Wife did it again....... - Al-Anon Family Group

mjhyankees · Senior Member

Wife did it again.......

Rora · Senior Member

I can feel your frustration. This speaks a bit to the "impulsivity" of the A that I've come to understand. The need for something new, for the rush. Often times I too had felt like I was left holding the bag on an impulsive decision the A had, but wasn't prepared to take full responsibility for.

As you know, you are powerless over that. But you do get to choose what you do in response. I think putting the responsibility of dog ownership back onto your wife is a perfectly reasonable response given the situation. If the dog is being neglected, you can always contact the animal advocacy to have the situation addressed.

Rora

Debilyn · ~*Service Worker*~

My dear friend who was in your situation went thru the same thing. She brought home a puppy.

He was like you, unable to leave as she would get the kids.She would not even clean up after the pup.

Hon I have to say it is not the dogs fault. So please share your love with it. Now that puppy is in the same sad situation it did not ask for. You are such a nice guy, and this baby needs you.

Its just another situation living with an A hon! You have chosen to stay, I sure understand what makes you do so. So in that there are going to be things like this that happen!

So as you know nothing works, I mean we cannot change them. So we change ourselves.

I took my husbands name off the mortgage. His name was never on the loan. I always advocate taking their name off things and or do not share anything with them.

To me this is a let go and let God. Can you control this? No. Unless you physically find a GOOD home for this baby, then myself I would just go with it. My ex brought home his friends dogs as the friends mom said get rid of it.

I was not asked. He left the dog in his bedroom. The dog ate the door and it was never replaced. I had to find it a home as A just left it.

As you said it makes your daughter happy. Thats a plus for her hon.

If you don't feel like talking then ya don't. My Mother used to say, we need to pick our battles. Since you choose to stay, then maybe you can sit down and think about what you can accept and what you cannot.

This is where our skills come in in how to deal with an A in our life. Again I got my life as separate as I could. Not in time though. As you know I lost everything. Now even losing my home and a bunch of my very loved animals.

As soon as I start putting my new address out there I am taking his name off my life too. Going back to my first husbands and kids name. McPhate.

Doing evil back just makes us sick. Better to accept it is part of the disease we cannot control.

Again please love that puppy hon! You have so much to give. Plus it will make your daughter so happy for you both to play with them together. She needs you to be ok.

My mother and Daddy fought that way. PURE quiet. I called it cold wars. I hated it. It felt so painful in the house.

They didn't want us kids to be upset. Well all it did was make us upset, plus I learned nothing about how to face and take care of conflict!

Didn't learn until I was an adult!

So go hug that pup for me! love, glad to see you back, debilyn

Aloha · ~*Service Worker*~

My exAH was a compulsive spender, too. He thankfully didn't bring home high-maintenance purchases like a puppy, but he sure could spend, spend, spend and then complain he had no money to help with the bills.

I think he got a somewhat clearer picture of his spending habits when I stopped depositing my paychecks into our joint account. He was extremely sore with me for doing that but I stood my ground where that was concerned. There was no way I was going to give him access to the money I earned because I knew he'd be spending it on booze and other compulsive purchases and there wouldn't be anything left to pay rent.

On many, many occasions, I was the one left with having to pay for most of the important stuff... groceries, phone bills, etc. I did tell myself at least I was able to eat and keep a roof over my head, but I'm still certain my unwillingness to deal with getting in trouble with the people we owed money (therefore paying bills on time) didn't do much to get him to see the negative side to his compulsive spending.

Fortunately, the stuff that would effect credit scores was all separate. His debt was in his name, mine was in my name. I always kept on top of my bills, he defaulted and has since had collectors harassing him continually. I still every now and then receive mystery phone calls on my phone number of people looking for him requesting he call them back about "an important business matter". I just ignore the calls. Anytime someone calls my number asking for him, I just tell them this is not his phone number. I don't volunteer his phone number to them - but that's only because no one's ever asked me if I knew his phone number.

Interesting stuff, but yes, it is in my experience that compulsive spending is just one of the many facets of this disease. It's still that quest to fill their lives with something tangible because they're unhappy with their current situation. I found for me that until I started learning I could seek help from my HP and my Al-Anon friends and program that I'd also fall into that trap of filling my life with bad relationships or shopping sprees, etc. if I didn't remember to turn to my support system.

ythannah · Senior Member

I'm afraid I'm a huge dog lover, and I'm in the "love that puppy" camp on this one.

I guess it's not possible to return the pup to the breeder? Most reputable breeders I know will take puppies back if things don't work out, for whatever reason. Although that would likely upset your daughter.

