be the one to do it.
I will say that if he doesn’t do it within the first session then I will do it at the second one (or at my IC session).
Thanks everyone, again, for your feedback. This really is it, it is make or break time and I actually feel pretty good about it.
Fran
if we can be sufficient to ourselves, we need fear no entangling webs Erica Jong
I don’t know why I have taken so long to get the hang of this alcoholism thing. I have been very dense about it....What has been striking to me is the number of people who report exactly similar behaviours from alcoholic partners. I think this is what is finally making the penny drop for me that it’s not just us.
This was true for me as well. For the longest time, I told no one because I guess I knew on some level that they would try to convince me he had a problem and/or that I needed to leave....I preferred that everyone think I had the perfect BF. All along, I've struggled with whether it's H's problem or mine anyway. Regardless, it adds a very complex dimension to a R.....like R's don't already have enough complex dimensions
This really is it, it is make or break time and I actually feel pretty good about it.
You sound much less confused than you did a few posts ago, that's great and I'm really glad you're more sure of yourself and how you feel...hang on to yourself throughout this process and keep strong.
"Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."
Quote: LIL My bf is a recovering alcoholic also. You CANNOT deal with them when they are "active," meaning they still engage in the behavior. You cannot reason with them, you cannot get through to them.
FRAN: I understand this. It is hard, I literally NEVER get a chance to talk to him when he is not “active”. He comes home and the first thing he does is open a beer.
If I had something I wanted to talk to him about, I had to time it very carefully. He would also go to the refrigerator and open a beer as he came into the house at night. Would usually drink a 12-pack every night. So I could talk to him through the first three... then he was impossible to talk to.
He's also one of these people who isn't coherent in the morning until he's had two cups of coffee (it's still true even though he doesn't drink any more), so I couldn't discuss anything with him in the morning either.
I cannnot believe I lived that way for two years. I was an idiot!!
Fran, don't second guess your actions by asking yourself if something is "fair" or not. If you want to do something do it, if you want to say something say it. Don't base your actions/decisions on how you think he might react. Be true to yourself. If you aren't true to yourself, who will be?
My ex-H had problems with perscription meds. Unfortunately he has relapsed since we split. I cannot say that I wish I had left the door open because he also had serious, underlying mental health issues. In "recovery", without the blunting effects of the drugs, his mental health issues have become ever more apparent. He has not held a job since we split, he has not maintained a R since we split, he still blames everyone but himself for his issues. Only you can decide if or when your situation gets this serious.
Don't use statistics such as the "worst age" for divorce. The single most important predictor of children having problems post divorce is if the parents continue to argue. I NEVER argue with my ex-H. He levels diatribes at me that rival when we were married and I say, "I'm sorry you feel that way. I can't continue to talk with you when you talk to me like that." I always encourage him to see the kids even though he has never paid child support as he was supposed to. Our financial and/or court related concerns have nothing to do with his R with the kids. I have set the boundaries now that I should have set in the marriage.
So, how about, you set the boundaries that you will need regardless, you do whatever you can to GAL, inform yourself on your states divorce/separation laws, you insist on treatment for your H. In the meantime, spend time with your children, love them and make sure they know that they have one stable parent.
Quote: In "recovery", without the blunting effects of the drugs, his mental health issues have become ever more apparent.
This is a very good point. I used to think that if he would just stop drinking, everything would be fine. NOT. The addict still has the addict personality even when they're sober, UNLESS they're in therapy or some kind of recovery program to help them deal with all the now un-masked issues. The addiction is a way of dealing with pain; it's not a separate bad habit. When they stop drinking and drugging, the pain really comes to the surface and they need to deal with it.
You know, in movies about alcoholism, the picture usually shows the alcoholic's crap life and then the movie ends with violins in the background as the alcoholic walks through the doors of his/her first AA meeting, "Hello, my name is ___, and I'm an alcoholic." Cue the credits, bring up the lights, leave the theater in a rosy glow.
What the movie doesn't show is that this is where the REALLY hard work begins. Every single day, every minute, that person is still in as much pain as they were when they were putting away a fifth of Scotch or a 12-pack of beer every day, but now there's nothing to deaden the pain.
