Rustie!! Where have you been? I've wondered about how you are doing.
The book is Adult Children Of Alcoholics. I will post some info from it later. So other people know, there doesn't really have to be alcoholism in the FOO for a lot of this to apply. Other kinds of dysfunction have similar affect. Alcoholism itself is probably the most chaotic however. And you can be the Child of a Child of Alcoholics, as my H is. My FIL is such a big factor in our lives that I was reading it to gain understanding of "the family way." It is filling in a lot of the blanks for me. And really, I am an ACOA myself, my dad was sober as long as I can remember, he had quit drinking when I was small, but he has many of the traits. I've been well-trained to be in this marriage (rolling eyes). And my kids are children of an alcoholic, so this shows me where the confusion for them can affect them. It's very good.
Update on my sitch....H went hunting with S12 for the weekend and they had a good time together. He came home in an excellent mood last night. He is being very attentive and kind and loving. Not just "not abusive." S12 confirmed that it was a good time and his dad didn't ride him about anything. S10 and I had a good weekend and spent a lot of time painting together. He's a good little artist, and I am turning out to have some moderate talent myself. We need a studio. haha
We had one bit of static...I was discussing changing my meds with H. I don't ever talk to him about my personal business if I can help it, but I tried anyway. He responded like a normal person. Talked about maybe what he might need for ADD. We were cozied up on the couch, eating dinner and watching Deal or No Deal, lol. Then he says, you know when you started taking that med, your sex drive went away.
This is patently untrue..and stupid on many levels. For one thing, I started taking it last winter...when he had started drinking like a fish for a six month period, he doesn't even KNOW what was going on. Secondly, if I was ever not interested it might be because he was stinking drunk and could hardly do it anyway. And I did it with him anyway!! Like an idiot. Those days are over. Thirdly, the person with sexual dysfunction issues is him. I won't go into the details. Although that can be a symptom of porn addiction and one of the reasons I was suspicious.
Lastly...and most importantly..he's made the same complaint and comment a thousand times over, for our entire marriage. We could have ML two days before and he'd say we hadn't in THREE MONTHS, BREAKAWAY!! He just makes this crap up in his head. I can count on ONE HAND the times I've said no to sex. It's the average once or twice a week, unless someone is sick or there is some kind of life chaos going on. Then he would get angry and say I didn't initiate it enough. So I would approach him and he would brush me off. No, forget it, he'd say. I once told him he'd rather NOT have sex so he could complain about not having sex, and he had a totally busted expression on his face...and got sheepish, and said, I guess I do do that. He seemed confused himself that he would do that.
Okay, I tell all this, because there is no merit to what he said, and furthermore, I think I KNOW what my sex drive is like better than he does. Again this is an example of him trying to define me. Now, I will say this...he said it "nicely" and in a non-confrontational manner. And he said, I'm not trying to start a fight or anything...but that did take away your sex drive.
And I didn't get mad, and I didn't explain everything I just wrote, and I didn't do anything but nicely reply, "no it didn't." He paused a bit and said..well..okay.
Then I changed the subject. Anyway, his behavior is a lot lot better. But there is still his undercurrent of thinking and defining me, but I know what's true about me so I am not going to argue with him about it.
We need a studio. haha