After living with my ex-H who liked to max out our credit cards on large impulse purchases, I will never comingle finances with anyone again. No more discussions about unacceptable usage of household money.

danielle0516 · Senior Member

Hi mj.

Wow. I can feel your frustration. I can't say I have much experience in that matter, I suppose, luckily for me, my AH is not a compulsive spender (unless you count alcohol, smokes, and I think gambling, but now he has no money to gamble anymore). But, he never would bring home big purchases, nevermind a never-ending responsibility and expense, such as a dog. I have a large, extremely high energy dog, and they are TONS of work. I love my dog but I had no idea what was in store for me.

I love Deb's reply.

It's a tough one for so many reasons. a)your daughter fell in love with the dog b)you don't want to take it out on the innocent pup c)you can't just return it (or maybe you can...?? I'd look into that but then reason 'letter' a comes into play... d)expense ect...

It must be hard to have your A face the consequences of her impulsive purchase as you wouldn't want to sit back and watch the dog be mistreated or ignored...all while you are taking care of the first pet.

Are your finances separate? I can say that, in my experience, I wish I separated finances LONG ago....I think I was in denial and too stuck on my idea of what a marriage should be like. Shared everything. It took me too long to realize, sadly, that cannot be the case when living with an untrustworthy active alcoholic.

I am in the process of separating finances now and I only wish I did this a year ago.

Maybe this is a blessing in disguise and you will soon fall in love with this dog, as you did the first one.

Take care,
Danielle

-- Edited by danielle0516 on Monday 28th of February 2011 07:35:01 PM

mjhyankees · Senior Member

I hope so Danielle...and yes I've separated finances a long time ago....however it doesn't seem to stop her from spending the money for her own bills and then crying that she cant make her car payment or whatever. Of course I stupidly cosigned the car loan. She does have other debts that, other than a lien on the house, wouldn't directly affect me.
i hate the idea that she also "WINS"...the dog will stay or I'm the ultimate bad guy...besides there's no guarantee if I bring it back that she won't go back and get it anyway. As usual "I" am the one who has to do the right thing...suck up my anger, not ruin this for my daughter in anyway (of course the wife gets to yell and scream and curse ruin things all the time)......it sucks being the "good guy".....there seems to be no benefit in doing the right thing....I keep getting screwed and she keeps getting what she wants. I've cut back finances from her pretty far, there's not much else I can do there.
This has really sent me into "depressed mode" which i'll post about later. I still haven't talked to her since Saturday.....it's not just anger....it's I can't just go on like nothing happened and everything is fine, and respond to her in the same way or care at all about her at this point.

danielle0516 · Senior Member

Hi again ...

I think we need to try and not fall into that trap of being the victim, that's key. It just is what it is....the addict is simply doing what addicts do.

For me, there used to be a time where every new 'discovery' of what my husband did (oh what did he do now!) was a shock, and I'd get upset. But, why, he's sick, clearly, he's doing what an addict does. That's all.

I used to get mad and be shocked at everything such as: Oh, he what? He crashed the car! He stole money from my daughter! He broke into his parents house (with a key) and stole money from them!, he racked up $13000 of credit card debt in 9 months!, he watched porn 5 times today online, he had an emotional affair!, he.. blah blah blah. Now, I'm more like: "oh, ok" shrug. I don't take it personally (for the most part) anymore, it's his disease, not him. I know how that can sound to someone who doesn't REALLY understand addiction. Ugg, sometimes I feel like people think I'm an idiot - but, well, there's me being me, I need to stop caring so much what other people (most of whom are totally ignorant) think and just worry more about me and making me happy and emotionally healthy again!

The part where you feel like you're pretending that everything is fine. I get stuck there too sometimes.... I would think, ok, so AH comes home smashed, breaks stuff, passes out, neglected responsibilities that day, and I'm supposed to just ignore that, wake up the next day, and not comment on it...well, isn't that like letting him get away with his behavior!!?? But, you know what, they feel worse about themselves than we can probably ever imagine, and they are aware, so, again, what's the point - when I used to confront him, I regretted it EACH and every time.

But, you don't do it for anyone else, you do it for you. I don't think it's like pretending nothing happened, you are just keeping your own sanity by not engaging in a useless, pointless debate with an addict. Well, that's how I see it - but, I'm not an expert... ;)

I hope you find some peace, but there's no easy or quick fix (unfortunately), you have to put in the work.

((HUGS))
Danielle

-- Edited by danielle0516 on Tuesday 1st of March 2011 01:07:28 AM

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