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hello everyone! thanks for all your comments on my last post. i would like to share a little something about "why do i keep getting sucked backed in and listen to my ah, like hes making good sense while hes taking pills and drinking. we had our 1st court date since i have filed for divorce and our next date is in 60 days, hes now saying hes going to a 7 days program of some sort and has asked me if he stays sober for the next 60 days will i take him back, because he wants his wife and family back more than anything in the world. But when your guys say (friends of al-alon) focus on YOU, when i do he says iam being cold, not caring or loving. He says your out with your friends and i have noone, you have house, kids, dogs, etc. i feel so guilty and just want to say come back home because iam so sick of his whining all the time since we have been separated. when he is out of the picture i hate to say it, but iam very peaceful and satisfied, yes i feel lonely sometimes (but do i miss him or just the fact of missing all the chaos, we have been married for 21 yrs and together for 26yrs. sorry so long. thankyou to everyone! You all are truly very special people!
My AH is also a master of trying to hit me with a guilt trip over how "good" I have it, especially compared to how "bad" he has it.
Try to remember that those words are his disease talking. Ask yourself what YOU want. And if the answer is honestly "I don't know," then that's OK! You can absolutely tell him that the two of you can discuss reconciliation at the end of a 60-day sober period. If it were me, I would also reiterate that during those 60 days, each of you needs to focus on your own recoveries. You will be supportive of him, but not in an unhealthy way and not at the expense of your own emotional health.
I think I stayed with my spouse in the past because I thought we could have what we had in the beginning (20 yrs ago). Now I stay for a number of reasons that have nothing to do with my spouse changing. It aint gonna happen. Lyne
I used to get sucked in alll the time. I couldn't understand why I allowed it to happen. It made sense after going to Al-anon and a couple AA big book studies.
I was doing the same thing as he was. Doing things the same way and expecting different results. I did things the same way because my thinking hadn't changed. I was the one with the problem or I wouldn't be getting sucked in. I used to think it was because he was "so" good at manipulation and the guilt tripping. Here I was a sober person allowing myselt to be sucked in by a person with exremely distorted thinking.
Consistent Al-anon got me to the point where it is not effective anymore. There are times that my A will do something consistently. If I fall back on my program, I will be affected by the behaviors and tactics of my A.
My A said I was not caring or loving when I focus on me. That was not manipulation from him. He was used to me focusing on him and that is what he perceived as me showing him he is important. When I stopped doing that and things changed it was quite threatening to him. It didn't matter what I said to him, he took it personally because his thinking was still distorted. Quite a while after starting recovery it was still distorted and so was mine. I can be that way still. :)
Al-anon saved me and our relationship, even without him in AA. My f2f meetings are my first priority and the rest falls into place.
My AH and I were separated for 1 year due to his drinking. During that time, he had lost one job after another and I got fed up. Finally, I packed his clothes and put him in a one-way trip to NY. All hell broke loose with the family.
One of the conditions for returning home was to attend therapy and recovery with my daughter and I. Amazingly, he maintained recovery for 10 years. I thought I was home free from this ugly disease. One day I smelled alcohol on him and he admitted to his relapse.
What I have experienced during these past 36 yrs. of marriage is that an alcohol will drink. He/she can make all the promises. It does not mean anything. Absolutely nothing. They can't predict it. It is a one day at a time disease.
I stayed because I love him one day at a time. I can't even predict how much longer I can stay. Today, I am still here. Tomorrow is still a mystery. I know the disease cannot be cured. It is a daily struggle for us/them.
You have 21 years of "getting sucked back in." Just like he has a long long history of drinking...you have a long history and set patterns of responding to it. It will take time and doing some things that "feel wrong" but that you KNOW are right before you break some of those patters that have been making you miserable. Attending alanon will reinforce your growth and progress.
