Aloha Sterling...I will hold on to this post of yours as it hints of a beginning of a
miracle and I just love miracles.   I can remember the start (almost every step) of
the miracle of recovery in my life.   You do what it is that you have to do at the
time not even aware that HP is moving and shifting and tweaking and rearranging
things in and out of the way and then after you've done and continue to do your
part and everyone else is doing theirs...smile...it arrives; peace of mind and soul.

You can only do this one day at a time.  Keep doing it and the miracle will come
for you.  If you don't mind I'll keep watching and listening.

(((((hugs)))))

Wow! You're doing great! Your post was very inspirational to me. Thank you.
I wanted to reply to your question with some of my own experience about responsibility. There are some great readings about this subject in ODAT and CTC. As you have helped your husband take responsibility for his finances, I too had to detach and allow my AH take responsibility for his life. I used to buy his alcohol, deal with his lawyer, speak for him at the hospital, run interference for him with interactions with society ( including family) etc. But I was enabling the power of his disease in all these actions. Perhaps you can gently but firmly let them know that you will let your nubby know they called, but not interfere in your nubby's relationship with them?

Hugs Rocky

Sterling,

First I want to say, way to go you! You set boundaries and took care of yourself first and are now reaping the rewards. I am so happy for you and your husband.

On the subject of what to tell the inlaws, I wanted to share with you what happened to me (a little different story background, but basically the same situation). My now ex-husband and I had a similar experience happen when he was admitted to a mental ward due to self-harming when he had a nervous breakdown due to his dealing with his alcoholic father's sexual abuse as a child. He had been in therapy, but just had a total meltdown one morning and tore up the stove when it wouldn't open (due to the cleaning lever sliding over and locking the door) and when I tried to calm him down he started hitting himself in the head and running at me and his one-year old daughter hitting himself in the head. I left the house immediately and called 911 and the police came and took him to the Western Missouri Mental Health Center, where they take the really bad cases. I was so sorry to see him have to go in there.

Once there I didn't call his parents (of course) and tell them of this incident because of the incest. But due to their over-controlling nature and the fact that they called him at least twice a week for the entire period of our 12 year marriage, they started freaking out when I didn't call them back. This included his sister too. In fact, at one point she called from Wisconsin (where she lives) and threatened to come down and find out what was going on. This was weird, because we lived in Missouri and his parents lived in Kansas at the time and it would have been much easier for his parents to have shown up at our door, instead of the sister, but I digress.

With all this pressure being put on me to "tell" what was going on, I spent most of one night praying and then decided to confront the family about it. I called the parents and the mother answered the phone and I told her that I had something very hard to tell her, but I wanted her to know that everyone was alive and basically that was it. She wanted to put her husband on the phone and I said I don't think you want to do that (thinking that she already knew of the abuse and would "catch my drift" so to speak, but she didn't) she chose to put him on the phone.

I started out by recounting the whole story about his breakdown, then I said the breakdown was due to (I just told it like it was at this point) sexual abuse he had undergone as a child and the perpertrator was the father. (the father didn't say a word) The mother went off though and said, "That never could have happened. I was with the children all the time. I never left them alone." I respectfully said, "I know that you 'think' you never left them alone, but you couldn't be with them all the time, especially when you were at work and that's when the abuse happened, and it did happen."

The mother and I talked for quite awhile (without the father saying anything) and I was able to give her the location of the hospital where her son was staying. Eventually though we came to the point in the conversation where I said, "Maybe with God's help we can put this family back together and heal all the scars." That's when Big Bad Ugly Raised his head and Perpetrator finally spoke up, "Well we know you've made up other lies like this to get a divorce, so this is no surprise that your making up another one." I said, "Well there is no point in us continuing this conversation." so I hung up.

The reason I'm telling you the details of this situation is because if I had it to do over, I'm not sure that I would have told them over the phone what the situation was. It was really not my place to tell them my husband's business. I should have done like Rocky said, "firmly let them know that you will let your hubby know they called, but not interfere in your hubby's relationship with them." The reason I say this is because of what happened after I told them this...I became their scapegoat.
I became the reason for all their family's problems (in their mind) because I had let the "cat out of the bag".

This caused endless problems for my husband and I. It put my husband in the place of having to chose between his family of origin and his family of choice (me and his daughter). Utimately, sad to say, he chose his family of origin. I don't know what difference it would have made if I had allowed him to be the one responsible for telling his family of his problem, I guess I will never know. All I know is that I handled the situation the best that I knew at the time and I did pray about it. I even had one counselor say that I did my husband a great favor by taking the burden of telling them off of him and bringing the family secret out into the open. I don't know if that is true or not, all I know is that I brought a lot of flack on myself for doing it and I don't know that that was truely "taking the best care of me" which is what we're supposed to do in al-anon.

I don't know if any of this story will help you or not, I know yours is a different situation than mine, but the telling of the in-laws is what prompted my response. It brought back a lot of unpleasant memories and ones that I hope you won't have to endure. Ultimately it is your choice how you will respond to his parents calls. I know for me I probably would have had to face them face to face eventually, because he was hospitalized for such a long time. I don't know if I could have kept up the "silent" treatment for that long, so in the end I might have had to tell them anyway, I don't know.

For me the situation is over and I have to live with how I handled it and not beat myself up that I did it wrong or right. I just have to accept it as is. I think the same will be true for you too. Just pray, ask your higher power for guidance and do what you think is best. Then accept the situation as you having done the best you could in a very difficult situation.

Good luck to you and your husband in his recovery. And remember, keep taking care of you!

Love in recovery,
Overcome

Just say he is ill.  They don't need to know anymore than that.

I do understand that I felt absolutely totally over responsible for the ex A day and night. Letting that go was tremendous work.  You are doing that.  The other thing you can do of course is not to answer the phone. Switch the phone off.  Let him deal with it its not your job to soothe his parents.

maresie.