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I feel like im flooding the boards but my mind is going a mile a minute.
I know it's a possibility that I will end up, unfortunately, needing to leave my fiance. I do not want my daughter growing up around it or thinking it's ok and if nothing changes... it may have to happen.
Truth be told, I cannot imagine my life without him which makes this thought even more harder. How did you make the decision, what was your last straw and how did you get through it?
after 7 months of paying his bills and hoping he would get "it" through AA - he lied to me, said it was an old people's party when in fact it was a party in honor of his birthday, and then he said these words: "because I wanted to drink and have fun without you being upset with me". Our whole relationship boiled down to that statement - it was more important for him to have a night of drinking and having fun (he can't have fun with me) than to honor me, make me happy. Drinking was/is always going to be more important than anything else - I give up.
Edited to add: I have worked 6 ( sometimes 7) days a week to pay his bills, i'm tired and would REALLY like some time off, a night off to have fun, SOMETHING fun to happen to me and there he was, telling me he wanted to drink and have fun without me being upset - the realization hit me like a ton of bricks that drinking and being able to drink and have fun was always going to win - and I don't want to play that game.
-- Edited by likemyheart on Wednesday 18th of May 2011 09:28:31 PM
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I am strong in the broken places. ~ Unknown
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another! ~ Anatole France
I'm sorry you are in that pickle. The insanity of alcoholism causes pain and makes for tough decisions. Prayers that you are able to find serenity and peace.
How did you make the decision?
This is a hard question .. I could point to a whole bunch of specific incidents of lies, not coming home, messes I tried to clean up and so on and so on but the truth is I decided I deserved a happy life. And accepted I would never truly be happy feeling as if I was living with a ticking time bomb. I did try to manipulate my exAH into sobriety, and then as I got healthier using ALAnon tools, I tried to wait until he freely chose recovery or at least sobriety but it did not happen. I set healthy boundaries and consequences for both myself and him until there were no other options left.
What was your last straw?
My last straw happened one night when I found a large quanity of cocaine and alcohol (oddly enough after all of my searches over the years this one was by accident LOL) and when I called my sponsor to ask what she would do, her reply was she would call the police and hand over the drug. The idea of calling the police horrified me and I was paralyzed ... and I finally figured out I was sicker than he was.
And how did you get through it?
By slowly learning to change what I could ... me. The pamphlet titled "Merry Go Round of Denial" was in my back pocket for more than a year, wore out three of them .. pamphlets not pockets I started out being grateful to get through a minute at a time, it increased to an hour, then a day. Was diagnosed with PTSD, worked on those issues .. kept working on and changing what I could .. me. And now I am happy, and still working on my recovery for me to grow not to just get through.
Not sure if those answers help in any way but it's my history, take what you like leave the rest.
I dumped him and moved out into my own place with just 2 grocery bags full of clothes. Of course we had one last fight when I went back for more clothes and he threatened me with a hammer and threw a big back of clothes at me snapping my neck back...That last fight was so ugly and I have never been that angry in my life.
I think when I finally got honest with myself about the relationship. What was to miss? One good time, and five bad, one good time and 7 bad......realizing that a relationship with an a/addict is not a relationship, they are in one with a bottle or a drug, it comes first. There are not any exceptions to that either..there are no "special" a/addicts. When I thought is this how I want my future to look....if I wondered what the future looked like all I had to do was look at how it was now...yes, I could change but the only thing that would do is change how I reacted it wouldnt change another person. Recently I heard someone say...."they turned out to be the person I knew they were, but hoped they werent"...I think that summed it up for me......
-- Edited by DreamXL on Wednesday 18th of May 2011 10:24:02 PM
1. After years of denial, broken promises, lies, deception, attempts at rehab, and all of this over again, he was in a sober period (he has binged interspersed by sober periods) and I was cautiously optimistic. Then I read a lot about alcoholism and realized that the recovery rate is 5-30%. I realized for the first time that the odds were against me. I had thought the recovery rate was 80% or something. I realized that this waiting for permanent sobriety, but meanwhile having to endure the sudden horrible binges, was statistically likely to go on for the rest of my life.
