Oh sh!t

[haphazard]

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