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My soon to be ex is supposedly going on 6 months of sobriety. My lawyer is the only one who talks to him and my lawyer said that he was apethetic.
I was wondering if it is normal to be apethetic while recovering from alcoholism or if he just does not care about me or the marriage?
I was wondering if that is the disease or just him?
We were married for almost 8 years we had two kids, i don't see how anyone could be apathetic in that situation, but to each his own, I guess.
I still care deeply about him, but I cannot trust him and he physically abused me. That changed things.
Have you ever know a marriage to heal after physical abuse? When there is physical abuse that gives the abuser a lot of power over the other. Power they should not have taken in that way. You cannot undo that. That is my opinion.
I'm so sorry you're going through this. ((HUGS)) for you. I hope you are able to attend meetings, and I'm so glad you're here.
I think the kinds of questions you ask are highly individualized. I can definitely see some people putting a relationship back together after physical abuse, and I can certainly understand why other people would not be able to do so.
My gut feeling is that your soon to be ex AH is using his apathy as a way to mask his true feelings, whatever they may be. It is his way of detaching, I suppose. Whether he is doing that in a healthy way, only he can know. But he may have decided that since he cannot save the marriage, he will just detach from everything that is going on. Perhaps he is avoiding deep feelings of guilt and failure. Perhaps he's just trying to move forward with his life. Perhaps he is not yet far along enough in recovery (if he is in recovery at all, as opposed to just being dry) to be able to really look at his past behavior and how he feels about the divorce. My ex husband, who was not an A, did have several emotional problems that culminated in a nervous breakdown, during which he disappeared for two days. After he came home, and issued one half-hearted apology, he made it clear that he no longer wanted to discuss what had happened, and that he wasn't going to spend any more time making amends for his behavior. He wanted to get as far away from his own failures as he possibly could, and the easiest way for him to do that was to draw a big bright line between then and now, and act like "then" didn't matter at all to him.
I have often read that we are best served when we focus on the "whats" of our relationships with our qualifiers, rather than the "whys." The "what" is that he is apathetic and detached. Stewing and fretting over the "why" may very well drive you nuts, and waste a lot of your precious emotional energy (which believe me, I KNOW you need during a divorce, especially when kids are involved).
You already received great ESH on the issue. I also was thinking its very subjective. I don't know him personally. My AH shows emotion now that he is in recovery. When he was using he was very apathetic. Whatever is going on just know you're worth your program.. you could drive yourself to insanity wondering why or whats he really feeling. he may express it some day, he may not.. as the saying goes.. what are you going to do? Your reaching out and so many can relate to the feelings. keep coming back and I hope you get to f2f meetings.
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Michelle!
No one can take away your peace of mind unless you let them.
