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My husband of 12 years is a drug addict & sex addict. We have two children. He has been in rehab for the last 6 months. He relapsed in January with drugs and the other woman. He went into a 6 wk inpatient rehab and was released a couple of weeks ago. His mother has been very sick so he spent a week with her when he was released. He is suppose to enter a halfway house tomorrow but keeps putting it off because he has continuing education courses to finish in order to renew his professional license.
While in rehab, he called everyday, if not 5 to 10 times. Spoke with our kids every night to see how they are & to tell them goodnight. He has begged me not to go forward with the divorce so that we try to work on our marriage. We have been seperated for a while. He was living at our marital home with his girlfriend before he went into rehab. Let me say, she was living in my home off & on because he was seeing other women all the time. While he was in rehab, I had to maintain the home, the bills & feed the animals everyday.
He came home late friday night and came to my house. The next day we all went to our marital home. As soon as we arrived, he told me he was going to meet the other women because he needed to get some of his things back and that he needed closure. Our kids had not seen him in 2 months and was wanting to do so many things with him. They wanted to ride horses, go fishing in the pond, anything to spend time with him. He left anyway.
The other woman is married to someone else. She has been very active in drugs also. He once told me it was the best sex he had ever had. She also had two children from previous marriages. She lost custody of the youngest and her oldest died at a young age due to drugs. The reason I give this information is because I don't ever want this person around my children.
When he left saturday to meet her, he turned his phone off and did not take any calls until the next morning. His sister called him the next morning and he told her that he had not relapsed and that it was over with the other woman that she had gone back to her husband.
The only contact that I have had is been very brief. Normally, he would call the kids to say goodnight or at least check in. His behavior is the same as before we seperated. He knows if I divorce him, that he will lose our farm & he will have no place to live. He has drained all of our assets except the farm.
I believe that he has moved her back into our home with him and is trying to figure out a way not lose the farm after I have busted my ass trying to manage two places while he was in rehab. What a fool I am.
I honestly thought that we could somehow rebuild a life together with our children. I'm really hurt because I actually thought that he was trying to recover. He hasn't been to any meetings or called his sponser. It was like someone switched the light off again.
About the only thing I can tell you is that you are no fool. You are much stronger than you think you are.
Obviously, without you, you and your children would not still have your farm. You can be very proud of your efforts to hold things together for your children in giving them a place they love with all the animals,etc. This will be good memories of their childhood.
Keep coming back to this message board. It has helped me tremendously.
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Clara
------------------------------------ What don't kill you, makes you stronger!!!
Well you sure are at the right place... Thanks for your share... You reminded me of what my Afather LOST along with his life, to alcohol...
We also had a HUGE farm that i have Many Beautiful memory's of ... And it was all lost because my Afather/drug addict/womenizer/slash slash slash... I could go on and on... He sounds ALOT like your AH, I know with my mother, she was lucky enough to have 6 brothers that moved in and took over, when she wasn't strong enough...We moved in with one of my Uncles when he infact seen marks on my mothers neck from my father... Yes My memory's of our Farm life were beautiful... Only because MY STRONG mother, hid 95% of the craziness from us kids... I remember some, but for the most part, I remember the beauty of my life then... I was 9 when they split... He of course BEGGED my mother to return his family to Our home, but within the FIRST Week, he done had my Step mom moved in and mom was forgotten unless there was something HE NEEDED from her... Us Kids were Forgotten as well... It wasn't easy, but we made it, thru a TON of struggles, and down falls, and pretty much ALL 3 of us children have fought the battle of alcohol... ME Being the only one that controls it in my life...
All I can add is that you HAVE TOO put Your Needs and the Needs of your Children before Anything else... When my father finally lost the farm (100+ acres) due to his drug addiction, and alcohol problem, my heart was CRUSHED, as was my mothers, and siblings... But we survived, we pulled thru...As will you...
You got the wind knocked out of your sails is all... Your get your wind back... F2F meetings are the BEST thing ever, this board is also a wonderful guide... Put Yourself back on the pedal stool, and let your AH find his own HP... That is his work to do, and if you have to move forward in life with out him, then hold your head up high and know that you are doing what you have to , to protect your children and yourself... For you are Worth it!!! As are they!!!
Take what you like and leave the rest... Love & Prayers Jozie
OMG! I am so sorry you are going thru this. That is huge, awful, rotten stuff. You are no fool. You are a good person with a beautiful heart. There is no shame in loving an alcoholic/ sex addict. I know, I was married to one also. He also had a host of mental illnesses. Not fun stuff.