We as alanonics and codependents become addicted to the chaos. Its true, that adrenalin rush gets us going, and we do crave it. When they are not around, we start to feel sick too, like we need someone else to glom on to or meddle with or fix because we don't want to look at ourselves. You can take it one day at a time. Thats what I am doing. As hawaiilover said, tomorrow is a mystery. I am keeping my hands in today for now. Its hard, to look at ourselves, we don't want to feel our own pain. We are just as addicted to them as they are to alcohol. The book Getting Them Sober is helping me so much, and face to face alanon meetings. If you can get to a meeting, try it for 6 in a row and LISTEN while there. Get phone numbers and call people. Don't isolate. It makes us sicker when we stay in our heads. Take care of you!
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-youfoundme
Let go and let God...Let it be... let it begin with me...
Not getting sucked back in was a very long process for me, with lots of practice detaching with love. My experience is a bit different from yours. My husband and I both come from addictive families and grew up with this disease. I was raised to be the caretaker and fixer for the A's in my family so it was normal for me to contsantly be drawn into the chaos including raising a couple of children of my brother and sister. We moved away when our children were young thinking a geographical change would stop the cycle. But it didn't because we were still behaving with our dysfunctional coping skills and behaviors. Our son sunk into addiction and we sure didn't have very healthy coping skills for that. We tried "fixing" him for years to no avail until I found alanon. Not only was I dealing with a child ( adult ) sinking into addiction but I was diagnosed PTSD and had gone into a severe deep depression with constant anxiety attacks. I felt like I was getting hit from all sides and nothing but nothing helped until I hit the doors of alanon. And this program literally saved my life and my sanity. So please continue to go to meetings and work your recovery, I was broken in a million pieces when I got here and the wonderful people in this program little by little put me back together and held me up when I didn't have the strenght to hold myself up. So with a child that is an addict there is no divorce and like I said we kept trying to fix and nothing worked There is the saying " the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results" and thats what we were doing. Our son lived at home, eventually lost job after job, got in trouble with the law, went to rehab twice and would do well for a certain amount of time, then for what ever excuse ( cause any excuse will do ) would go back to using drugs, just a vicious merry go round. I will say here my husband and i are both disabled so not only did it take its tole mentally his addiction or dealing with it would literally make us physically sicker. Until we finally got the strenght to put him out of the house. and even as I worked my program I could and still do get sucked in. A's are master manipulator's, they know just what to say or do to reel us back in. Make us feel sorry for them because of the choices they have made. I will go with whoever posted above to go by actions not words. I learned long ago A's lie and that if my son is talking he is likely lying. I had to learn to trust what i saw and felt and disgard what i was being told. This is a life long disease and recovery is life long for both the A's and us Alanoners. No one can tell you what decision to make in regards to possibly taking your husband back. Only you know what you can and can't live with. It is suggested in alanon that you don't make any major life decisions for the first 6 months of YOUR recovery. By then if you are working the program and the steps you will be more educated on this disease, more confident in your decision making process and be able to make a better informed decision. Sorry I kinda rambled on there lol Blessings in recovery!
hello everyone! thanks for all your comments on my last post. i would like to share a little something about "why do i keep getting sucked backed in and listen to my ah, like hes making good sense while hes taking pills and drinking. we had our 1st court date since i have filed for divorce and our next date is in 60 days, hes now saying hes going to a 7 days program of some sort and has asked me if he stays sober for the next 60 days will i take him back, because he wants his wife and family back more than anything in the world. But when your guys say (friends of al-alon) focus on YOU, when i do he says iam being cold, not caring or loving. He says your out with your friends and i have noone, you have house, kids, dogs, etc. i feel so guilty and just want to say come back home because iam so sick of his whining all the time since we have been separated. when he is out of the picture i hate to say it, but iam very peaceful and satisfied, yes i feel lonely sometimes (but do i miss him or just the fact of missing all the chaos, we have been married for 21 yrs and together for 26yrs. sorry so long. thankyou to everyone! You all are truly very special people!
support, Otie