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.
I met my husband over 25 years ago when he was actively drinking (we were not married then). I gave him a choice then it was me or the drugs and alcohol, he chose the latter. I told him to call me when he was clean and sober in 2 years (I waited for him). Well, he did, but he wasn't. We split for good and I went on with life without him. He stopped drinking for good several years after we went our seperate ways. Three years ago we ran into each other, fell back in love and finally married. Then the dry alcoholic in him came out. Wow. I'm blown away. He's mean, mean, mean. Then I turned mean. I HATE who I have become. Even though we have been physically seperated for almost a year, I keep the faith he will want me as much as I want him, but he doesn't. I beg him to fight for our marriage and he won't but he won't take steps to get a divorce, either. I'm devestated beyond words. I'm depressed, humiliated, ashamed and feel so completely worthless that the man who I love so much doesn't want me. I have become desperate for him, almost obcessed with making him accept me. OMG, I am a middle aged successful woman who feels like a teenager again. I really can't go on anymore, my kids nor my grandkids are no longer a source of joy for me. I'm even on anti-depressants. Intellectually, I know how I sound, I have turned into a jelly fish, weak, sappy, worthless human being. This is so far from the woman he married and who I have been all these years. I just can't get a hold of myself this time. If it wasn't for the responsibilities I have toward my kids, I would end it. I just can't take the constant rejection anymore. Yet, I can't go on without him, either. My head feels like it's going to explode. My faith in God is gone. I try swinging myself into my house, my kids, but it doesn't fill the emptiness I feel inside. Nothing helps. Am I nuts and just need to end it all?
You're in the right place. I totally relate to your post. This is such a powerful, cunning, and baffling disease. I'm so sorry you have this and are at a low point.
Living with, or being exposed to, an active A (or dry drunk) tends to erode our self-esteem, have self-doubt, and makes us irritable.
I'm just starting to come out of a low point, too. The meanness and the irrationality from my exha (we were married 20 years, divorced 4) and a man I recently dated is amazingly hurtful. Neither of them apparently wanted me as much as I wanted them. That said, I do know that their disease comes first.
Giving the Alanon program a good chance will provide the right tools for help coping. One day at a time, the program shows us how to rebuild our self esteem, as we share our emotional support and stories. Alanon is the only thing that does help me. It helps me detach when I think of addiction as a disease. I do believe they are angry and hurting as a result of being afflicted with addiction. They feel shame and being worthlessness. When the A's in my life spew hurtful nonsense, I try and remember that hurt people hurt people.
Keep coming back. You will find yourself again and find some serenity, as well.
No, by all means don't end it here! There is too much good life awaiting you just around the corner. You can't see it now because you are in the thick of things... I was that way after my marriage split up back in 1990, and my next relationship failed as well. I found a great counselor who reflected my own thoughts back at me and worked with me to become the person I wanted to be and stop focusing on the others. Go to www.ijustwanttobehappy.com and you can read his philosophy about happiness.
Your situation is wrapped up in substance abuse as well, so this Al Anon website is totally appropriate and you will find much support here. Work on it a little at a time and keep the focus on yourself and not your husband. He sounds like a toxic stew that you are continually drawn to and who has the power to rule your life!
You will eventually learn to let go of your husband the way I let go of the woman I was so depressed over. Once she found someone new, I had nightmares and obsessive visions of her with the new guy..her car, everything. I lost 15 pounds (and I'm not a big guy). It's called situational depression, and you can fight it and move past your stuck parts if you try. You can recover, just find the right help and go on living. I am sure you can find many flowers to smell and great things to do once you stop letting what your husband is doing rule your life.
Part of getting better is learning what we can control and what we can't.. and another person's feelings toward us we just can't control, so give it up and move onto something better. Find a support group, read, go to counseling - don't keep falling back into the old patterns.
This program teaches us to focus on OURSELVES and giving ourselves what we need and deserve. God did not put us on this earth to suffer endlessly at the hands of another.
