The material presented
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Mjhyankees post got me thinking about how I am dealing with stressful situations. When regular stressors hit me at work, I think I handle them "normally". Depending on the stress and the kind of day I am having, I may tackle it with little problem or get a little wacky about it, but eventually emerge from the conflict. HOWEVER, when my AH's behaviour causes conflict, I find myself shutting down. My "shutdown" just doesn't seem normal to me. When I confide in a few close friends about what my home situation is like, they look at me with this astonished expression. Some will make comments about how well I handle stress, etc., but most are very blunt and come right out with a very strong comment concerning their worries about my health and the fact I need to change this situation before it kills me. It's hard to explain. So here's an example. The other morning my AH told me that he can't take being sick any longer. He said he felt like (making a shooting motion to his head). I pretty much told him to have a good day and left to go to work! Then I didn't even think about it the rest of the day until I was coming home. Then I am wondering if I should have taken him seriously (and what I could be walking home in to). Then that makes me angry b/c it feels like another head game he will play. But if I reacted every time he says crazy things like that then I would never leave my house or be able to hold down a job. I realize how cold, callous and downright cruel it sounds to just leave my husband after that, but I did and very easily. There used to be a time when his drinking would cause me to be up all night crying. Now if he didn't come home all night, I would sleep better because of it. I know it is good to detach, but sometimes I feel "disconnected" instead of "detached". Does that make sense?
But does crying and worrying about something you have no control over make sense?
The xah use to tell me he was going to buy a gun and shoot himself, we were not living together at that time. I considered it was a possibility.
I spent most of my marriage worrying about what would happen to him, after I saw him survive a heart attack, almost choking to death in his sleep, and many other emergencies. I left him in the Universe's hands.
This is from the ODAT book: "I pray that I may not fall into the error of anticipating trouble. If It should come, let me meet it with equanimity and Love."
What you mention sounds like burn-out, which would be totally understandable. After about 10,000 crises, I felt as if the universe could drop a 16-ton weight on my AH's head and I'd just blink and think, "Shoot, now I have to clean up the dang 16-ton weight."
That phase was actually easier than the phase where I was still feeling the devastation, grief, and disappointed hopes all the time. It was as if I'd finally accepted reality.
If your AH is feeling like shooting himself, he needs to get help. You're not the one to help him any more than you could manufacture insulin for him if he had diabetes. I imagine you've offered to help him with his problems many more times than he's agreed to accept your help. For him to put the burden on you now is unjust. I imagine he knows how to look in the phone book for AA. That's the kind of help that would really do him some good, instead of asking for some kind of pity from his spouse. But it may be that I'm going through a bitter phase right now!
Nevertheless, it sounds to me as if you're feeling the same way I felt when I'd been through years of crisis and I started to realize that he wasn't going to change anything about himself -- and that he was the only person who could.
When we get a little more distance, I think we get a little more compassion -- but too much compassion from too close up doesn't help us protect ourselves. We need equal compassion for us.
I can so relate to what you said. My ah is in his third day of a serious binge. I've gotten very good at detachment. This afternoon he told me he was going to drink himself to death. I don't know if the alcohol was talking or if he really means it. But he's certainly on his way. I love him still, but I hate what this disease has done to him. He's made threats of killing himself before. Maybe he means it, I don't know. But I don't know what to do. I know I am burned out and just like I can't stop him drinking if he doesn't want to, I can't make him live if he doesn't want to. Cold, callous, cruel? I don't think so. I don't feel that way. I just feel worn out and out of options.
My exAH used to talk about killing himself all the time. He talked about not having enough life insurance money or he would do it, but also talked of how he had it all planned out with the tree that he would drive his truck into. According to him, his desire to kill himself was all my fault. Finally, one day I told him that blaming me for him wanting to kill himself was one of the cruelest things he could do, but I didn't buy it anymore, and if he chose to kill himself it was his choice and had nothing to do with me. He never mentioned it again.....
On the positive side, he has been sober for almost 3 years and working a strong program. His attitude about life is completely different. Ironic how the one thing As think they need to be happy, is the very thing that makes them feel life is not worth living.
Blessings, Lou
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Every new day begins with new possibilities. It's up to us to fill it with the things that move us toward progress and peace. ~ Ronald Reagan~
Sometimes what you want to do has to fail, so you won't ~Marguerite Bro~
It was share's just like Loupiness's that taught me...woke me up and brought me to recovery classrooms. When the alcoholic expresses a thought or a wish it isn't coming from a mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually sound person. It is coming from someone who needs a mind and mood altering chemical to be some body. It isn't sane...not real. I was taught to listen to statements like self hurt threats and then patience to consider a response if I wanted to make one or be a part of one. Your response put the responsibility right on his lap and yes the not knowing what you'll come home to later is stressful for anyone. If it didn't cause stress your own systems would be non-functioning. There is a whole world wide series of responses to that statement..."Would you like me to call emergency or can you do that for yourself?" is another considered response. Consider that you were not nasty or sarcastic about it and I'd say you were pretty loving and detached tho it actually could have been different.
Part of Al-Anon recovery for me is learning new and different and appropriate responses to how alcoholism affects my life and then how life affects my life. I no longer wear that blue suit with a red "S" on it and fly around the world rescuing people in trouble especially when the people in trouble choose to be. They have their choices which I am not responsible for.
I once had a girl friend (addict...of course) threaten to take her life just before I went on vacation and it scared me so just before I left I wrote her parents a warning letter and mailed it. When I got home I no longer had a girl friend or a girl friend who was dead. I had an ex-girl friend who was cat soaked pissed and maybe looking for my demise. I didn't often get things even close to right back then...the story is even more crazy in the personal department when I consider that I was separating from and about to divorce an addict wife. Hello?!! has anyone found my operating manual to serenity?
Keep coming back there is so much more to learn and the program works when you work it. (((((hugs)))))
