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Hello all - I have been searching the internet and just had the idea to search for a web forum for Al-Anon folks and in just reading 2 or 3 threads, i know i am in the right place.
I have been with my fiance for 4 1/2 years. We have been engaged for 4 months. His drinking problem never became apparent to me until about a year ago. He doesn't drink every day but when he does, he makes up for the days he doesnt. Things got tough for us every holiday (which has managed to be ruined by his drinking) but especially New Years when he drank so much he became angry/violent and hit me.
If you would have asked me 5 years ago, what i would do if a man hit me, the answer would have been plain as day. I feel so bamboozeled. Had i known that his drinking would lead us to this, I would have never started a relationship with this guy. When he sobered up he promised me he would never drink again. That lasted 2 weeks.
Then he told me he would control himself. That lasted 2 months. Last weekend at our friend's engagement party he drank so much and made such a fool of himself in front of everyone. When i told him he needed to stop, he told me i wasn't his mother (even though when he was sober he told me i could tell him to stop at anytime). He then proceeded to get in his car and drive to see his friends.
I felt so powerless over him and being scared for him i followed. He swerved all over the road, made it to his friends and then made another big scene, breaking beer bottles (that he HAD to stop and get for his friends)breaking his windshield with his fist and pretty much sending me and my family to hell because "we look down on him".
This week it dawned on me that there is no way i can plan a future with this man, let alone let my parents spend $20,000 on a wedding that is doomed for failure.
I went to a therapist and i know that i can't change him (God knows i wish i could) but really let him know he has a choice and i can either accept it or walk away. He hates ultimatums (imagine that!) but i gave him... either he stops drinking completely and seeks help or he loses me.
Part of me tries to rationalize it by asking him if he loves me and if he thinks there is someone else out there that can treat him better than me or love him more than me. He doesn't think there is - so then why would anyone want to risk that ?
He heard my ultimatum and then denies having a problem only to try bargaining with me - he will only drink when im not around or when he goes on vacation ? Which to me its a non negotiable factor.
We are supposed to meet tomorrow although i know his stance isn't going to change. Inside i keep thinking where did we go wrong, how did this happen to me ? I also feel like maybe we should try one therapy session together just to see if there is hope, although he is hesitant because "I am just going to bash him".
I am trying to see if i can go to an Al-Anon meeting tonight but any help/advice would be GREATLY appreciated.
This is a progressive family disease. That means it effects the whole family & it will continue to get progressively worse. If he hit you once, he will do it again. I am sorry this has happened to you but thankfully, it is before you have gotten married. When I got married, my exAH changed over night. We lived together for a year & half & he was very sweet & soft spoken... always wrote me love notes, a few a month.
The second day of our honeymoon was the first time he ever yelled at me and previosuly he hadn't even raised his voice. I was a deer in the head lights, I was numb & shocked - I didnt react at all. Which was dumb - I should have set boundaries or gotten to a different hotel -- taken space immediately to show him he cant treat me like that. But I stayed & felt victimized. Each year it got worse, like plateaus. The last & fourth year of my marriage, he was telling me how to kill myself - that was the beginning of the end... a few months later, I spontaneously left him on a vacation. I left a 17 year career, friends, all of my belongings behind and never saw him again. When I left he threatened to kill me, so I immediately called the police where I was in Houston & in his county in PA. They told me they would be following him from then on. Then about six years later I did have to speak to some detectives about his drug use, as they were trying to catch this doctor he had been using. I never found out what happened. Would have been nice to be informed, I guess he never got into trouble, idk.
That's wonderful ur getting to a meeting tonight. We have a chat room here, if you'd like to chat in the meantime.
Hope you take the program to heart - it has allowed me to cope & have a life and learn to love me & not center my life around another person. I'm ACoA (adult child of addict/alcoholic) and had many codependnet issues to face. It all starts with you being honest with you. Welcome.
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Light, Love, Peace, Blessings & Healing to Us All. God's Will Be Done. Amen.
Thank you kitty - it is extremely hard because i do love him more than i love myself. I don't know how or when but i lost my self esteem and respect.
How did you find the courage to just get up and walk away ?
To make matters worse he is the child of a severe alcoholic. He always complains to me about the hell she put him through, yet can't see what he puts me through.
That's sort of a long story -- I'm in the chat room... come on in!
Get the book, 12 steps for adult children it's $11 new at any bookstore. That really helped me decipher my mixed up & codependent feelings. I of course, had issues that needed to be worked on & out. Many I am still coping with, interpersonally & intrapersonally.
-- Edited by kitty on Friday 29th of May 2009 09:53:11 AM
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Light, Love, Peace, Blessings & Healing to Us All. God's Will Be Done. Amen.
Welcome to MIP Mami... I think you'll find tons of great support here, and you'll be pleased that you have found a place to share.... Your story is VERY typical of alcoholic behavior, in that many (most?) A's, when they are active, try to figure out the bare minimum that they can do, in order to continue in their addiction.... He may (or may not) know that he has a serious problem, but he's most likely at a point that he is still more scared of sobriety, than he is of life as an alcoholic... I would encourage you to get your hands on the book "Getting Them Sober", volume one, by Toby Rice Drews.... it is a wonderful help for soooo many questions
Take care, and keep coming back
T
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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?"
Abuse is never ever okay. My EXAH was abusive physically and emotionally. Leaving him was one of the best things I ever did in my life. Unfortuately I continued to pick unhealthy men for relationships, but always rationalized they were different than him.
