The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
Can anyone tell me how many of you have had your husband/wife/Sig other find soberity in AA, worked the program and have had stayed together?
I see so many in AA who are hooked up with other recovering A's I just wonder whats the norm, what are the chances of "relationship survival" once the alcoholic finds recovery. I just wonder sometimes if they think they are too good for us now.
If this is just a question for you, that is fine. However what ever is HERE is confidential. As much as it can be.
I believe an A does not think they are better, ever. They have the lowest self esteem and guilt ridden issues I have ever known in any disease.
If they are with another A, I would say it is more because of a common understanding of their disease. Also I believe A's go with another A or someone who may not have a high integrity, because they do not have to please them. They don't feel any responsibility towards them, they are not judged by them.
I have seen it a zillion times. I know my A is with the person he is becuz she has NO pride at all. His disease is using her. He does not care about her at all.
I know he is in love with me, but with true love, there is responsibility. He had to work to be with me,had to be honest, had to be a person of high values and morality.
His disease hates me. It cannot hide from me. The disease met its match with a person who lives alanon.
well some people have two sides of low self esteem for some people there is an incredible grandiosity in there which isnt' about they necessarily think they are better than anyone.
Some people do get sobriety. Some AA marriages work, some don't. I do believe if someone is pursuing sobriety and working on their issues they get better. If they don't they end up in some kind of institution eventually. For some the path is quick some the path is slow.
For me the issue is if I am obsessed with the A I am not living my life. I have to say especially because he really hurt me some days its hard to give up the obsession. I do not contact the A at all anymore. I have no need to. At one time I would not have believed that was possible, now it is.
is my life easy, far from it, it is incredibly hard. At the same time I have a life which I didn't have for a long long long time.
I like what Maresie said about if we're obsessing about our A, then we're not living our life. (Thanks, Maresie...I think that one was for me today..)
If it makes any sense, the A's I have known in my life suffer both from the lowest self esteem, and an underlying attitude of grandiosity. My A thinks most of the world is full of idiots. whatever......
Several years ago my A married another A. I don't remember well, but it could have stemmed from a treatment romance. ANYWAY - they got married and white-knuckled it together for 6 or so years. Once she tumbled off the wagon, he fell immediately afterwards. He told me later that it was dumb to pin all of his sobriety on another person (and they did that to each other). But he also told me that they understood each other. They lived the same story, ya know? Just sounds dangerous to me, though.
I do know that in his sober times (with me), when he had a bad day or something, he was always quick to tell me, "You just don't understand. You couldn't." I suppose that statement covered lots of territory actually. One was to keep me at arm's length and out of his business; two was to let me know that I'm not a "real" program person (like AA'ers); and three was probably to make me feel a little bad (and it worked) that I couldn't help (i.e. "fix") him. So that statement was always sure to stir me up. My button.
My step-dad and my mom enjoyed 25 years of marriage (until my mother's death). He was sober for the last 20 of those years. They had a very good marriage - and were very supportive of each other - and each other's programs. It can work - and it does in countless cases.
But again......if the focus is on the A....we truly aren't living the life that was given to us by HP to LIVE.
Hasn't worked out for me personally; my soon-to-be-ex AH is drinking again. But my older brother has been sober for just about 20 years and happily married to the same woman since 1986.
Well...... My AH has been recovering since Aug. 2007. I realize that he has just begun.
I can say with confidence that My recovering AH does not think he is too good for me now that he is sober. If anything, I think there is still a part of him that feels inferior. I hope as he works his program, his self-concept will gradually change.
My husband and I are separated, but we do see each other on the weekends and really enjoy our time together. We are taking it slowly, getting counseling, talking a lot about our relationship, and all that before we make the decision to try again under the same roof. I think we have a good chance if we decide to stay married. We have been married for 34 years.
So there! Stormie painted part of the picture that can lead to a working marriage. Lots of marriages under the pressure of alcoholism breakup and go away just like alot of other stuff too...jobs, family, finances etc. That is what alcoholism does disolves things, lots of things. By the time we try to get help or they try to get help or either one or both come to our senses that we just don't like the situation we also can admit that we hate our spouse or very insignificant (now) other regardless of whether they are alcoholic or not and/or just really suffering from ADD. They are admitting that they just hate us and we are to blame for everything and we're sooooo screwed up. Human nature and alcoholism what a nasty mix!!!
So they or we get into program and while in program we get together with others who are more like us in our programs and more to our liking and we find more things in common. We speak the same language Alaneese or AAology and we get together and we just admire the heck out of each other and can't help making a comparison with whom we are face to face with smiling and laughing and being so agreeable and the "______" back at home. The language gets more personal, patronizing and of course there are those program hugs and "pecks" (they are kisses dammit...KISSES!! I'm not stoooopid I thought.) And then of course the heat rises...it always does and he or she or me is not coming home cause I've made a desextion...I mean decision!! Marriage goes into the crapper, memory of the family, wife and kids and the bills and the address and the like is in long term blackout and are no longer a responsibility and some time in the future, if there is such a thing whatever will happen and I can take care of it then. After all program is saying we can live only one day at a time right? and this new thrill of mine takes all 24 hours. (by the way the second and third marriages also usually end up in the crapper. A Geographical fix hardly ever works and doesn't need to be going to another county, state, district or country. A Geographical could mean and does at times mean another bedroom. Sex without resistance is a pretty heady high! Remember when you first got together? What was it like then?
