well seems to me... I'm spending yet another night alone... - Al-Anon Family Group

Jonesy0505 · Veteran Member

well seems to me... I'm spending yet another night alone...

Pushka · ~*Service Worker*~

Hugs Sherri,

I can tell you ultimatums are not going to make him see the light of his ways. You didn't cause his addiction, you can't control his addiction and you will not cure it. 3 C's. Changes in you will do one of two things he will adjust to your changes or he will not and then you can make a clearer decision on what you want to do. Living your life is a good place to start.

In recent weeks I have started finding myself going back to the person I was before my AH and I got together and when we were first together. I so like this person a lot better. Plus now I have maturity that I lacked during those years. I used to get the "might" plans. My AH and I were dating at the time and it was long distance. He "might" be down Friday or maybe Saturday. After about a couple of months of the "might" plans. What can I say I'm a slow learner. I thought screw this, .. I "might" be home and I "might" not. I didn't tell him that I just started going out and doing my own thing. I love to shoot pool. Anyway, he showed up on a Friday night and I wasn't home. He came back Saturday during that early morning, I wasn't home (I was out walking that morning). I remember pulling up and seeing him sitting outside my apartment door with a big ol' WTH look on his face .. LOL. I never did tell him where I had been, (we weren't married and I didn't owe him any kind of explanation) I did let him know I no longer was waiting for him to "maybe" show. I had plans and friends here in town and I was very much not sitting by my phone boo hooing about where he was or not. He stopped with the "might" plans and started showing up. He realized I was not depending on him in any way.

While I recognize that dealing with an addict is very different. It's still a similar premiss. I can tell you right now for me and again this is only me, if my AH decided to start with that kind of thing. I wouldn't act out in the sense of causing a scene or giving ultimatums. I would start planning on doing things with my time. My time is valuable and I don't care if that is time I spend on the computer or time watching tv, it's still a disrespect to my time if I'm cooking and so on. I would be making time to do the things I want to do not looking at the clock wondering where my AH is or is not. My AH would be coming home to an empty house because I would be taking the kids and doing something with them if time permitted, going to Noni's house doing something though that was fun for us all. Why wait for him? I have a life. I have a life again and it's the best feeling in the world!! My days are no longer revolving around if he shows or not, I have things happening.

Hugs it does get better and you are worth the time and effort of you, P :)

Debilyn · ~*Service Worker*~

We have to say what we mean. It's very vital to our sanity and self respect.

So are you serious that he is to move out this week end, or if he does not come home at all are you moving his stuff out?

Or was it said as a final cry of please come home?

Pushka Is so correct. My own Ah now ex, said the same thing, ultimatums make it worse. The A who is active is insane, their brain and whole body is severly compromised. This is a very, sick human being.

I learned we have choices. With al anon we can look at those choices and decide which one we are going to live.

Stay, do nothing, keep interacting, being sick, complaining as A gets worse and worse

Work an Al Anon program, learn how to take care of YOU,not focus on the A disease its none of our business. Learn how to make the best of living with the A if you choose to stay.

Or leave, how them leave and live your own life.

that simple, that difficult too! I didn't want to be sick anymore, or physical abused either. plus this man was no longer my husband. He stayed away, cheated, and is a horrible monster.

I love my life, I am happy serene most the time. As much as anyone can be in this world.

I am true to my HP first, the creator, and I am true to me, and love others. I may hate their behavior but I love them.

I sure hope you stick to Al anon. Your pain is very clear. we can learn to say oh well whatever I am going to a movie with friends or by myself. or take the kids somewhere or go somewhere camping, whatever. he is wrapped up in his disease, there is no reason for us to let precious life and time pass us by.

Keep coming! love,debilyn

sookie · Senior Member

I understand that frustration and craziness very well. It's horrible, then good for a few, oh look, bad again--cool, back to good and then the anxiety of when it will turn. It sucks. And the feeling you were having as the clocked ticked past 7PM is something many of us have felt. I also set many many boundaries in the 8 years I have been married to an alcoholic and then kept dissolving them.