That's when I really looked at the relationship more realistically. I stopped foolishly expecting things to work out. But he wasn't drinking at the time, so I didn't take any action.
2. I came home from a 12-hour day of overtime at work and found him passed out, having left our two-year-old in the same clothes he'd been in when I left in the morning, which were now stained and filthy, and with the doors to an upper-floor low window flung wide open. It was a miracle the toddler didn't go over to the window and fall several stories to his death. In the kitchen was a garbage bag crammed full of beer cans. I knew then that I could never trust my A again. That was it for me.
-- Edited by Mattie on Thursday 19th of May 2011 02:31:57 AM
-- Edited by Mattie on Thursday 19th of May 2011 02:32:21 AM
My A started fights with me, well basically once a week lol, holidays included. He started a big one on Mother's Day and that was it for me. I was getting screamed and yelled at all the time and for the most part kept my cool. These outbursts would be followed by an apology from him everytime. I just told him that I was not putting up with his behavior and I wasn't going to engage in this game anymore. We agreed to take a month with no contact. I am realizing that I don't miss or need him nearly as much as I thought. It's not easy every day of course, but I can feel myself getting stronger.
I didn't rid myself of him, he did of me. In working my program and setting boundaries I was teaching my child a healthy way of living. My child was seeing undesirable behavior and was also seeing a healthy way of dealing with it.
When I wouldn't take on the consequences of my A and left things in his hands he of course blamed me and moved, when I wouldn't give in.
He quickly learned that he missed his son as I would not allow visitation that was not supervised. Since he wouldn't go along with supervised he did not see our son.
When he was ready, he came back in a program of recovery.
I didn't have to make any big decisions in applying the steps of my program and working on me. I decided that just for today I don't have to decide anything and that went on for a long time till I felt I was far enough along in my program to make healthy decisions. For me that didn't mean going to meetings here and there. It meant devotion to my program. That devotion made all the difference in my life and that of my family.
I moved out a year ago, because I got scared for me and my kids. I could no longer trust him to be sober while watching at the time 1 1/2 yr old while I worked. And in one heated arguement he broke my laptop in front of my 13 year old and put his head through a window, I went to bed in my girls room and he woke me up angry, because I wasn't in our bed, talking to me through his teeth with spittle spewing at me. I was scared and knew there were guns in the house and he was out of his mind! After that I got a book from an Al-anon friend named Courage to Change and flipping through one of the first things I read said that life is more than a miserable string of days to be merely survived. I thought wow, really, life could be more than this chaos?
So at the beginning of the year I started attending face to face Al-anon meetings and found myself a sponsor. Life has gradually gotten better the more I dettach, he will always be my girls father, but we are getting a divorce and I know I deserve to be treated with love and respect and will not find myself with another A as long as I work a good Al-anon recovery program for myself. My self esteem and self worth is growing and I am starting to love and care for myself like never before. It has been good for me and my 13 year old has seen the difference nad has told me I am a better Mom for it. After my blinder's slowly fell away and I realized I was doing no one any favors for staying with my exAH, it was so freeing, not to say I don't have my moments, but my HP can handle those and get me back to solid thinking. I read a lot fo Al-anon literature to keep myself from doing the stinkin thinkin and to be focusing on myself and not get dramafied. I get lonesome, but it has been great for me to learn what to do all by myself and to feel secure in my decision making. I have a lot of growing to do and am working on it with a calm mind for the first time ever!
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God grant me the serenity To accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.
Al-Anon/Alateen Family Group Headquarters, Inc. 800-344-2666
I couldn't get past the guilt and responsibility - I left like it was my job to stay and clean up the messes, pay the rent, hire the lawyer when my exAH got tickets because he was drunk and irresponsible, etc. While I could logically understand that he was a grown up and had been fine on his own before I met him and would be fine after I left him, my heart just didn't agree. I felt responsible. That was my sickness. Because I couldn't get past the guilt and find the courage to leave, I passive aggressively became the biggest pain in the ass in the whold world. Took 6 months to a year, but he finally left me. I got what I wanted and didn't have to be the bad guy. At the time, this was the only way I knew how to get what I wanted. Wish I'd had a program, so I could start learning how to communicate directly what i wanted and needed, and set some boundaries to protect myself.
