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.
Really struggling today - having a hard time setting and enforcing boundaries and it's got me thinking of taking some sort of action to just get away from the chaos and get what's left of my family put back together. This is fairly long as I need to ramble and get it off my chest, so thanks in advance for bearing with me.
My AH of 24 years and I were invited to a friend's 50th birthday party - no sweat, these are really nice people and I wanted to go. The down side is by going (and driving), I continued my pattern of enabling my A to get totally trashed - stumbling, falling down, self-righteously shit-faced. Which made our drive home fairly unpleasant.
All of my sins of the past were trotted out before me and our 8-year-old son who was with us, despite my pleasant, calm requests to not discuss those topics at the time. Yuck. Ironic how by refusing to get drawn into the defensiveness, yelling and arguing I still had to listen to his garbage.
Of course, after stating calmly that I didn't need to hear this stuff and that I would be glad to drop him off at the house and take myself and our son to a hotel for the night, he then brings out the threats of exposing all of his "evidence" against me and "taking me to the cleaners", etc... Bear in mind I have said and done nothing about leaving or kicking him out at this point, although the thought is staying with me more and more frequently lately. I guess he's seeing my change my attitudes and feels threatened by it.
Whatever. The more he tried to escalate, the more I tried to detach from it, so I guess that is progress for me. It still feels pretty crappy though.
So anyway, we get home, get our son to bed, he still wants to get in my face and demand answers from me, wants to know if I want him to care for me, why I behaved the way I did umpteen years ago, blah blah blah. He ends up waking our son, who by this time is so tired (it's nearly 1am at this point) and just wants to go to sleep. So I totally disengaged and relocated to another bedroom with my kid and stayed with him through the night.
In the meantime, my oldest son comes in (he just turned 18) and evidently gets a load of garbage spewed on him. He has packed up a few things and informed me that he will be staying with one of his friends for the next 3 days - until his dad does something about his problem. Ok - now that is *clearly* trying to force a solution - I know it won't work, but my teen is hurting and doesn't understand this yet. He also informed me that my AH has an ounce of pot in his studio. Lovely.
So now I'm really torn. I hate confrontation - I guess that's after years of being on the wrong end of them, but I want my kid to come back. I know in my heart that trotting out our older son's defection and confronting him about the pot will not make a difference. It will only give him more ammunition against me and his perception that I'm not a fit parent. I told him last night that I thought he needed to get some help and that I *knew* I needed help. All that got me was being accused of being a homosexual. Nice. Small wonder I don't want any intimacy - not when there's such a high price attached to it.
I'm also worried that my older son will do something regarding the pot - making an already difficult situation worse. My fear is that he'll call the police and I'll end up losing my youngest son because of it. So now what?
I'm way better with the written word than with the spoken one and am considering writing a letter to my AH so that I can A) say what i need to without being interrupted, B) maybe alert him to the potential that his safe little world is about to crumble and C) get this crap documented on paper. I'm also considering calling a friend of his who has been in recovery in AA for a number of years and asking him for his suggestion on the situation.
I could really use your ESH, MIP family - thanks for listening.
(((BG))) I'm sorry for your situation. I don't know what to say since I haven't been through this before. But just remember to put yourself and your children first. Whenever I'm in a situation I always ask my HP for advice and surrender the situation. I try to do what's best for me I don't have kids yet so I don't need to think about them. Good luck!
Though I don't have kids I can appreciate where you are coming from. I was recently down the road you are. The one al anon tool that got me through trying to decide whether or not to leave was the "A Speaks to Their Family". It says don't make threats and once a decision is made to stick to it and it also says that the A loses respect for those that they can fool too easily. IMHO, I was leaving for my own security, health and survival. I realized the disease had progressed past the 'quit or I'll leave' stage. I knew myself well enough that I could not adequately detach and still live there, and had I stayed I'd only be forcing solutions. I told ABF I was leaving after I secured a place to live so that it eliminated my needing to use threats. For me the "I am" in I am leaving was a lot more empowering than the "I will" in I will leave you if you don't get help. Remember whether you stay or go you are doing it for yourself and your own recovery. Looking back on the situation we had a lot of confrontations before I left and in retrospect though it was helpful to get things off my chest, it had little to do with helping my recovery. I sort of got in this cycle of blaming him and not taking care of my side of the street. Going to f2f meetings, using the literature and journaling (and talking to friends) slowly eliminated my need for confrontation. As for the pot situation, get some legal advice if you can afford to do so. My thoughts are with you.