That isn't 1000% the whole picture. It's more than 100% mine including getting solicited (Twice in one night after a meeting by two different members) by females not my wife who was soliciting and getting solicited in AA herself. (Do I hear merry-go-round music?) I didn't take either of them up on the solicitation and didn't say thanks. I said something like "no thanks that is what I am coming from right now and need a break from it." They both had a pretty good sales pitch and I wasn't buying...I was too tired of it all THANK GOD. After a period of time separated from the alcoholic and coming back to meetings regularly it started to happen and what I shared above became my experience. I couldn't having a lasting relationship if my life was wagered on it.
Alcoholism and addiction is not about lasting relationships until both parties first start a relationship with HP (my opinion based upon 29 years of study in Al-Anon) then themselves and then others. HP is the spouse of all spouses; the most unconditionally loving entity known to man or woman and I need to know what that kind of love is because I cannot give away what I don't have. I learned to be loved unconditionally building that relationship and letting it lead me to sanity which comes about the time I start learning to love myself and keep myself out of harms way from the disease. After steps 4 thru 9 I have arrived at learning to love myself unconditionally and also to forgive. I am gonna need that forgive thing in the next relationship if there is gonna be one. I continue the relatlionship with myself and HP in steps 10 and 11 and then step 12 says I can leave and carry the message. Not the message I was carrying before the one about thrill, heat, patronization and that other thing but the one that says I love you unconditionally and no I don't want sex right now cause it may not be healthy. My experience.
I have had more broken relationships which included 4 engagements 3 marriages (the 3 is still going...with INDIVIDUAL programs) and more "other" category than I care to be comfortable with. The most important relationship regardless and inspite of the others is the one I have first with my HP. Then I gotta be right with me cause if I ain't my partner, spouse, significant other or whoever is in a relationship with a crazy and self righteous person and then lastly I have got to pick my partner using a different set of lenses and not the lenses I use to use. I end up doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results and repeating the mantra; "What the hell did I do wrong this time."
Sooooo That is only more paint from my brush of experience somewhere within the same frame that Stormies painting is. The paint will not run or fade because it is the truth as I experienced it. Might be somewhat of an answer maybe not. Hope it helps.
AH and I have stayed together. He has long bouts of sobriety but has also relapsed. He even labels himself as a chronic relapser. I find the more I work my program, the easier it is on both of us when he relapses. I can find my serenity. I have to stay out of his recovery. Only he can do it. But the calmer I am, the more the lines of communication stay open, the stronger we become. I think it depends on the couple and what they are going through too. AH and I knew each other in college when believe it or not he didn't drink! We have a long history together, so we remember what it was like when he didn't drink. I think when couples get together and they've only known each other while one is drinking the dynamic is different. I'm not saying it can't work. But I remember talking to his sponsor and he told me that when the addict gets sober he/she may decide that the person is no longer right for them. But I absolutely believe it's possible for a relationship to work out. Like everything, it takes 2. The dynamics of a sober relationship vs. an active one are very different. We have to be willing to change along with our As. Hope this helps. Love and blessings to you and your family.
Live strong, Karilynn & Pipers Kitty
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It's your life. Take no prisoners. You will have it your way.
For my circumstances..... my ex-wife-A is currently over 5 years sober, but our marriage didn't make it, and we are divorced. I think we can chalk it up to "too much water under the bridge", and too much damage done during the active drinking years.
All that being said, I still look at this as a "success story", of sorts, as my kids now have a sober mother, and we share them on a one week on, one week off basis. I almost couldn't have imagined this only a few short years ago.
T
p.s. my ex has not had any relationship since, as she is totally focussing on her own recovery. I don't think she has any arrogance where she thinks she is "better than me", but still harbors bitterness over the fact that I wasn't able to stick around to "watch the miracle happen".
-- Edited by canadianguy at 13:24, 2008-02-12
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"He is either gonna drink, or he won't.... what are YOU gonna do?"
"What you think of me is none of my business"
"If you knew the answer to what you are worrying about, would it REALLY change anything?"
My SAH has 5 months sobriety, but we each have almost 2 yrs in our respective programs. So far things are working out for us. We are separated and will remain so for a few months yet, probably. Recovery takes a lot of work and honesty is key, with ourselves and each other. I have come to realize recently that for us, we each have to have a good strong program that gives us a foundation to build a collaborative family program. This is a new realization for me so I hope it makes sense.
The number one issue for us was learning to give each other space, to cut each other some slack, to allow mistakes and blunders not to go unnoticed, but to be accepted as human frailties. We had plenty of resentment to work through. That part was and sometimes still is hard. I personally had to work hard to weed out all my unreasonable expectations. It is so easy to justify them, but I had to learn to check my expectations with reality, not my fantasy of how things "should" be.
I have hope for our future. I have no desire to be divorced from my husband. He is a good man, with a terrible disease. If for some reason he chooses not to work his program, he could force me to make that decision and I would, but as long as we are both still working at it, I think we can make it.
Anyway that's my experience.
In recovery,
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~Jen~
"When you come to the edge of all you know you must believe in one of two things... there will be earth on which to stand or you will be given wings." ~Unknown
