Hi All,

            I'm so glad this is here for me. I am a wreck this morning. After 7 years of marriage, we are still in the same place. AH still drinks, but at least it was getting better for a while--not as drunk, or not as often. I could sort of manage that. I was also trying my best not to hide his beer, confront him or say anything. In fact, I started drinking a little wine myself on the weekends thinking--he won't stop, so why can't I have a little once in a while? I was starting to take care of myself--not worry about him. I started to go to movies with friends and he was okay with that. That may sound odd, since I was drinking wine once in a while, but I could never drink to excess. I would just get sick, and I am trying to be the support and security for my kids, who are only 5 and 3 years old.

Of course, not worrying about his drinking anymore and drinking a glass here or there myself backfired on me. In the past month, he is drinking at least a six pack to 10 beers a night. (It used to be 18). And it only takes one to affect his mood.  By two he is already pissy and argumentative.

We have several things that make our marriage difficult even beyond the drinking: I am 18 yrs older than him and he is hispanic--he has only been in this country since he was 16 or 17. A nice white couple without children took him in and put him through school, everything, and at the time I met him he was thriving, going to school, helping at a kids camp, doing the lighting on a play (that's where we met, I was the actress in a show), and he had several good people around him. He was very charming and handsome, and all the women wanted him. But he pursued me. It became obvious he liked older women. He has abandonment issues from his mother that have never healed but he has only occasionally dealt with them. I had kids at a late age with him, and not only is it difficult having children in my 40's, but it is even harder with an alcoholic who showed plenty of warning signs before we got married. Even though there were plenty of "anger" issues between us and I had fought more with him than any other boyfriend in my life, I really wanted a family.

I tried to be the "attachment" type of parent that I wanted to be and to really nuture my kids. AH and I were supposed to have just one child because of my age but the second was an accident because of one of many drunken nights that he came home and demanded action, even when it was a bad time in my cycle (ovulating, etc).

My parenting technique backfired as well, since AH gets very angry when he drinks and is verbally abusive to all of us. I was always very classy and rarely swore before I met him, and now we get into these fights which I consider damaging--I've never been able to just shut up and let somebody verbally abuse me--so now I swear and get hurtful, too. I dislike the person I've become around him. We got married in 2005, moved to a different state to take a job (moving away from all the previous supportive people and friends) and since moving to the new state, we have not had many new friendships. His friendships have only been negative ones with other alcoholics. After what seemed like hell on earth after the first three years of marriage, he finally got a DUI in 2008 and it was a major breakthrough. I'd never been so happy with him being in jail and going to AA, it was a major breakthrough. He did well for about 4 months--got a one year chip even though he began to lie to the group, as he was still drinking. He lied to his probation officer (all the women, even counselors are charmed by him). During that time, he stopped blaming us and began to do real work on himself. I tried to be as comforting and supportive as I could. He even asked if he could buy a gun--since he wasn't drinking anymore, and I was stupid enough to let him (we later had a scary drunken incident with the gun and I made him sell the three other guns he wound up buying after the first one).

Eventually, dissent crept in. I nursed both my kids for as long as I could and did not drink a drop of alcohol for five plus years during the time I had my kids and nursed them (we both drank when we met). He began to resent the nursing and the time I spent with the kids. At the time, the sex part of our life (that was the important part to him) was still going, although I was unhappy with our intimacy. It was all about him and whether he got something or not. Because both kids nursed so much, they were sleeping in our beds. Each time I tried to transition them to their own beds, it would not work. Sometimes we would put them to sleep in a different room and this would work for a while but AH could not put up with the crying or the lack of sleep, so we could never fully spend a week getting them through some sleep training. Besides, I was raising them a different way than what was traditional. AH seemed to be ok with this at first, since in his country, most kids slept with their parents when they were small. He would come home drunk, throw the empty crib (that became a storage place instead for clothes) against the wall and be very, very frightening. He insisted we were growing apart. I found myself "hiding" in the bed with my 2 yr old to kind of put a protective shield around me when he came home drunk at 1 am on a work night almost each night. So yes, he was correct, we were growing apart. But he blamed the kids not being in their own beds and the nursing, not his drinking. Of course, this is what "made" him drink more. Never mind that we had this same problem before we were married (a few scary incidents where I called the police on him--no physical violence and none to this day, but scary close). My parents when they came to visit sided with him--that I wasn't disciplining the kids correctly (our DS has ADHD but we do not give him medication) and that the kids needed to be in their own beds. Every time I tried to get them there, I was sabbatoged by AH...he would get angry and spank happy with the kids and they would be so hurt and crying that they would come screaming to me for support. I became the "safe" parent to go to, he became the "scary" parent, and so essentially he became ineffective as a parent, and he hated that. But I would not allow him to treat them this way. 