You can do it, keep coming back here and also find good counseling! And take care of yourself, you deserve it.
letting go of the obsession is the hardest part of recovery,when we are obsessed with another person we have no life of our own . I have never thought of ending it all as u say but I did consider homicide a few times .. when u live with alcoholism practicing or not you go a little wonky there is more to sobriety than not drinking ,there is an attitude that comes with this disease and its not pretty ..with out help we do not see the things that need to change . Please go to Al-Anon for yourself with or with out him u too need to recover from the affects of someone elses disease . Your never alone again once u settle in this program unless of course u choose to be. You will learn to walk in dignity and grace like the lady you are with your head up. Stop beating yourself up your not stupid or weak a little nieve perhaps but certainly none of the above. dont take on the shame and guilt of someone elses disease get to meetings find the woman u were meant to be and start living again ,this time for you .
Welcome!I am so glad you took care of you and came here!
My story with my ex AH is so much like yours. But mine has been over for years now. Divorced him this year. Yes on the mean thing, yes on the can't live with him or without him.
My love for him was like the first time every time for over 40 years off and on to us getting married in 99 him in recovery for years, to have a brain tumor surgery, relapsed and that was that.
I want to share with you, when I get real down with depression, ending it is always an option in my head. I asked the doc what in the world makes me think that? It is just me, how my chemicals work in me.
Hon I learned it is not that I want to die, it is more i don't want things to be how they are anymore.
My first thought too is wanting to encourage you to tell your doc how you feel. You may need to tweak your meds or something. Depression is a true physical illness.
You are suffering a broken heart. HORRIBLE pain. We have all felt as you at one time or another for different reasons. When I suffered the shock the first time my AH left, I got so anorexic, cried all the time. I would go shopping, I would think oh what kind of ice cream does he want, or does he need some new socks. I LOVED doing stuff for him.
So there I would be in the store with tears rolling down my face.
Same as I shared before. I had to learn to put one foot in front of the other. Who cares if I get dressed? But made myself.
My family and most friends have passed. My grown kids, well that is another story, sometimes I am sure they love and like me, then others I am being bombarded with something from them like they hate me.
I am alone way too much. I could be dead about 3 weeks and no one would know. They would only know as that is about how long before my animals would riot from hunger....
I loved my AH all my life. It tore me apart. All I can share is I had to go thru that pain and work on one day at a time. Do what I had to do that day, then just rest. I am not kidding. A broken heart is REAL. People can die from them. What helped me was napping. Whatever I put in my mouth, that I could, was good for me. I kept water with me me and drank all the time.
I would bring flowers in the house. I want to tell you I am a lover of the earth and animals, life. I was so down I didn't care about a garden or flowers NOTHING. Scared me to death. Everything was cardboard. blah, nothing, no taste, no smell.
I was very sick. Besides losing him, my mother had just died from Breast cancer and my favorite basset hound was stolen.
I had a huge animal sanctuary full of needy creatures. I HAD to keep going. The physical work was so hard, so hard. That I would come in, lived in a tiny sunroom on the end of my barn, (had to rent my main house so's not to lose my home.)Fall into bed in my cloths, and fall asleep from exaustion.
I, like you found MIP. I was laying on my deck, in winter, sobbing. I did not know how to be with out him. something said al anon, online.
I got into the MIP chatroom about 2000. These people kept me alive thru the toughest times.
The people here understand, relate too. It helps to come here and let stuff out alllll you want, whenever you want!!! You are MORE than welcome here. This home kept me alive. I had the pills lined up next to me.
But in the chat room were some blithering idiots like me who had funny senses of humor. We all fell in love with each other and needed each other. We talked Al Anon too, but we were like a bunch of funny friends to the wee hours of the mourning. We would be sad if someone would not show up.
I was in my bed with a laptop teasing how we were all in bed in our jammies, we had tugging blanket fights, pillow fights, duct taped each other. This went on for over a month.
It was truly a moving experience. It took me out of that lonely cold room to a room of nutty friends.
The message board is great too, you will come here and see more people have responded to you. It is also very ok to ask for what you want. ex i would like responses how you worked at getting over a broken heart?
We all have hard things going on. Helping each other, giving helps us too.