Finally, after he continued driving drunk, I asked him to leave (incidentally he got another DWI just a month later!!)...I do not regret it. BUT I had to be READY to let him go. Honestly, it was WAY easier than I thought, but I would not have been able to WAIT until the right moment w/o Al-Anon. I am no longer in an angry mood around the clock, taking it out on my kids and torturing myself with thoughts of him. Still love him a lot, but letting him go on this journey as he needs to.

I am one seriously grateful member--keep coming back. If you can go to a F2F meeting it can change everything.

Best wishes.

Jonesy0505 · Veteran Member

I'm thinking he is making my decision very easy right about now. As usual early this morning I get a text with all the regular begging and pleading "im sorry i messed up, i can't do this alone, please help me, I'll do whatever I have to, I don't wanna lose you, etc". So I answered fine goto rehab then we'll talk. He says he'll do anything but rehab. My answer "then your not ready". Then I don't hear anything else for hours, in fact, I still haven't heard anymore. But when I checked the account, he is now up to his old tricks of putting in empty envelopes and withdrawing money! So....again my decision has been made very easy!

Pushka · ~*Service Worker*~

Oh Jonesy I am soooo sorry about the money stuff that is REALLY hard especially because financial trust effects you directly. I should preface that's how it is for me. I am completely dependent on my AH for financial support and not by choice. We would spend more on childcare at the moment than I can make and I'm not going to saddle my eldest with that kind of responsibility for an 8 hour stretch. Plus helloooo taxi there is no one else even though he's getting rides I still have to be available for the kids.

You know your situation best and you know what will work for you. I know this time last year AH really didn't leave me much of a choice, I was on the verge of calling the banks and say his ATM had been stolen please shut the account down. It's a joint account and I was scared to death he was going to pull out all of the money and leave the kids and I in a fix. He didn't, I was still very much on the edge and I would have had I seen a lot of activity that was going to damage us.

Hugs, P

callmemara · Veteran Member

Jonesy,
I was in the same place last night. 8pm, he said he was going to throw something in the dumpster (large trash) in the dumpster at our friends apartment complex (illegal dumping I know, but that's a different post).
Said he'd be right back and promised he wouldn't be stopping by that friends apartment.
I stay up and watch TV. 12pm He's still not home, I leave voice mail.
I turn the ringer off to my phone and go to bed.
Somehow God gave me the serenity to sleep despite his behavior, which before I wouldn't have been able to.
At 5:45am I awake to him leaving a message on the home answering machine which I hadn't thought to unplug! He states that he is downtown and can't find his truck and can I please come help him?
I think... uh, no! I go back to sleep and dreamed that he found his truck.
When I check my VM's in the morning, he'd been calling my cell from 5:15-on.
I'm so glad I had my phone turned off because I would have been pissed that he disturbed my slumber.

I know that was a long synopses but I think I did a few key things to maintain my sanity.
1. I turned all sounds off to my cell phone. I didn't want to be woken up by him calling or sending me a nonsense text in the middle of the night.
2. I didn't stop caring for myself to care for him. I put myself first and let him deal with his consequences. (I'm not heartless, if he'd been out for a legitimate reason, I would have helped him)
3. I don't know how I did it, but I managed to not be worried/pissed and I was able to get some sleep. Sleep is very important. Actually what I did was I told myself "oh, he's probably at that friends house" and I went to sleep.
Obviously he wasn't, I find out later. But now he's passed out on the couch at 9:30 this morning when he was supposed to be doing some work for a friend.
I will not make an excuse for him to that friend.

Jonesy0505 · Veteran Member

Mine spent another whole weekend away from here. Still hasn't come back. Callmemara, I know what you mean about losing sleep before, and now its like we've at least accepted that for the night we have NO control, its the days after I know I still need to work on. I don't make excuses for him either, did enough of that before in previous relationships with other A's. He is always very concerned as to whether I've talked to his parents or not. My thought on that is somewhere inside him, there is still a sober piece of him that feels shame from his actions even if he won't admit to them but it shows me he is still in there somewhere for now anyway. Whether he chooses to find that part of himself and grow from there is his choice to make, not mine.

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.