Update to my sitch, the end has come

[25yearsmlc]

Yes Mako man,

We can and do recover. It's harder than I can describe, especially trying hard to honestly SEE the harm you've done AND to try & make amends for them.

The only thing more difficult, ultimately, is living the way she was. I just posted b/c you asked the question, "Do they ever recover?"

The answer is positively Yes. Not all of us, not every time and not always forever. But each of us must ask "What is 10 years of sobriety that's interrupted by 2 relapses of, say a month each? Failure?

Or MAYBE, was it 9 years & 10 months of clean(er) honest living? It is Not perfect living. "Normal" addicts have so much trouble with recovery, it's so much tougher with people who have dual/multiple diagnoses, like your wife. So much depends on self forgiveness, which goes hand in hand with self esteem, ability to forgive others, letting go of things we can't control, including our past. Did your w ever see forgiveness, or some model of it, in her own life? Recovery requires a LOT of honesty which is terrifying for anyone who's misdeeds haunt them. And in your wife's case, it's all compounded by her other problems, to say the least.

Your wife has major baggage from her past, and she has mental illness.

She may argue that addiction is a disease, and so are her mental illness issues and therefore, in her mind, you are not living up to your vows of "in sickness and in health". But that's analogous to a diabetic who refuses/forgets to take their insulin BUT insists on driving the kids to school every day, though they might crash if the insulin levels spike... At some point, you take the license or car away b/c you don't want anyone else going down with her, like YOUR children.

You don't condemn her for her disease, but you hold her accountable for the choices she makes. Relapse is one thing, deceit is another.

Again, YES there are success stories of recovery, and more are happening every day as break throughs in treatment are bieng made.

I personally know a woman who has been clean and sober for 22 years and she's still married to her H. When I met her a meeting, she told me "you have to meet someone on the other side of this", so you can SEE a success story. You can envision what it would look like. THis woman also still goes to meetings periodically, mostly to reinforce her "new" coping tools, and even now sometimes she needs that. As I said in another post, the average "successful" recovering person averages two relapses before fully making the break. I don't know what her other issues do to that statistic.

Your sitch is different, obviously. But you asked about recovery and addiction before. I babbled and rambled perhaps. But I tried to give you some insight/info before. Didn't mean to hijack, thought I was answering some of your questions. Hope this helps a little, with THIS dimension of your w's problems.

FWIW, I understand how much she has put you through, and that you have to save yourself to save your kids. Like I said, just trying to answer your question.
((( j- ))