He has left me AGAIN!

[25yearsmlc]

why can't you just believe that? You can. The issue isn't what you believe, b/c you know he's a drunk (and btw, he also wants a divorce....)

but when you accept that he's a drunk and not a good h, it's implicitly obvious you must take action...and leave.

That's your problem, the inertia and the fear. The fear of the unknown or being alone sure must terrify you.

You know the answers to the questions you ask but you pretend to concern yourself with questions about texts, or his latest crazy financial scheme or what he said or was wearing or how you looked when he saw you and how you didn't make eye contact and blah blah blah.

Where the head goes, the heart will, eventually, follow.
So keep thinking straight.

As for you loving him, well so what if you do? I love my son22, but if he robs someone and goes to jail, I won't bail him out of jail before he has served his time. B/C I LOVE HIM...I want him to be the best person he can be. Enabling does not help HIM OR ME.... If that's "tough love" to you, so be it. I just think it's holding them accountable and being normal and healthy.

Sounds as if you are saying I should bail my son out, hire a great L so he can get my son "off" and run free without paying the victim back or paying his debt to society. That belief system is exactly why so many criminals re-offend.

The analogy I'm using is very appropriate. You are behaving like the mother of many of my former criminal defendant clients. Bailing them out, lying for them, covering for them and pretending they were simply hanging with the wrong crowd.

While I think alcoholism is a disease there IS also an element of choice in it, just as there's an element of choice in diabetics who refuse to watch their insulin or glucose levels. Sometimes they have to get violently ill to start taking care of themselves. A friend of mine did not take care of his diabetes and went into a stupor while driving his car, and literally killed off most of a family when his car went into the opposite lane. He eventually died too (after 3 months in a coma). All b/c he didn't watch his insulin and take care of the warning signs...

Your h can easily kill people driving drunk. What role will you have played in that if it happens?

Assuming that it's possible for him to get well. What would it take? FIRST YOU would have to stop enabling him.

The sooner you stop enabling him, the sooner he'll get better, with many ups and downs in between.

Make sense?

I don't know what else to say or how to say it. This is not complicated....don't over think this.

It's hard but it's simple. You just have to DO IT.

You can.