Now, your H is behaving horribly. He is not being a husband or a father. He is being an addict. He is being selfish and cruel and all the other things that addicts are when they are not recovering. It hurts like nothing in this world I know, but what do YOU want? Besides a loving partner, besides the other women dropping off the face of the earth, besides the dream of how your life was going to be.....what do YOU want?
You, not you and him, not your kids, not your extended family or the neighbors or the church or us here on this board...what do YOU want? Once I started to really figure out what I wanted, above the pain and anger, I was able to start moving towards that. It isn't easy and it is taken me a long time, but I feel so much better, my kids are better. My home is calm and it is mine.
I have a very good friend who chooses to stay. She is happy, it was her choice to stay and that makes her happy. She isn't forced to stay or tricked or manipulated, she lives in reality that she is married to an addict but she made the decision to stay. Works for her, for now. That may change someday.
Get yourself to a meeting if you haven't already. And start really thinking about what you want and how you can get it.
I am so sorry you are going through this. Your post has triggered so much anger in me. I relate to wanting to believe the words that come out the mouth of YOUR HUSBAND. This is the way it SHOULD be.
Then it was suggested to me, to stop listening to his words and watch his actions instead.
Well, his actions spoke VOLUMES. And then, I knew what I needed to do. I simply could no longer live with someone who was not trustworthy. Him saying one thing and doing another was making me insane. The marriage was taking a terrible toll on my health. With the support of this fellowship, I did what I believed I could never do, I filed for divorce.
I have learned that it is my HP's will for me to be happy. My suggestion is, that you move in a direction that **FEELS** better to you.
(((((hugs)))))
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The prayer isn't for Higher Power to change our lives, but rather to change us.
Pretty tough stuff to deal with. In Getting them Sober Toby Rice Drew has a lot of advice and help for when an alcoholic gets out of rehab. Do you have the series, invest in it there is incredible wisdom in there!
Of course many many alcoholics have tremendously chaotic difficult lives. For me now I think personally it is incredilby boring to watch but for a long long time it was my entire life. Of course it is absolutely devastating to be around someone who is behaving like this. We take it all so personally and feel they are slippijg and slidng to punish us. If only they cared, clealry they are lost in their disease and responsiblity, empathy and other noble traits seem to go out the window when that's in play. .
I've been left by an alcoholic with a huge mess I cna relate for a long time my whoel life simmered around what he did to me! . There is a ray of light after a while the sense of being stuck in an awful situation changes to a life full of hope and care and the companionship of those in al anon. Please lean on the program really hard. Go to the chat room here, go to meetings. Get into the program. Stop asking his family about him, no one knows the truth anyway. Alcoholics often spin a huge number of lies. When I am around active alcoholics now I just see huge yawning holes of need, despair and chaos. I once fond that increidbly hooking now I find it really boring and I am no longer "hooked" right in. I have compassion for their disease but no longer am with them in their disease. There is a way to get to a place where what your soon to be ex husband does is not the be al land end all of your existence. Clearly he doesn't want recovery at this time.
Certainly there is a huge huge mess after a long relationshop with an alcoholic, no doubt about that. Certainly the active alcoholic gives double messages al lthe time.
I no longer try to work out what doesn't make sense. I no longer spend hours, days, weeks, months, years wondering why. I just embrace they are ill and acting like ill people do. I also no longer put my entire life in their hands.
You have tremendous difficult really incredible responsibilities being effectively a single parent to these children, it sounds like a really difficult divorce proposition.
I'm so sorry for your heartbreaking situation. I can see by your post that you are no fool, I would say you are a very brave and courageous woman. You have kept going, and managed to provide a stable family life for your children, through all of the difficult times and without the help of your AH. You will be able to carry on and find happiness for yourself.
Try and find an Al-Anon meeting as soon as you can. There you will find great help and support from others who have been where you are now. I know pain and heartbreak brought you here, but it is here that you will find the way to happiness. Keep posting and keep coming back, your Worth It
I just wanted to say thank you all for all the kind words of advice and encouragement. It truly means alot. I have been to several f2f meetings and they are very helpful it is just hard to make them because they are at 8 at night and if I don't stick to a tight nighttime routine with my kids, I can't get them up 4 school. That is how I found this support board. I come here every morning after I drop the kids at school. This is such a wonderful group of people, it does give everyone hope and strength to take a day at a time.
Don't take on the shame. That is all I can say: SAY NO to the shame. I hear it loud and clear at the end of your post. YOU have nothing to be ashamed of.
Keep 100% of your focus on you and your kids. Hang in there, we are all here loving you no matter what. hugs, J.
