I have asked my AH not to talk to me when he is drinking. But I can't get away from him. He follows me around relentlessly. If I leave he calls and texts to no end. It is soooo emotionally draining. I try not to react. I pray to be able to hold on to myself. To maintain a level of respect for him. But sometimes he pushes the right button an I react. And then he is like see you have not changed you are the same old crazy person. He uses the word "you" a lot and can take away all the progress I thought I made in just a few sentences. One of my hot buttons is when he wants to counsel our boys (13 & 15) when he is drunk. I am very protective over them. I have made my amends to the for the craziness that has been our home for 16 years now. I want to give them one sane parent. I want to save them from more emotional scars. Thanks for listening(reading)

Welcome to MIP Serenity75 - glad you found us and glad that you shared. I have been followed around before as well - it is annoying and aggravating. I finally figured out as a gal that mine will not follow me into 2 sure places - the bathroom and the laundry room. They will also stop following me if/when I grab the dog and my earbuds and leave for a stroll. When I was new and they hounded me on a mobile phone, I learned how to block them - even if only for a short period of time.

Keep seeking self-care strategies that will work for you! Meetings were also a safe place as they would certainly not follow me there. Before I knew how to block people on my phone, I would turn it off just to collect my peace.

Keep coming back - glad you are here!

Serenity I do hear you Calling an alanon member or getting to a meeting helped me at times like this. You are developing new responses and it is progress not perfection that we seek.

In those circumstances, I try to remember that I don't have to attend every fight I am invited to. When my wife starts with all the "you" references, in general she is trying to get the focus off of her, because she is stuck in a shame-cycle spiral, and get it on me. Last time that happened I physically left the house with our son. Answered her phone calls after I felt our situation had stabilized. I would have blocked them also if she would have kept up the phone calls when we weren't ready.Fortunately, we got to an Al Anon meeting, and my son got to his first Ala Teen meeting, and it was very helpful. HP was watching over us that night.

Kenny

Serenity 75, You know what came into my mind as soon as I read the first three sentences of your post? A conversation I had with an alcoholism counselor about how the alcoholic will figure out what your buttons are and push them just to get under your skin and make you feel like you have not grown or changed a bit. The example the counselor gave was yours. "If you like silence the alcoholic will follow you around, bug you with texts, hunt you down and pester you until your peace of mind is shot and you snap. If you are the talker, they will walk away and cut you off, go radio silent and you will go chasing after them and they will say see you are acting crazy again! Whatever your vice is they will find it and narrow in on it."

My ex would just run off and it would be roles reversed. The counselor's point was that either way, the result is to call you crazy! And make you feel crazy! Both magically achieve the same result and as the counselor put it, if the next partner is different the alcoholic will tailor it to them. You know the progress you have made. Don't let him make you believe you are crazy.

This post was so helpful to me - thank you for sharing Serenity and (((hugs)))

Just yesterday I told AH I would support his not drinking. If he did choose to drink he could do it elsewhere because it's too much for me right now. So today he came home and started wood working for his business, and cracked open a corona. I did remind him to please drink it away from home, but he just turned around and kept running his sander. I don't know what to do either, but giraffe really gave me some clarity with her post.

We'll see what happens next and I wish you strength!

((((Hugs)))) and thank yous to everyone. This was my first post and I am greatful for the responses and the forum.

Keep coming back! And, as far as buttons being pushed, I have heard it said that family is best at pushing our buttons because they are generally the ones that installed them in the first place lol!

Kenny