I am SO thankful for this site and for all of you and your support.  This disease is so horrible and takes such  a toll on relationships and families.

I could really use hearing some shares of survival or success.  Living with a AH who is in denial is so hard.  How do you manage when the other person is so consumed with themselves in their own house they ignore everyone around?  How do I get the emotional needs met (the emotional  needs you want from a husband) when my husband is not giving them? Even if I go to meetings and share no-one really sees all you do and don't get appreciated for.  Even though I feel loved on this site and in the meetings--there is still that love/closeness that I am missing from my spouse.  How do I keep the patience with not having this met?  Or how do I get these met (without having an affair)?   How do I have a wanted normal family life when the AH drinking prevents this?  How to I keep loving him when I don't get love in return?  And will things ever change?  And if they do--how might they end up?  I know there is no  way to predict or control the present or future--but I could REALLY use some shares of how people managed to get their needs met while living with their alcoholic spouse.  Things are not bad enough for me for divorce or separation--and I really do want to keep married (very strong up bringing to not divorce unless infidelity or abuse).  I need help for how to live with my AH.  And want to hear stories of after recovery.  

Thank you all for you love and support.

I lived with my AH through 6 rehabs and a flight to end it all, by using alanon tools. These tools allowed me to let go of my expectations. replace my former attitudes with rational realistic needs. I also learned how to honor my own self , fill my own needs and keep the focus on myself. I learned how to take care of my own needs. support my partner, accept thee fact that this is a terrible disease over which i am powerless.
My husband finally embraced sobriety and lived 6 years sober until he passed sober from cancer . It is a very difficult road that we travel and meetings, a sponsor, the steps and slogans saw me through by providing me with courage and wisdom to live life on life's terms.  There is hope and help.

Dancer like the old timers here and in the program I had to learn.  I had to accept ("acceptance is the solution to all of my problems", from the AA Big Book").  I had to alter perceptions, the difference between wants and needs and I had to listen listen listen...all the time for new discover and then....practice, practice, practice.  One of the facts of my neediness was and is that as long as I am practicing wants I am in trouble; upset, angry, restful, spiteful and dangerous to myself and others including the alcoholic. "I want what I want when I want it" could have been a daily slogan for me until I changed and thru listening one of the changes came from a conversation with a friend of my alcoholic/addict and myself as she told me about a work relationship and overhearing a conversation at work.  The woman's husband and herself were separated and he was living out of their house and calling her at work wanting to come home.  My friend said she hear the lady tell her husband,  "I love you and like having you here...and I don't need you".  That Idea upset me and I got up and left her house as fast as I could getting about 5 blocks away.  I pulled off the road and repeated the statement in my head and meditated on its meaning with new Al-Anon thinking and I arrived at it being the truth...I loved my alcoholic addict and didn't need her.  If she ceased to exist I would still have responsibility to myself and life and happiness.

My alcoholic/addict and I did separate and divorce and when we did on that last day we hugged in a very very tender way and then released each other.  I love here still and don't need her which also goes for my present marriage which has lasted twice as long as the two marriages before it.  It works when you work it.   ((((hugs)))) 

If you go to an open AA meeting you will hear plenty of stories of sobriety.  Some relationships survive. 

In any marriage there is no guarantee.  Every relationship has its strains.  For me personally these days I do not look to get. My needs met by anyone who has a substance abuse problem 

.expectations are a huge part of our recovery process. I struggled very hard with those.  I had a lot of #shoulds# 

When relationships are not meeting my needs I no longer stew in frustration.  For me there was no patience there was just abject stewing in toxic resentment.   I let go on many levels when I got to do anon.  Nevertheless for me revising my expectations of those who have substance abuse issues was essential. 

I can still gert resentful.  I have to watch very carefully I do not sit in the kind of sew of resentment self pity and despair I lived in for a long time.  Revising my expectations was essential to moving out of that position. 

Maresie 

Jazzie18   thank you for the book recommendation I just downloaded it.  Hoping it helps.  The reviews look good on it.

For me, every person who works this program of recovery has their very own success story. It depends how you define success. If its success based on the drinkers drinking or if they have gotten into recovery themselves then thats a different story but the Alanon members life having worked the program will no doubt be much more successful in terms of their serenity, coping strategies, most likely each and every part of their life will be better for them. Its like the preamble says that we can be happy and live happy lifes whether the alcoholic is still drinking or not. 

'How do you manage when the other person is so consumed with themselves in their own house they ignore everyone around?' - I think the tool to help this one is detachment with love. You cant change the drinker whether consumed with themselves or not, so I suppose its about accepting the reality and not a fantasy of what it should be. Basically alcoholics are self absorbed, only the drinker can solve this one. For us though we too are self absorbed and how the drinker is effecting us  and that we can do something about through the program.

'How do I get the emotional needs met (the emotional  needs you want from a husband) when my husband is not giving them?' - Im not sure what needs a husband is supposed to give, if you mean listening to you and your feelings and showing you understanding and compassion then he most likely doesn't have that to give you, not while his disease is active and running the show. I remember believing wholeheartedly that my ex had all these things to give and he was making a choice to withhold them from me because I wasn't good enough. What a relief to learn about the nature of the disease and that actually he never had these things and the mistake was mine with unrealistic expectations.