I know that gut wrenching pain in side your abdomen, I know that headache and tears.
What I did was take myself above my body and look down at her, I did for her as I would for my best friend. I made sure she was warm, I made sure she napped. I ate meat then so I would buy roasted chicken and canned enchiladas, and gushers. and grapes. That was about all that sounded good. I had to make myself eat.
I just went down again a few weeks ago. this time I told someone, a friend who told another friend. So they helped me by caring and sharing with me. Just about deep things or what was going on. The communication helped.
My A's disease finally killed the love I had for him, that longing. It can stop. But for a long time I just accepted I loved him, and that was ok. But he moved in with this other A old woman and parasites off her. He then went to prison for yet another dui.
I don't love him anymore at all. I don't like him either. How dare he turn his back on the sweet love we had? How dare he put his drugs first! How dare he ignore his son?
I finally saw him, the evil person he has become from this horrible disease.
So there is my experience.
Face to face meetings are a great help. Don't be afraid to share your heart. We have them here too. MIP is here for YOU.
I am a very old timer, not as "old" as abbyal...hehe
We already love you and care in a very special way. I am constantly AMAZED by the people here and what they give.
Please come back we need you too.
If all esle fails, come to my place and help me take care of the animals, fill birdfeeders, go on short walks, take naps.....
Love,debilyn who's fluffy dog, black and white, Like Ambrosias on Labrynth Is loudly chewing and slobbering on a bone next to me... lovely.....
Your life is important and a wonderful gift. I am so glad that you reached out and I love the responses that our MIP family have given to you.
I just wanted to add that I too recognize that emptiness and pain in the soul that cannot be filled. That was my low point and that is when I found alanon
I do believe that my emptiness was caused by my abandoning myself and focusing all my attention and love on others.
No one was taking care of my life, my spirit, my dreams. I had also abandoned my HP and was living on self will alone That is why I crashed and became teachable.
Using alanon tools of meetings, steps, living one day at a time, focusing on myself, praying I found the connection to my spirit and my HP.
Life is a process and we try to live with progress not perfection
There is help, and hope Please keep coming back
-- Edited by hotrod on Monday 1st of November 2010 08:24:49 PM
I remember feeling that way also...worthless and then learned that I had only one perspective to go on which was my own as a beat up spouse of an alcoholic who had the fortune of being born and raised in the disease of alcoholism.
The other perspective was held by my Higher Power who I choose to call God and who found me very worthy and found me the doors to the meeting rooms of the Al-Anon Family Groups the membership of which came together and helped rebuild me into a very worthwhile child of God.
In the early days of recovery I managed to go to meetings and then come home and just lay in the palms of my Higher Power and feel comfort and secure and then go to another meeting and do the same thing over and over and over until I got my mind, body, spirit and emotions back.
You don't have to go on...you can pause and go to a meeting and then go lay down in the palms of your Higher Power and rest and relax and feel secure and do it again and when you're ready to go on you'll know.
Welcome to the family...you're no alone any more and you don't have to live the way you have thought you had to. It's okay to stop and change. (((((hugs)))))
My heart ached and lurched...I so understand and relate to how you feel. I was married for twenty years to a man who did not love me. The pain was almost intolerable when I realised how much I loved him and how much he did NOT love me. His was a lust for me and our marriage was based only on lust, not love from him. I was repulsed when I learned of his true feelings and so ashamed that I wanted to end my life there and then.
When we divorced he married with a year and my world simply stopped. Somehow - I did not end my life there but I dug deep and I found that I still had hope for us to get back together and hope that he would realise that he did love me and hope that it was not simply lusting that he felt for me and when I realised that that was never going to happen, God alone knows how I wanted to end it all over again, and how I did no such thing. I felt I had no future, no life, nothing worth living for. Fiddleman drew me back into that past with his story, for his story was mine too, and then so were the others...they described what I had felt too.
Well, twenty years on I can tell you, I did find my way through that "I want to end it, stop the world I want to get off, I have nothing to live for" merry-go-round.
