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OMG, my daughter just sent me copies of emails that my husband has been sending to her over the past few nights, late at night. He is out of town because he works far away 5 days a week and is working through the weekend this weekend. He is sending her one line love notes. The first year we were married he made a pass at her one day that nearly destroyed everything. I stayed with him because he was remorseful and apologetic and it had never reoccured since then. There have been a couple of odd things, but nothing really I could put my finger on in 10 years. I guess I could possibly live with his drinking relapses, but this I cannot do. I always told myself that if he EVER did anything inappropriate with her again, I was done with him. So now this morning in the blink of an eye, my world has changed completely. I don't know what I am going to do. I have to find a good job somehow after being out of work for nearly 5 years. I will have to figure out where to live and deal with a second divorce. My God, ten years of my life. I probably could deal with just about anything, but this emotionally incestuous situation with my daughter is so horrifying, I cannot do this. Not to her and not to me. I am just devastated. What I fool I feel like, thinking that I could have a nice life here in my pretty little house. Working in the garden, painting, decorating the house, playing with my granddaughter. The house won't sell right now, we just refinanced it, and the money really isn't there for a divorce. I have to lay low and make some kind of a plan. I can barely think just now. I feel so ashamed to tell my family what has happened, that my husband is such a sleaze bag and they thought the world of him. Time for a good cry, it seems, as a first step.
wow minne, that is a real blow! I am really sorry that this has hit you. You sound completely devastated. My only ESH for you is that HP/God must know you are ready to deal with this or else he would not have dealt you this hand. You can sit down and say to HP: "what the heck is going on??!!! OK, you got me into this mess, now get me out of it NOW!!!" and send this stinking bunch of garbage right back into his court to deal with. This is what I do all the time: I say: "OK, you got me here, you must have a plan to get me out- keep me posted" and get on with whatever I am doing...I leave in HP's hands, hands much more capable than mine!!
Remember, this is about your H, not about you- in a way, you have nothing to do with any of this- you trusted, you believed, you operated in good faith...you kept your side of the street clean. I recommend that you hold your boundary, lay low, examine your options carefully and yes, talk to some trusted friends/family about this but hold firm in your boundary- this is clearly UNACCEPTABLE behavior. You may still love him but you may feel you cannot live under the same roof with him. I felt this way about my soon to be ex- I still love him but I cannot share a life with him or a home and I told him that and now its over. I could no longer live with abusive behaviors. I had to love myself more than him. I do now, I get that, its rough, very very rough but like I said, I tell HP all the time- OK, you got me here, its YOUR job to get me outta here...and leave it at that. So far so good, its hard and painful but ONE DAY at a time, I am making it through, thanks to this program.
My best thoughts are with you- like a lightning bolt, all is illuminated for you to see the truth. I know its painful but ITS THE TRUTH. And the truth WILL set us free- I do believe that- hugs and love in serenity, you are not alone, J.
Thank you Jean, because I do feel all alone. My husband just called me and acted just like nothing happened. It curdled my blood to hear how slick he is. "I love you" he cheerily says at the end of the call after lying about what he did last night. I appreciate you reminding me that I kept my side of the street clean, as you said. I did. I have been faithful, forgiving, supportive, done my best. Might not have been everything perfect, but it was the best I could do and I don't feel bad about any of it. Just about the fact that I should have left him the first year because of all the damage. I would have still had a job and been in a familiar place. Now it's even harder. And I didn't support my daughter the way I should have. She felt so abandoned. I don't feel my HP got me into this because my HP only wants peace and happiness for me. I have the responsibility for co-creating this mess with my so-called husband. But I will lean heavily on my HP for help to get back on my feet. I do not want to destroy my husband financially but I want my share of the retirement money and help to get myself independent. And then there are the 3 cats. I will not give them away so I need to fine a suitable place for us. Not easy. I cannot even cry just now. The tears are stuck in my throat. I'm just staggering around in shock. And my sister is here for a visit and I don't want to ruin her visit with my drama, so will have to pull myself together for at least 48 hours.
