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I saw this Forum and I am new at this. Didn't know if I should even be doing this, but I have kept too much bottled inside and getting more confused if I am losing my sanity or not and maybe some suggestions and opinions.
Been with boyfriend for 4 yrs. He drinks approx 4 glasses of Vodka each evening. Gets mean and likes to instigate arguments and negatives. Sometimes I think I am crazy and the one losing sanity.
More to the story, but briefly wanted to know and understand, he says my son (17 yrs) is a "lazy piece of sh*t" and my daughter (14yrs) is also a lazy person. His 2 kids are in grade school and considers them perfect. So, he curses at me and leaves the house. (we don't live together). 30 minutes earlier he was a loving person, then all of a sudden, he is verbally mean. A different person.
I am trying to understand him in his state of mind, but its so scary at times to be around him as I don't know when he flies off the handle with the verbal abuse, or if you can even call it that. I keep trying to justify his condition, but its gets more tough to handle practically everyday when he drinks.
During the day, he is fine. He acts as if there isn't anything wrong and our life is great. At night, its a different person and I feel as if I am walking on egg shells, making sure I say the right thing, do the right thing, but sometimes it just doesn't matter, as he brings up the negatives of the day of whatever that occured to upset him and points it out in my face I am "stupid " and my kids are "losers". My children are honor students, son going to College and daughter is already working on her scholarship for her upcoming Freshman High School year. I have never said a bad thing to his kids nor about his kids.
I don't know what is wrong. I am hurt he insulted my kids, about my kids. Its sad and I don't know how to go about this. Should I leave and move back home? (out of state) I had attended several Anon classes.
Keep going to your meetings , you will find the answers your looking for .. alcoholism is nasty business and has alot of nasty side effects and verbal abuse is just one of them do u really want to have someone in your life who abuses your children ? u can bet he has told them how he feels about them when your not around , control is the name of the game with alot of alcoholic relationships , and knocking u down and attacking the things u love the most ( children ) works for him ,it makes u second guess yourself making decissions almost impossible . You will never understand why he does what he does and justifying his behavior falls in the catagory of enabling . alcoholism is a disease it never gets better only gets worse , get the focus back on your needs take care of your children and your going to be okay .
In the beginning when I was first married to the XAH, he only drank beer. It was liveable and he would mostly fall asleep.
Then as time progressed, 26 years, his disease progressed. He graduated to harder stuff, Vodka became his drug of choice. It turned him into Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde and a person I did not recognize. I could always tell he was drinking vodka, he was evil incarnate. I dont even think they are aware of what there saying and he would never remember. I would have to literally kick him out of the house because of the things he said were so horrendous.
Keep coming back. We cannot advise you as to leave or stay. Keep attending the alanon meetings and focus on yourself and your children.
In addition to the other posts, I thought you might also find it helpful to know that my exHA was verbally abusive to our daughter when we were married and he was living at home. Over the past 5 years, 2 rehabs, AA meetings, and his remarriage, he now is starting to contact our daughter, now 19, for a relationship. I am grateful, as our daughter deserves this and so much more!
When I first came to alanon, I wasn't sure it was helping me, so I stopped going to the meetings. Years later, I returned, and now it is coming together and I am seeing my life improving.
I, too, feel if you keep coming back, you'll come to decisions that are comfortable for you.
Thank you all for your feedback and its so appreciated. Just saddens me to be in this type of environment. A feeling as if you have to constantly scrape yourself off the floor everytime you get "knocked" down verbally by him.
I am still attending the Al-Anon and a Therapist for myself.
I get anxieties at times, due to the stress from all this, he calls me a "nut case" and considers me unstable and said to me one evening "doesn't trust me with his kids" - I can sense on the phone, he was not sober, calls me a liar the next morning that he didn't say that. I let it go as I didn't want to get into a tidbit. Although, he indicated, he trusts his kids mother, who ended up in the hospital for "alcohol", or so it is assumed, as she won't divulge. (very jaundice and a stomach that looks like your months pregnant, but not, as was told by witnesses)
I saw a therapist to better myself as a person and as a parent to my kids. He even suggested it. I told him I went. Now, he says I am a "wacko" for seeing a therapist. Then he says, "no doubt its a woman therapist, biased and not from a man's point of view". I said to him "umm, my therapist is a male". He responds "your a &%$#-ing wacko and the therapist is a wacko". This occured during the 1st yr I moved here and should have adhered to the warning signs back then. I am damned if I do and damned if I don't.
Over time, I notice the after affects from his drinking. So, now the kids and I tread on eggshells. We make sure we don't upset him, which doesn't matter it seems what you say or do, we make sure he is on a pedestal that he is a "great" guy. We make sure we compliment him and listen to him when he is talking, because if you look like your not paying attention, he makes a rude and saracastic remark. Plus, we make sure his kids get the undivided attention too.
Just feels as if my life is being slowly sucked out of it. I know have to be maintain being mentally strong for my kids too and its not fair to them.
I can't give you any better suggestions than those already offerred What I can tell you is I am less concerned about your A than I am about You and your children. I honestly don't want to sound harsh at all but I am speaking from experience here when i tell you I have walked in your childrens shoes. Nothing I did was ever good enough and believe me I was reminded of that on a daily basis. Soon I began to believe what I was being told. If I was told I was lazy, I became lazier, if I was told I wasn't smart enough I made sure my grades dropped etc... you get the picture. Please consider alanon not just for you but alateen or alanon for your children. Educate them on this disease now while they are young. I can tell you they have been affected just like you and they to need to know it is not thier fault. I wish with all my heart I had learned that at an early age. No one can take that kind of abuse and not be affected. So for your childrens sake seek help for them. Blessings
Aloha Bunny...alot of helpful information about alcoholism and why alcoholics act the way they do is in our literature at the literature table in our face to face meetings. If you are not attending yet, I suggest from my own experience that you get there as quickly as you can and plan to do as many meeting in the next 90 days as possible. Al-Anon in the white pages of your local telephone book might be the nearest door to reach for. Call and find out the places and times of the meetings in your area and then go. The first is often the hardest. In support. (((((hugs)))))
Xeno's post prompted me to add my own 2 cents' worth, as my own self-esteem was badly damaged by the verbal and emotional abuse thrown at me daily in an alcoholic home.
The effect of that was to set me up to choose verbally and emotionally abusive men as partners. I thought that because they were "recovering" alcoholics that I would be spared the alcoholism part -- but I didn't know enough to avoid dry drunk behaviour. And I was perfectly comfortable being treated like crap, because it "fit" my self image. I knew how to walk on eggshells, but it didn't seem to matter because I would still end up finding landmines to tread on that would blow up in my face.
And in every relationship, I would eventually start to resent the loss of the authentic Me, because I was this horribly phoney little nice-nice woman who was afraid to speak her mind or confront poor behaviour.
Now, after Al-Anon, my first boundary would be: "I am not going to tolerate being spoken to without courtesy and respect."
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Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could... Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. - Emerson
