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I don't know how to deal with things today. I'm separated from AH. He's been sober over 3 mos after a series of binges that drove him insane and made him lose his job. He's now in AA and working with a sponsor, but has a long way to go emotionally.
He visits me and our son every weekend. Some days are better than others. Some days (like today) my resentment eats me up. For starters, he told me I'm a nervous wreck. This is a man whom I saw lose his mind this summer. This is a man who turned to vodka when he decided he's under the least bit of "stress." Then, while he's here to visit/help with our child, he decides to take a nap. Hello?? I'm the one who is raising our child, how about a little help?
He is basically acting like nothing is wrong. Like all is fine, he didn't mess up his and my life, and everything is just dandy. I am fighting relentlessly to keep myself from blowing up at him. I am having a very hard time holding my tears back. I don't want him to see them, but a part of me wants him to know that I resent him.
I don't know if this is his way of dealing with the mess he got himself in. I presume he is discussing all this with his sponsor. But to me, all he does is either act like he's the one who has his act together while I'm the nervous one, or takes naps when visiting.
My blood is boiling now. I love him but resent him equally. I just don't even know if I can handle seeing him at all. He's here now and I don't know what to do. I don't want to have to feel as if I'm putting up an act every time he's here. But maybe the alternative is worse?
Oh boy, nyc - I'm really new to this (alanon), and I'm not at all sure what a "good" response is to your difficult situation... I wish I could help by giving you some sage advice.
Just know that I really sympathize and understand. I hope you give yourself some private personal applause for keeping your wits about you for as long as you have! Hang in there.
Sometimes when I talk to my soon to be ex AH..I come away thinking I have been to the twilight zone..(envision me with one eyebrow raised). I have to remind myself that even when he is not drinking...his thinking is a bit...well..alcoholic. ME ME ME . I once heard "poor me, poor me, pour me a drink." hahahaha so many active As just can't seen any needs other than their own. Frustrating as can be.
Resentment comes up for me when I have expectations of him. I stopped having any and that helped.
hang in there, and don't let the (you know what) get you down!(or your blood pressure up, for that matter)
NYC - it's going to take some adjusting. Are you able to ask him for help? Sometimes you get so used to them being drunk and good for nothing that you forget to ask for help and they are so oblivious to acting like a grown up that they don't offer to help. When I stopped drinking, I literally had to start from the ground up and that included learning to groom myself properly, go shopping for food, pay bills... I had really drank myself out of basic daily living skills. If I was not living on my own at the time, I might have continued on being an even bigger adult baby.
You can ask for help. You are entitled to state your needs. He is either going to respond or not. 3 months sober is not very long...I would still expect the person to be very childlike and self absorbed. Working the steps and honestly taking a look at myself created the change within me. That is what I would pray will do it for him.
As for you, you are doing the best you can. There might be some ways to communicate your feelings to him without him going into a tantrum or in a way that compliments his recovery rather than hurts it. I might try reading this part of the big book. Remember when reading this that it was written in the 1930s. It is the chapter on "To the wives:"
Thank you all, and thanks pinkchip for the link - I've started it and it's so amazing how you'd never know it is 80 years old. I'm going to print it out and looking forward to reading it in its entirety. I should have asked, you are right. I am just used to him being the one who just "dumps" on me, and so when he went to take a nap I just quietly resented it and didn't bother. Yes, sobriety is very new to him, and if he so chooses, he will have to do a lot of soul searching and take a hard look at what happened. He says he's still on Step 2 and clearly there is a long road ahead. There are personality issues which, before the alcoholism took over, where just kind of bothersome, but which blew up when he became a hard core alcoholic. I don't believe he either realizes, or perhaps doesn't want to acknowledge, the full extent of what this did to him and his family. On the positive side, I didn't let him see me cry or fume - I am now glad that I didn't, because I realize it would have just turned into a fiasco, and I'd be accused of being "mopey" on top of it all. So the rest of the afternoon didn't turn out too bad. Now he is at an AA holiday party and I am just able to spend the evening relaxing. Thank you all for your support.