Morning, remember "Just for today I will live through this day only and not tackle all my problems at once. " When you decide what you are going to do, remember to do it on your terms and when you are ready. He is only going to deny or make light of it, or won't remember. There is a saying "slow motion gets you there faster" Take your time. You can't get all the answers at once. You are angry and of course you have a right to be, but think of yourself first and what would be good for you!!!! I wish you the best of the best. Keep coming back, we have all been the victims of an alcoholics bad judgement, but as I said before, we will be victors. Luv, Bettina
You know what your sister's well being is not as important as your own at the moment. Don't try to pretend that everything is okay if your world is falling apart. You only need to give your sister as much information as you feel comfortable with. Tell her that you are in a bad place emotionally but not able to tell her just yet what has happened. Her visit may be just what you need even though it seems bad timing at the moment. You did not create this problem your husband did. Sometimes we can't fix everything. Be supportive of your daughter but also mindful that you need help with this as well. Don't make any major decisions at the moment. Just take one day at a time. Sending you hugs. Luv Leo xx
My heart goes out to you my dear. You have a lot of decisions to make but they all don't have to be made today.
My ESH to you is to ask yourself what you would do if a total stranger had sent those emails. Then you have your answer. My son robbed my home and I filed charges and stuck to it because someone else asked me the same question "what would you do if it was a total stranger." We have to make them responsible for their actions. My son later thanked me for making him face what he had done.
HUGS
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Everything I have ever let go of has claw marks all over it.
Hello everyone, Thank you for your support. It helps me to read these emails and know that other people are not judging me and do understand. It's absolutely so true about One Day at a Time. So I don't know how it would be different if some stranger was telling my daughter he loved her and how he was infatuated by her incredible beauty via email at 11:00 at night. Probably I wouldn't think much of it. But in this case, it's her step-father who has previously hit on her so that makes it worse than if it was a stranger. I agree with you Mobirdie on the realistic consequences/tough love approach. It takes a lot of strength, but it's what needs to be done. I guess for today, I have made a decision that this "marriage" is over. How I am going to get out of it is for another day. I have not let on to my husband, who has called me 4 times today on one stupid excuse or another because he is checking to see if I have found out about his crapass behavior. There are some difficult laws in my state about divorces--the circumstances under which they will grant them and so on. I could possibly get a separation, with an agreement. I don't plan to ever get married again at this point. I am going to try to visit with my sister and distract myself for a couple of days. Then next week start working on decisions and plans. One thing I know is I have to pare down my stuff, so that process of cleaning out drawers and closets will be good, too. I have to take care of myself and not get too freaked out. Fortunately I only have to see him on the weekends because he travels the rest of the time. I like your saying on the bottom and your kitty picture. Ain't it the truth? I am like the hardest person to give the shake to. You don't even want to know how bad it had to get with husband #1 before I finally threw in the towel. I have to think that if my husband actually wanted to be married to me he wouldn't do something so stupid where it was likely I would find out about it. I think he is subconsciously trying to end the marriage by having me do it for him.
Your talking like your husband is a logical normal person, Don't try to make sense out of what and why your husband sent those emails, its like drunk dialing. Don't project. I am not making excuses for him, but when they are drunk, they have a false sense of power. If you confront him, he has to be sober. My husband doesnt even remember falling over the railing and landing on the floor and being brought to the ER. Is your husband drunk everyday. He could be having blackouts and doesnt even remember. One time my cousin was staying overnite, my husband was drunk and went in the wrong room and tried to get in bed, my cousin just told him, wrong room, please leave. He didn't even remember it. It doesnt excuse their behavior. Its not their fault they are alcoholics, but it is their responsibility to get sober. You might tell him what he did or your daughter should respond by email to him when he is sober and embarass him. I bet he will never send another email to her. One day at a time. Luv, Bettina
First I want to say that I am sorry you are going through this situation. It is terrible and horrifying to find this sort of thing out about someone you love. As a double winner, in both AA and Al-Anon for many years I wish to make a very strong statement, and hope it reaches those who need to hear it.
What you do from here is completely up to you. I would just strongly suggest that you get away from this person as soon as possible. Don't worry so much about the safety of your "stuff", as you worry about yourself and your daughter. Go to a domestic shelter, to family or friends, but go and do not return. Leave as though you are evacuating from a hurricane. Take what you need and can, but get out quickly.
Alcoholism does NOT breed incestous ideaologies, beliefs, or behaviors. Quite to the contrary, these things could breed alcoholism. When a person is this sick, how else are they able to live inside their own skin? They live in a world of self guilt, shame, fear, anxiety. It can also breed alcoholism in the life of the survivor of this sort of abuse, who has been violated and thus denied any true sense of self, traumaized, blamed, disbelieved, and unprotected from the perpetrator, ect.
Let's be careful to avoid labeling this persons alcoholism as a reason for what he does and doesn't do in such a case. Millions of alcoholics have never had or entertained incestuous thoughts, feelings or behaviors. This sort of sickness is outside the arena of alcoholism.