I don't think I had a particular last straw. In general, I was tired of being lied to and cheated on, disrespected, and blamed. The behavior wore on me until I just couldn't do it anymore. I didn't understand that I didn't have to absorb all of the negative stuff he was putting out there. He could only blame me if I accepted the blame.
In the program, I learned not to ask questions that I already know the answer to. For example, "Were you drinking?" Duh. I know the answer. I learned to ask, how important is it that he actually admit it? Of course he's gonna lie if I ask that question. But - I don't need to ask because I already know. Not asking questions when I already know the answer has cut down on the anger/hurt I feel when the other person lies.
How did I get through? One day at a time. Looking at the big picture is overwhelming and unproductive, since things change so much. Better to just deal with today - the only day that really matters. :)
I encourage you to find f2f meetings for yourself if you have not already done so. These will help so much. :)
Take your time in making a life altering decision. Get a sponsor and work the steps and figure out what you can do to empower yourself. Begin to set boundaries and take better care of YOU and practice detaching with love from his issues, feelings, addiction, thoughts, whims, attitudes. YOUr life is about YOU and your child. Learn to stop enabling and all you can about the disease by going to meetings, sharing and working the steps with a trusted sponsor/mentor to the program.
When the time is right, you will know and keep working on your plan B, C & D in the mean time. I left my exAH on vacation with nothing but three bikinis. I went home to my mom and abandonned my (former) life, my stuff and my career. He kept most of all I cared about and what was sentimental to me, like baby 8MM movies and jewelry from my mom, aunts and grandmother - all in an attempt to hurt me and it did - but it is just stuff and I got my life back, he didnt win. I was very suicidal and towarrds the last 4-6 months I was with him, he began telling me how to kill myself to not make a mess for him - I had three straws towards the end and that was the second to last one. On vacation we had a fight (we were at his dad's house for a visit) and his dad and step mom began talking to me about our relationship. He said, "my son doesn't speak to you correctly, does he?" I said, "no sir, he does not" and that opened up the dialogue with them.
I had the chance to pick me over him and that was what it came down to. I chose my life and me, with the hope of something better. Life did change completely in every way for me, but it was bc I dove into the program like it was a matter of life and death - bc for me, it was.
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Light, Love, Peace, Blessings & Healing to Us All. God's Will Be Done. Amen.
I am married to my best friend who just so happens to have the disease of alcoholism. I respect and adore the man I married today more than I did when I walked into the rooms of Alanon and started on the steps.
I walked into the rooms of Alanon looking for the how to's for Alcoholism....perhaps even a divorce. I was in a tremendous amount of pain, feeling like I was a failure, spiritually battered and bruised.
Today I am so glad I stayed in the marriage and active in the Alanon program. There is NO OTHER PERSON ON EARTH I would want to share my life with. I am so grateful for Gods grace in seeing myself and my relationship with my AH in a whole new light. We have been together for fifteen years now. I am so grateful to him and the disease of alcoholism. Both of which have been the greatest teachers to me.
I also am still with him....for today. I make the decision day by day. I try not to look too far out. He has been in AA for 11 yrs., and I have been in Al-Anon for 11 yrs. Things are still not great. He had cancer that made the doctors say he only had months to live. But that was 4 yrs. ago. Aggressive treatment. Also lots of morphine and sleeping pills and anti-anxiety pills and other addictive stuff. And lots of behavior of a dry drunk. So I decide one day at a time that I will stay married. I'll worry about tomorrow, tomorrow.
I started out being grateful to get through a minute at a time, it increased to an hour, then a day. Was diagnosed with PTSD, worked on those issues .. kept working on and changing what I could .. me. And now I am happy, and still working on my recovery for me to grow not to just get through.