I'm sorry you had to experience such frustrating feelings. There are times when my husband is sleeping that make me furious. Here I am awake taking care of the kids and feeling horrible, and he has the audacity to be able to sleep, which to me feels like he's abandonned me and is tuning out. Now that I'm typing this, I'm realizing a lot of my resentment does happen when he's asleep...When this happens, lately I've been reminding myself to mind my own business, Live and let live, and focus on what I am going to do to be kind to myself in that moment. Sometimes that helps. I'm glad you got the support here you needed and were able to enjoy your evening. Sending you lots of support!
He told you that you were a nervous wreck - that sounds familiar! 5 years ago, before I met my now ex AH, I lived a quiet life, no one yelling at me, screaming at me, lying to me, demanding and controlling me - I lived in relative peace and quiet. Fast forward to 3 years ago, I'd been married to him for a while, he'd lost his job which was the only thing keeping him from drinking before 5pm every day so of course he was drinking from noonish on and I did not understand why he was so moody, I didn't understand why him being unemployed was tearing us apart. I know now that it wasn't the unemployment but it took a long time to get to that knowledge and there was a lot of verbal abuse thrown at me for a long time. We had breakups, where he'd move out in anger, live away for awhile, use up whatever meager resources we had, party hard with his buddies, then end up talking me into letting him move back home. Each time we reconciled without any real discussion of what had torn us apart in the first place and it wouldn't take long before things slid back to where they were - him with more ammo to throw at me in fights, my behavior to blame for every time he had to leave, the list of what I was to blame for longer. He could verbally completely tear me apart, leave the house for a few hours, then come home and expect me to be ready to go to some event he needed a wife for. Until him, no one had called me the nasty names he was always throwing at me and its pretty hard to recover from if you've never experienced it. When I met him I described him as a quiet gentle-mannered man; I envisioned being able to sit down and discuss problems and work them out to mutual satisfaction - boy was I ever wrong!
Today I feel like a dog that's been kicked too much. I've entertained the notion of dating but each time after consideration drives me to physical symptoms of dis-ease, I wind up with the same conclusion - feeling sort of like the Indian Chief who said - I will fight no more, forever. I just can't do it, and right now, I believe any man out there is just going to do the same thing to me. (Now, I said that, but I believe that eventually that feeling will end because I truly DON'T believe all men are any one kind of bad).
My point is, of course you are a nervous wreck - mine would put me through hell until i couldn't stand it anymore then eventually come back acting like he didn't do anything wrong - he still denies any part in our troubles. If I wasn't getting any help on the weekends, if having him there was causing me MORE stress and work than less, I would start having weekends without him. And, conditions for weekends with him to include no napping if I can't nap!
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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
Hi (((NYC))) When my AH had been in AA for about a year, he was working on the step about making amends to those who had been hurt by his drinking. He told me he was having a really hard time with it because he just couldn't think of anyone that he had hurt! I wanted to scream, "ME,ME,ME! Not to mention your kids, who have been at the wrong end of your drunken rants many, many times." In so many other ways, he had shown such improvement, but there is still that part of him that can't seem to understand the pain he has caused. And, like you, I resent it. I resent the fact that he ruined every holiday, every vacation, every important moment for years, made his family live in fear of his next outburst, and HE doesn't even realize or admit it. But I just ask myself, what good would it do to confront him about it? He might apologize, but it wouldn't mean much, since I'd feel I forced it out of him. It might make him see what he's done, but I truly doubt it. Would it help me any, really? Just being able to say, "See what you've done? See the hurt you've caused?", would that really make either of our lives better? Probably not, it would just give me the chance to be self-righteous. And would probably cause him to feel resentful. So, I hold my tongue, and try to forgive even if I can't forget.
I just wanted you to know that, at least for me, feelings of resentment are common. The longer he's sober, the less frequent they are, but they still linger. And I still fight against them because I now realize that it's more harmful to myself to hold on to those resentments than it is to him. I try to give it all to my HP and just "Let it Be"!
Thinking of you today, and wishing you peace of mind.
Denise
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"The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time."