I decided maybe some time away would help, so I started going to movies with friends. He started mountain biking with friends. The "high" he got from Mt Biking was amazing. He was a changed man, if only for an hour after the bike ride. No fights, no anger. And then, drinking a few hours later and he was back to the same person. Ugly. Unhappy. Irresponsible. Lacking energy. Negative. He went away this weekend--it was supposed to be just a day of hiking, but I asked him to make it an overnight with a male friend.

So they camped, and I thought this time away from his kids (who seem to irritate him so much lately) would give him a chance to reflect and get a break. That maybe he would go on another Mt Bike ride instead. When he got home two days later, he was stinking drunk. Arguing right away with the kids and with me. Saying we were getting further apart and that he was going to move to the downstairs bedroom and that if I didn't want to be divorced, I should put the kids in their own beds and move in there with him. A week earlier, I'd spoken to him hopefully about--once again, trying to accomplish his wish, but that I needed his help. I wanted to paint each room for both our DD and DS, put their toys in each room (right now DS has his own room but won't sleep in it through the night) and DD doesn't have a room, she just turned 3 and sleeps with us in the upstairs bedroom but in a separate bed and the Master bedroom sits unused downstairs. If we made each room look inviting and we cleaned up the Master Bedroom (which has become a storage area) we could do this! But no...with an AH it's just not possible. Because we get in fights each night and do not even accomplish what we set out to do. And we both work full time, and I do most of the chores around the house and the finances, he only helps when he is in a good mood or feels obligated.

So I sent him a letter this morning telling him to move out, that this might be a good idea to separate for a while. And that it wasn't his fault. (I have been constantly blaming his drinking for all our problems, but I know I shouldn't be verbalizing that to him, but I only do so because I'm worried about the effect it's having on the kids). Instead I said it was part my fault and that I was a perfectionist and controling and not easy to live with. He read it this morning and left stained coffee on it with so far no response. I am already living like a single parent. The worst is when he blames DS (who is very sweet but extremely hyperactive. And to not set daddy off, I've actually put him on a very restrictive diet to control his hyperactivity, but AH has sabbatoged that too by continuing to give him candy when he buys alcohol). AH blames DS for causing problems and "not listening", and this is often after an argument we've had over our "growing distance" and AH will become pissed and get in his car to leave, while his DS stands there saying, "Daddy please don't leave," and AH will in anger say something like, "I'm leaving because you never listen to me."  Poor DS is being damaged by this and it rips my heart out. I'm so ready to end this. I've tried to go to al-anon locally but they only have meetings Monday nights only and I often get home late from my job and have to get dinner on the table--and often not until after the meeting starts. Besides, I can't seem to handle the emotion that spills out of me at the meetings and I can barely talk. I know it would help eventually, but sometimes I'd rather just end this marriage. I feel so so alone in this without any family support (my parents are not supportive and don't understand alchoholism, even though I believe my Dad to be an alcoholic, no one else in the family agrees). I worry about making it all work. I make more money than AH, but still not enough to cover all our expenses and daycare. We spend $1400 a month in the summer on daycare and we are also in CC debt up to our eyeballs. If we end this, I will most likely have to file for bankruptcy, and loose a house that I did all the work to buy for us two years ago. I don't know if I love him anymore. My feelings have been so muted and guarded over the years that nothing seems clear anymore.

Minaret

 

Welcome.

You will have members answering you, but keep in mind that time differences mean that many live in the northern hemisphere and answers may come in later for you.

I am rushing off to work.....and actually haven't read your post right through.

Keep posting, when you feel in the mood, we are be keen to support you.

