Dear Bargee,
Of course you don't trust him - nor should you - active alcoholics can't be trusted. Noone can compete with the bottle when it comes to alcoholism. It is an obsession and nothing can get in the way until/unless someone makes a commitment to recover. No amount of love for someone else can do it - (I certainly learned the hard way).

The good thing? You can feel better - and you will. Your sense of well being doesn't have to depend on what he does. Have you gone to any Alanon meetings? I'd encourage you to read Alanon literature - Courage to Change is fantastic and has helped me get through some bad times as well as provide me with a lot of solace when my mind goes to bad places. Another good book is 'Getting Them Sober."

If I remember correctly you're soon about to have a baby. All the more reason to do everything you can to focus on your well being. You need the strength for yourself and your child. You're not alone in this - lots of us have gone through this and the alanon program has helped us regain strength, peace, and sanity. Please keep coming back. Sending you much support!

It can and does get better. In my experience of living with active drinking, expectation = disappointment. I try to redirect my thinking from wondering about him to asking myself, "What can I do? What can I do? What can I do?". I am sorry you are in so much pain right now. Sending you lots of support and understanding! p.s. I sent you a private message answering some of the questions you asked. hugs.

I think he probably loves you as much as a self-centered actively drinking alcholic can love a person. None of this is about you. You keep assuming that he is functioning with a full deck and the same moral compass that you are. He isn't and when you accept that, you will feel a lot less pain.

Your self worth doesn't come from him Bargee. It comes from you. Right now, he is totally incapable of loving you back the way you want. It does NOT mean that you are unloveable. It mean HE IS INCAPABLE OF LOVING you the way you want. It is a crying shame that a person would turn themselves into an unloving, insensitive, walking zombie/drunk - but that is what he has done and you did not cause it, can't cure it, and can't control it.

So accepting all this about his is hugely difficult to do and your instinct is to wish wish wish and pray pray pray that he will change or that you wil morph into just what he needs to be the person you need him to be. That is misspent energy.

As far as him "forgetting you exist"...I know from my drinking days that the goal of my drinking was to get so hammered that I didn't feel anything. I knew my parnter didn't like me getting to that point. I am sure he knows his drinking hurts and upsets you. Guess what the only way he knows how to deal with others having hurt feelings about him is? What do you think his reaction is when he thinks "I can't do anything right for her." What do you think is his coping skill for tuning out all those feelings of failure and the fear of knowing he cannot stop what he is doing? THAT's RIGHT - The coping skill/reaction is to drink to forget it all. And when he sobers up again and starts feelings those things - he will drink to oblivion again. That is HIS pattern of dealing with emotions and stress and it's not about you. If you weren't in his life he would be drinking and doing it about all other things he faces on a daily basis. It is HIS destructive way of handling things - You don't have to sail on that sinking ship....you can hop on an Alanon lifeboat and paddle away a bit to not get sucked under. I know you love him, but don't think that love will make him healthy or change him into what you need.

Please tell yourself something good about yourself today. My therapist used to tell me when I was upset about others or the quality of my relationships: Take all the love that you want from that person and start giving it to yourself.

Mark

Wow... I can hear so much of me in what you are saying
What has helped me the past few months is first.... Accepting my husband is an addict. Then.... QTIP. It was hard but it has worked for me. Quit Taking It Personally.

All those things you said, I have said to myself also. Just to be asked, to be thought about, to be the number one most important thing in his mind as he is in mine. To be the first love of his life etc.

When I QTIP'd it.. I realised he doesnt smoke pot or drink or fish or whatever BECAUSE of me, so that means he won't stop because of me either.

It was really diffiuclt to separate myself from him. To see him as ain individiual with his own life and choices and I with mine.... it was such an alien concept. AT first I felt like I had been dropped in a foreign country where no one spoke my language, I had no idea where I was.. and I did not have a guide book.... where was I.. what is going on here????

I have been here over 4 months and I am still on the first two steps. But I found a guide book here.

Also, what helped me was Tai Chi.. well, some of the Zen phylosophies, particularly the one about the 'nothing'. I am not very good at explaining it but basically it is the idea that it is the gap, the emptiness, the between, that makes things full.
I stood outside one day and was struggling in my mind. I looked at a beautiful Palm I have out there. I noticed how two leaves were the same colour, the same shape pointing in the same direction, perfectly aligned... with a perfect gap inbetween symmetrical and allowing the light to shine through.
It occured to me, that if there was not a space between these two fronds, on the one beautiful plant, that I woudl have lost that appreciation of the 'separation' and the beauty it represented and I would not have seen the sun shining through. If there was no gap, It would just be one big clump of leaf, they together made the one tree, but there was gaps and that is what made the tree what it is... I am not sure if I ma making any sense... but it helped me separate myself from my husband and yet love him all the more as together.... now that is zen hahahahahahaa.

I haven't found 'who I am' yet, and I have days that I struggle. My husband has been great with my boundaries lately, but I am waiting for the day that it happens that he smokes around me, or wants to. I can't rest on my laurels at this point.

I honestly do understand what you are saying. Still my husband does things that are soooo totally selfish it isn't funny. I get annoyed, currently I am giving myself a bit of time to be annoyed, I tell him what has annoyed me, and I move on. It woudl just be sooo nice to if we were number one on their mind, but ya know what.... even non addicted people can be selfish. I have accepted that my husband is an addict, he is also very selfish and can be very lazy at times. Then sometimes he can be the most loving person in the world. He isn't perfect and I had to take him off his pedestal I had him on.

I have also, for me, come to realise that my expectation of him to totallylove me and be thinking of me etc etc, is a form of emotional manipulation for me. I have to be very careful of that. for me it can be intpreted as control.

Keep coming here and reading and learning

Hi again Bargee,
The hotline is under my signature if you need someone to talk to and please keep coming back, YOU are worth it! Sending you love and support!

"It's like he forgets I exist" is a really good way to put it, and it hurts because, like you, I never forget he exists. But, sadly, the substance is the love of his life and he may have wanted a life with me, he wanted the subtance more. I hear you Bargee