You don't drink or drug like an addict unless you are REALLY, REALLY hurting A LOT. Self-hatred, feelings of failure, hopelessness, covered up by grandiosity, arrogance, anger, putting up walls, "if you knew the real me, you'd hate me"-- it's not a pretty picture.
Have you gone to alanon yet, Fran? (I can't remember.) I believe you will find some relief there, even if you never say a word out loud. Those people truly know what you're going through. When I used to go, I felt buoyed up on an ocean of love, even though I was always silent.
Have you ever seen the movie, "When a Man Loves a Woman,' with Andy Garcia and Meg Ryan? or "Mommy Dearest?"
Rent those movies, if you haven't seen them.
I'm not implying that YOU are those characters. It lets you see what others endure at the hands of abusive people... and sometimes it's easier to see it in others... feel the horror for others... so you can then let the reality in for yourself.
Thanks for the movie suggestions I will check them out.
You are right of course Lil H giving up booze is not a cure-all for sure.
Anyhoo we had our first C session last night, and I will attempt to unpack it here.
It was a brief session as I got stuck in traffic and arrived late.
H says he feels no desire for me and that is the problem with our sex life. At least we have that out in the open now and I no longer need to worry about his remarks that it is my fault for not “putting out”. Of course it is (in his eyes) my fault for being so horrible that he no longer desires me.
H talked about the pre-children years. It was clear from this that he regards them as “halcyon days”. I don’t see them that way which I will raise in a future C session. It is starting to make me think (even more than I already was) that H is shallower and more materialistic than I am. He was happy in a setup where he worked, he rested, he played, he had nice stuff. Before the kids he worked hard, socialised with his workmates, came home to a house which was more or less run by me (even though I worked), didn’t have to concern himself about being a breadwinner as I earned initially more than him and later he caught up level but there was no-one to spend it on but ourselves. We had a Miata and later a Lotus Elise, we went on nice holidays, he had as much sex as he wanted (because I wanted more than he did – but it wasn’t really an issue). He was in clover.
From my point of view this life was shallow, it had no meaning. From my point of view I lived with someone who didn’t spend a lot of time with me, wasn’t interested in talking to me, wanted sex less often than me and left me to run the household so he could concentrate on his career.
The alcohol issue was also raised. The C told H that it would not be helpful if he drank alcohol prior to the C session as he would not be accessible. I agreed that this was a problem currently and that the problem with talking to H when he has been drinking (100% of the time we are together) is that I am talking to a drunk person. H’s response was that he’s being asked to change to fit in with MY lifestyle.
C mirrored for him the feeling that he is under attack and that it’s all his fault and if he would just stop drinking and smoking everything would be fine.
After the session we drove home. We didn’t talk about the session. I suggested we went out for a bite to eat rather than straight home but H was leery of the idea. After pressing him it came out that he was worried about unpacking the session so I just said there was no need to do that and we could just go and eat and talk about other stuff. Which is what we did.
A big penny dropped for me when I thought about this. It feels like he is AFRAID of me. That would fit with the lack of desire – I’m too scary for him.
Fran
if we can be sufficient to ourselves, we need fear no entangling webs Erica Jong
Just popping in to see how you're doing. Our sits have often mirrored eachothers. In reading today I found yet another similarity.
Quote: H’s response was that he’s being asked to change to fit in with MY lifestyle.
It could be that I'm reading your h's meaning of this wrong but it sounds too much like what my h said when I mentioned his drinking habbits.
My h is suddenly more sociable, talkative etc...when I mention he's been drinking a bit much lately his response is "well maybe I should go back to being the misserable, socially closed off person I was before"
well that's a statement that could lead to a more in deapth discussion like "why do you feel you need to drink to be sociable with me?"
but then I got this response on antoher night when making reference to his drinking frequency "I've been more sociable, more talkative and more attentive with you haven't I...if I want a couple of drinks to unwind that shouldn't be a problem"
Oh, well I guess my h needs to take anti anxiety meds, consume alchohol and watch porn in-order to be social with me...such is life.
well now I've just gone and rambled about my sit here. I wish I knew the majic cure for all this bs.