T.H.

 

Hi Minaret - for me, delving into the program helped me to get right with me so I could finally know what it was I should do. The answers became clearer the more I re-asserted who I was and what my worth is in this life. He made the decision pretty easy in that he was always getting mad and used leaving as a weapon against me - but after the last leave was when I started really working through things and it was easier with each passing week to see the sickness and how little I wanted to deal with it and to just NOT let him come back home - the longer he stayed away, the more time I had to really think and clear my muddled mind - its amazing what the stress of living in chaos does to your ability to think for yourself. It became crystal clear that the alcohol problem had to be resolved and he became increasingly unwilling to do so. I got strong enough to know that I would NOT go back into the chaos (nothing changes if nothing changes) and he would NOT give up the alcohol so, impasse reached, nothing more could be done. I saw writing on the wall in regards to his careless behavior coming closer to dragging me further down and I ended things.

My family clamored for me to leave him, divorce, get away, etc. but I had to do it at my own speed and for the right reasons; it had to be my choice because I had to live with myself and the consequences of my choices.

I would say that the question to stay with him or leave got put on the shelf while I started to heal and re-learn how to listen to and trust my heart.

Thanks for the replies, they are very helpful. I would like to come to this site more, but it's easier to post when I am at work, however, at work my supervisor frowns on this activity, even though it is allowed to go to websites on lunch and breaks. I usually try to post when the boss is not around. At home, if I have the energy after dealing with AH and the putting the kids to bed, I might come downstairs and post. Usually after 11 pm like it is tonight. It's killing me. He drank again tonight and then took off in his car, I didn't even know he was gone--for about 3 hours. Told some lie about his friend (another alcoholic) needing him. When it's his friends, he jumps in the car immediately. I think he just went to his friend because he could drink there, since I took his debt card away. He said he tore up the credit card he was using (a few times he put hundreds of dollars on it in one month) but I doubt that. He would never have a way to not get alcohol. He didn't read the note I left him that I wanted him to leave. Said he didn't want to be in a bad mood all day at work.

The drinking is always there, but every time it increases to the point that I can't tolerate it, I am a crying mess for a few days. Then I pick myself up and try to put things back together, but this time I don't want to. The thing I can't understand about staying is that I want to protect my kids. I don't want to turn them into alcoholics or get other trauma. They are already modeling his behavior. Yet it seems so insurmountable to go through the pain of leaving him...not pain because I would miss him, mostly just pain from the guilt he would make me feel, the obligation I still somehow feel to take care of him, the pain the kids would go through with him being gone, the changes to everything from living arrangements to picking up the kids after school. I already do so much already, I can't imagine adding more. It would exhaust me. I used to be really healthy and hike/bike all the time before I married him, and now I am 50 pds more and tired all the time and depressed. I know another person who is going through the same thing, yet she does not want to connect with me and it hurts. We talk about going to an alanon meeting together, but it doesn't happen. She seems to have lots of other friends to go to. I don't. Even though I am social and almost always in a good mood, I don't seem to attract friends, and this has bothered me my whole life. I am such a loyal friends and person. Sometimes I feel so incredibly lonely, if it weren't for my kids, I would probably be quite reckless, especially the way I feel today. As they say, tomorrow is another day. Wee-hee.

I'd give you validataion to leave, though as Canadian says, it isn't really mine to give.  If you read these boards very often you'd see the leave/not leave is a constant question.  I should have left earlier for my kids sake.  I should have had them in alateen.  (DD born when I was 40.)  Should, should, should..  My kids are in their 20s and still hurt and angry at AF (now recovering and in the program but the damage was done).  You'd protect your kids from physical abusers.  An AF's actions can be abuse in a different way.  DD spent alot of time in therapy and was in tears again today - so fragile.  DS refuses to go to therapy.  He just gets angry alot, including at me, and blames others for his problems.  By now they should be taking responsibility for themselves, not blaming others or just crying about things.   I tell them nothing is perfect; they have/had parents who love/loved  them and they got the tools to be successful adults - including good educations.  It's time to get over it.  But they can't not yet.  It's not just you anymore.  I'm quite convinced you have to consider "what's better for the kids?" I'm not sure I thought enough about that.