__________________
Curlee
Just for today I will not harbor unhealthy thoughts.
Sometimes it is more difficult with a long term relationship. We tend to go in cyles. Can you talk to him about more serious things when he is sober and not in the heat of the moment? The disease is progressive and it sounds like your AH is escalating. Protect yourself and your children. I have been separated from my AHSober (married for over 30 years) and we get into these circular arguments. He takes my inventory over and over and I credit this to the disease. I try not to internalize it.
Thanks for your responses. I can't recall the last time he was sober - makes it kind of difficult to have a serious, objective conversation. If he's awake, he's drinking.
Wow- same life, different house. My addict H (pot is his 1 drug of choice)
is driving me nuts too. We have been married 18 years and have a 16 year old son and a 12 year old daughter. Son pretty much ignores dad (works around him) my daughter seems to be trying to keep us together. It is so sad and I feel bad for them being in the midst of all this chaos that we adults created.
My boundaries now are these. The relationship I have with my AH is a business one only. I talk to him in regards to management of the household and kids-- that is it. there is no physical relationship (because he has cheated for the last time on my watch) and I don't want to hear about his problems (because he has created 90% of mine). I don't expect these boundaries to change him AT ALL. They are there to protect me and keep me sane. I can change them if I want to as well. I'll end the marriage when the time is right.If I have learned anything, its that I can't change anything but myself.
take care-
Jeanne
-- Edited by gknee at 00:09, 2008-11-10
__________________
In the long run the pessimist may be proved right, but the optimist has a better time on the trip.- Daniel L. Reardon
First of all BG, I just HAVE to say that your post is incredibly articulate and well written indicating to me that you really do have yourself together and are coming from a reasonable place. Nice work on that!
There is NEVER any point in engaging a verbally abusive drunk/stoned person. You don't like confrontation?! Who would when you are being verbally addressed in such a manner?! I can so relate to the experience that you describe. My ex AH also had serious mental illness issues and self medicated. Is this a possibility in your situation as well? Because the constant run-on, rambling, accusing, mean-spirited contact that you describe could be an indication of that, which the alcohol or the pot will simply exacerbate.
My ESH when I was in your situation for a number of years was to simply leave. I could no longer live that way anymore. I really needed some peace in my home, inside the four walls of my living space so I left. And I never went back. I could no longer tolerate the complaining, the demands, the bitter dissatisfaction, the accusations. I began to believe that I deserved a life better than that. I cared more about myself than I did him. Also, I knew that I had the potential to be better, to get better and I just knew in my heart of heart that I needed peace and quiet around me. At one point, he began to physically abuse me after years of verbal, psychological and emotional abuse. I tried to defend myself and gave him a fat lip. That was when I left and I never looked back.
I really wish you the best. Please think about the peace that you may need and that your kids obviously need. Hugs, J.
Coming from an abusive A marriage all I can say is I understand how you feel. Just make sure that you put you and your children and their stability first.....Hang in there and God Bless
__________________
Put down the magnifying glass and pick up the mirror!
The ounce of pot turned out to be a false alarm. My teen is still staying with his friend, but is also still going to work and school as scheduled. My AH hasn't had a drink in 2 days (lol, of course I would know that!). We haven't really spoken much in detail about the situation. All I said was that he (AH) was spouting out some pretty funky stuff Sat. night and our teen decided he'd had enough. I also brought up the perception about the pot being in the house. That was on Sunday evening.
Yesterday my AH asked if our son was going to move in with his friend. I said I didn't know and I didn't think he had a plan either. So we've been literally going on one day at a time with a somewhat tense truce in our household.
My heart's been breaking all week, but thanks to your support and ESH I've been able to get through it. I'm so grateful to all of you out there.
I'm not going to get my hopes up about his lack of drinking over the past 2 days - I'll believe in his sincerity when he actually does something about his recovery. Until then, I will continue to mind my own business and practice detachment.
Speaking of detachment, HP at work here - I retrieved my Courage To Change book from my office on Monday. I haven't had it available to me in quite a while, so when I brought it home I went to all of the pages I had marked with those little Post-It thingies. The topic of every page was - you guessed it - detachment!