Thank God I finally hit a bottom, started the real work on me, and now know I deserve to be loved, respected, and honored, not battered.
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"If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience." - Woodrow Wilson
Abuse is never ever okay. My EXAH was abusive physically and emotionally. Leaving him was one of the best things I ever did in my life. Unfortuately I continued to pick unhealthy men for relationships, but always rationalized they were different than him.
Thank God I finally hit a bottom, started the real work on me, and now know I deserve to be loved, respected, and honored, not battered.
Ohhhh I could NOT have said it better than this post!!!!! AMEN AMEN AMEN......I kept up my sick choices until I drug myself into recovery and found out WHY my patterns of picking bad guys was so bad...It went back to my unresolved family of origin issues.....I did not know any better and had ZERO self esteem ....NOW...You BET!!!!! What tenderheart says here "and now know I deserve to be loved, respected, and honored, not battered.".......
I owe you an apology on my first response to your thread....I got so triggered, I was *telling* you to "get the 'H' outta there".....I had no right to *tell* you anything....I was triggering from some of my hell w/ male parent, 1st AH and eldist brother being violent against me and I kinda got worried for you, reading your post.....
I should not have *told* you to do anything...Its ESH in the recovery......
I got "pm'd" about it, after they deleted my post and I had THINK about "what were they talking about".....I thought about it , here, at home and hadn't even REALIZED that I had done that.....Sorry, no harm intended!!!! I guess I still have trigger stuff to work on, re: violence and other stuff.....
Good to see you arrived here for support. A part of my story (experiences) is that I was also engaged to an alcoholic. I had come to have serious doubts about marriage and was planning to call it off. My enabling personality and characteristics came out and took control of the situation hand in hand with what we now know as the cunning, powerful and baffling aspects of the disease and I married her anyway. It's kinda personal about how much we lost as a result of that decision and how much of that was mine however...I am grateful that from it I found the Al-Anon Family Groups and was able to save the life I was ready to end (my own) because I had already gone thru insanity and only had death or serenity left.
We have slogans in the Family Groups that are very good to meditate on and practice..."Think!!" is one of them. "When in Doubt...Don't (make a life centered decision)"..."Don't React!!" (think and wait and pray on it first and seek feedback and support from others as you are doing here.) There are more supportive slogans however I suggest that you go get and learn them from inside of the face to face meetings of the Al-Anon Family Groups...get lots of literature and the phone numbers of others who are there and understand and can support and "Keep coming back."
I just wanted to share my experience with you when it comes to being engaged to an A. About 3 years ago my then-boyfriend and I got engaged. It was the happiest day for me. We had been together for 7 years. (I know it seems like a LONG time but most of it was through our 20s and I sure wasnt ready to be married when I was 24!) Over the years we had both enjoyed drinking but his drinking was getting progressively worse. The year and ˝ leading up to our wedding was almost torturous at times. He was drinking more and more, life was becoming more and more unmanageable. I felt like I was the only one dealing with all the issues we had and he drank through them. He would become angry and argumentative about everything. Nothing was ever good enough. I could never understand what he was going through. This went on for a while. The last 4-5 months leading to the wedding were filled with questions. I did not want to spend the rest of my life with a man who I knew in his current conditions could never be a good husband or father but I also didnt want to let him go. I loved him so much. For a while a thought I could help him. I could fix him. I could make him see where he was going wrong. It never helped. He went through the I can handle this on my own. I am not going to AA. Its all about God. No one can help me. He continually tried over and over again. The week would be spent drinking and the weekend would be spent sick from detox and trying to kick this and never let this happen again. As our wedding got closer I became more stressed. I saw him struggling to get some kind of hold on what was happening and try to make his life better. The morning of our wedding I was a wreck with nerves. The sad thing was that I wasnt nervous about getting married, I was nervous that he was going to be too drunk to actually get married and everyone would find out about our little secret. He somehow managed to keep it together and believe it or not we had a wonderful day. He spent the next few days sick and then we spent a week together. He felt great, said he had everything under control, life is different now. Its no surprise that a week later he was right back to same ole same ole. I always wondered what was going to happen, can I live like this. What is nothing EVER changes or he gets worse? About a month after our wedding he went on his annual guys fishing week. He called me about 3 days in begging me to come and get him. I did. He came home after drinking almost nonstop the entire time he was there. That week was his bottom. He was in a rehab that weekend. After I dropped him off I thought that I would feel this rush of relief. He would be safe. He was getting help. Things were going to be better! He didnt have phone privileges for 3 days. I didnt sleep for those 3 days. I was waiting to hear that this too isnt working. Nothing will help. I want to come home. On the third day he called and sounded like a different person. He had hope in his voice. He was happy to be there. Things seemed to be on the right path. He only spent a week there (thank you insurance company) but it was one of the best weeks of both of our lives. That was almost 2 years ago. He has been an active member of AA and has changed his life. I firmly believe that he didnt make any changes because of anything I said to him. I never threatened him or gave him ultimatums because I didnt think I would be strong enough to follow through. We are two different people now. Our life is great. It is very difficult at times but we are in a good place. I am not saying any of this to sway you in one direction because God knows my husband has NEVER been physical with me. I cant even begin to offer anything about that situation. I know how you do feel about your upcoming marriage because I was there. In the end it is your decision to make and you need to do what is best for you. I am one of the lucky ones. I thank God everyday. Sometimes when you think there isnt an answer or when all hope seems to be lost, trust your instincts. Hang in there! I am here if you ever need to talk.