You are in the right place here. Keep talking, keep writing, keep reading, keep asking, keep coming back. Learn about the power of this programme and KNOW that this forum and this family are right beside you to support you and care and listen and share.
YOU ARE SO WORTH IT and you have so much to give and well as receive in this life. It does not stop here. It goes on and you will discover a healthy way to love and it starts with learning to LOVE YOURSELF FIRST in order to get through the unrequited love that is all-consuming your being right now.
Please know you are loved for who you are right now and things will get better. You are sick right now and you need TLC and the knowledge to know how to heal and grow and bloom once more outside of this toxic relationship and situation.
You, are what matters here and this family will help you find yourself. The real loving, caring and gorgeous self that will find reason to live beyond this.
God Bless all wrapped up in hugs (((((((((Doll))))))) just for you. Suzannah
-- Edited by Suzannah on Tuesday 2nd of November 2010 08:29:12 AM
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Out of the ruin of my past I have found the fortress of myself and I know how to defend it.
Strive for WISDOM; Seek SERENITY; NEVER compromise your INTEGRITY.
My heart is sooo warmed by all your support. I scared myself yesterday. I scared my mother and best friend of 30 years. Everyone, I can relate to each of you. I am very much an outdoors person, too. Gardening, my yard, my artwork. None of it has had any meaning, but I have been pushing myself to do a little at a time. "Digging Deep". Today is better. Al-Anon helped me 25 years ago make the decisions I did when he was actively drinking, I honestly don't know why I did not come here earlier. If only...well, it is what it is now. I am definately going to visit the room. I have a 2 hour commute daily so time is limited. THANK YOU!
Wow I so relate to your feelings in your post, I almost thought you were telling my own feelings. By the time I hit the doors of alanon I felt just like you...I was totally HOPELESS and all meaning of life was gone for me. I grew up surrounded by alcoholics/addicts but I was not prepared for my own child to become an addict..OMG we did not raise him in that enviorment how could this possibly be happening to US. We must have been bad parents, we went wrong somewhere surely, but where I could go on and on about the obssesive thinking. Then there was the shame....we live in a small town and my son was no stranger to the police or anyone else who saw him out and about high and stumbling around or ODing and being taken away by paramedics etc. I mean really now how could I even show my face in public? What must people think? I was already severly depressed, had locked myself away in my home...lost my dream job that I worked SO hard to get and got much joy out of doing. My husband became disabled god bless him and he was the one trying to hold things together. I totally checked out mentally. I saw joy NO WHERE. not even a glimpse. Finacally we were in ruins we lost everything we owned except by the grace of god our home. But I truly felt hopeless I knew I couldn't "end" it all simply because of 2 facts 1. I couldn't leave my husband and children to blame themselves or each other and 2. because proven fact... if a family member "ends it" as you say it gives permission to thier children or other family members that "ending it" is an accpetable solution to life. And in NO way could I send that message to my children. After living with pure hell in my mind I was lead to alanon Thought I would give it a try ( half heartedly ) and what did I find? People who actullaly understood me and my feelings and not only did they understand they all wanted to help me make a better life for myself. And the help is priceless...it is help no money can buy. I urge you to find alanon in your area or join us here online, we have twice daily meetings. And if you work the program your miracle is right in your reach to reach out and grab it. Please don't think about "ending it" now... You just found us please keep coming back and let us help you, support you and love you until you are ready to love yourself. We are a family... we take care of each other and we understand as no one else can Please keep posting Blessings and prayers your way
Alanon has been my saving grace. I spent many years wanting to end it all for various reasons. Then I met my A boyfriend and I found alanon. I have found that when I work on things each day I feel great. I am not perfect, I still obsess, but I am better able to put my focus back on me and not on him. I love him, but I have detached with love so that he can be him and I can be me. I too have a long commute (an hour and a half each way when I have my two kids) and so this board is the only way I get alanon. My sponsor helps me as well, so much. Please know that alanon is for you and that now is the time to concentrate on you :) Take care! Welcome here!
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You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection. -Buddha
The past has flown away. The coming month and year do not exsist. Ours only is the present's tiny point. -Mahmud Shabistanri