Based on the information I have been provided by literally 100's of childhood sexual abuse survivors over the past 10 years, a much greater number of abuses took place in the absince of the perpetrator being alcoholic, then do the number where alcoholism was present.
You have not indicated how old your daughter is. How old was she 10 years ago when this sort of behavior was first discovered? Has she been provided a resource to get help and professionally address how his advances has effected her life?
This sort of conduct cannot be kept as a family secret. It needs to be exposed, with caring family and friends, as well as the professional community. The family who is subjected to this sort of behavior needs to seek safety away from the offender.
There is two cases in court at the time of this writing, where a father/stepfather has murdered their daughters, and one where a daughter and mother were murdered by the perpetrator. The perps were afraid that they were about to be exposed. Alcoholism does not present itself as a issue in any of these cases.
Grooming a child for abuse, or Enticing a Minor is a crimal offense. Criminal charges don't have to wait until the action takes place, if there is enough evidence of intent.
A show of remorse and "I love him", sounds good, but in reality neither protect or provide security from future abuse.
John
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" And what did we gain? A new life, with purpose, meaning and constant progress, and all the contentment and fulfillment that comes from such growth."
You know many of us have been there in lots of respects.Lots of alcoholics have dual diagnosis. It sounds like your husband has a sex addiction which is bringing him down to his knees. Maybe he wants that who knows. Sex addicts are shame based, compulsive people. There are some interesting books about that by Patrick Carnes among other people if you want to look at it and get some clarity over what drives him to behave like that. Some men come undone by this, some women too. I have just seen a neighbor go under over his sex addiction. He's let his whole life go and there were lots of signs all over the place for the longest time. I've been noticing his behavior. Now he has a warrant out for his arrest. Seems like it was overnight but I think now its been coming for years.
The issue is that I think as codependents we will shoulda, coulda, woulda ourselves over this. Why didn't I see, why didn't I act, why didn't I leave. The truth is for me at least I left the alcoholic when I was ready to. He has his own dual diagnosis issues. People could say he drank/used to deal with whatever but for him there was a big choice in the matter. I could have, shoulda maybe would have left him years before but I was codependent and I felt compelled to stay as much as he felt compelled to use.
Now I am dealing with my codependence and that doesn't include beating myself up.
The A who I was with lied all the time. I've probably only found out about 5% of the lies. Lying was part of his disease. He was and still could be constantly monitoring how I was responding or over reacting (and in my case it was totally breaking down) to his behavior. When I stopped over reacting and started working a program things changed for me.
Making a plan be is tough going, that is the plan where you work out what you need to go, how you will go, what it will take to go and more. Like you I had pets involved. It isn't easy moving with a pet. I think about my pets a lot. In fact I'd say for a long long time I absolutely craved for someone to come along and rescue me and my pets thank god I have not acted on it. I have had to not go meet certain people because I knew if they offered I would have moved in with them right away to enact a rescue. I was that good at giving my life away to others. One day at a time I work on not doing that anymore because I know where it leads me to total devastation!
After a long while of looking at how destructive the A/dual diagnosis problem person is,we start being willing to look at ourselves and change. We start looking at how did we get in this position. I was always always way way way more committed to the relationship than the A was. He loved that and counted on it. I let him. I had no consequences for his behavior beyond having a melt down and being upset. There were no long term consequences. I was incredibly dependent on him in every way. He took absolute advantage of that.
These days I am moving myself to a new more independent place, not because I want to particularly. I am doing it because I really can't do this again, start over with nothing. I can't find myself homeless again. I can't find myself struggling to scrape by again.
I put a tremendous amount of effort, money, goods into our relationship. He decimated it with his alcoholism. I have to look at though when I had all the signs racing, flashing at me in full neon glory I kept on being committed, kept on giving, kept on picking him up. I felt I had no choice but I chose to keep on. I let him have all the power day in day out.
Whatever you do, it is a long hard grind to leave, you will have this board. This is a phenomenal non judgmental place.
Hi John, Thanks for your reply. I have been out of town for a couple of days. My daughter (and I should have said this in the first place) was 20 when the first incident occured. She is 30 now, so she wasn't a minor for either thing. However, that makes it less a case of having to care for her physically, but it doesn't erase the emotional devastation. I am horrified that he has done this again to her and to me. I will reread that last two responses as I just walked in the door, but wanted to let you know a little bit more that I didn't include in the other posts. Thank you so much for your concern and help.