Your other questions are to me the big dilemma we all face or faced. We dont get or cant get intimacy from the active drinker so I suppose the choices are do we accept that and learn to appreciate what we do get from our relationship? Having an affair would probably be very costly to your self esteem never mind any damage it could cause others including the drinker. Or maybe you, like me, decide to end the relationship and search out a life of your own. I have intimacy in my life right now and I enjoy it. Life goes by so quickly and its not a waiting game. I think if you can be happy with all you do get from your life with the alcoholic whose active then you are working a brilliant program and living life to the full but if your unhappy then the changes have to begin with inside you. Thanks for sharing.

There is hope for you! I never thought I would be in the position that I find myself in today, saying that I am happy. My AH will celebrate 15 yrs of sobriety this fall. We have been together 22 years and some may find this crazy but I gave him an ultimatum 15 yrs ago, you either stop drinking or you are moving out. For many months leading up to that day, I came to the realization that I couldn't live that way anymore. I found the courage to set that boundary and even to this day he knows that if he drinks again, that's it. He found AA, I found Al-Anon and we are both working our program. We have been able to talk openly about the bad days and we both realized & admitted the things we both did wrong. For me, what I wanted most was for him to understand how I felt when he did bad things. It was hard but he listened and I am so grateful that he did. I count my blessings everyday that he is still here and he chooses not to drink. I will never know how hard it is for him not to drink but I like to think that we are both happier because he doesn't. Thank you for letting me share! 

Dancer, I am glad you have found comfort and hope in alanon. I have found that's just one benefit of the program -- hope, comfort, serenity, and the ability to learn how to face and cope with this disease, and the impact it has on loved one's. It is a horrible, decimating disease. The success one can find is of course subjective. It is in the eye of the beholder. It can be completely decimating to live with someone who is in complete and total denial -- about everything -- their disease, the impact it is having on others. It happened to me. I went through that. For many years. A few times, I just wished the pain, everything, would just go away. I saw no end in site, and just wanted it all to be over.

That said, success is a relative term. People find all different types and definitions of success. What does success mean to you, and it can certainly be different than one it means to me. There are countless scenarios. Looking at -- how to live with an alcoholic who is still drinking, well, that can be very different than living with an alcoholic who has found recovery. This has long been a topic of discussion at many meetings, many discussions, etc. In all my years in the program, and in all my experience, I've seen many successes, as you refer to it.

I've seen people, where there spouse has found recovery, and they were not happy after they found recover. And, that's for many reasons. Sounds strange. My good friend, wanted nothing more than to just have his wife stop drinking. He's been in the rooms 45 years. His wife hit rock bottom, found recovery 20 years ago, and he was shocked that he was still not happy. His wife's 'ism's had manifested. She became a different person. And he didn't like who she had become. So be it. Alcoholics find recovery -- sometimes for reasons other than themselves -- and their journey is just that, their journey. However, even when the alcoholic finds recovery, the 'ism's can still exist. On the other hand, I've seen people where the spouse finds recovery, and while life might be different, there is happiness. That's success.

What I find more common is when the alcoholic doesn't find recovery. What does a spouse do then? How do they feel then? Well, I've heard spouse's say even though the alcoholic is still drinking, they (the spouse) are still happy. For them, that's happy, that's success. Maybe they've figured out how to make life manageable, bearable, tolerable, or something along those lines? Maybe they've settled and have become happy by lowering their standards. Maybe they have been able to build some sort of life for themselves and have become somewhat immune to the alcoholic and their drinking. And, maybe some of them are truly happy. I think it's to each their own, case by case, and each person and situation is different. We hear in the opening of alanon meetings (face to face) that "you can find contentment, even happiness, whether the alcoholic is still drinking or not."

For me, while all of it was going on, the drinking, the byproduct from it -- I went completely unfulfilled for many years -- emotionally, spiritually, personally, mentally, you name it. I figured out how to get by, day by day. I figured out how to make it work. I figured out how to make life work while this was going on. The need having to do with intimacy, love, affection, and so on -- seeking it from another, an affair, or whatever you want to call it -- that was not possible for me. But those things weren't vital, critical, etc., during that period of time. I did find myself in a mode, in a place, where I stopped loving her as a wife, partner, but I still had compassion for her, and love for her, as a sick human being, who I once loved, who was in trouble and was emotionally bankrupt. Even at that point, I wasn't thinking divorce because that too for many reasons was not an option. Not at that point. My needs were not being met. Period. There was no fooling myself around that. My definition, my standards, for happy -- just kept getting lower and lower. At a certain point, I found recovery. That's when my world changed. That's when my life changed. At that point -- it was about my life. It had nothing to do with whether or not she was still drinking. 

I think when I was in a place where it had to do with her recovery -- then it wasn't about me. If I wanted the "marriage" regardless of what that meant, more than I wanted my happiness, then I was able to let the tail wag the dog. I was able to build a square peg...and have it not fit into the round hole. But I couldn't build the round peg. I would never be happy. That's just me.