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I would love to hear from others who have divorced their A. I am really struggling with my decision. I did not make the decision in haste. I had finally reached my breaking point and to be quite honest I mostly did it because I thought it would convince him to go into treatment. Now I am left with an extra angry A on the house and scared, confused, and upset children. I am sad at the thought of our family breaking up but I do not want things to continue as they are.
I have been posting about this a lot because I am obsessing over it. All of my married life I have tried to protect my kids. I thought the divorce was my only choice for their sakes but now I don't know if I made the right decision.
I would love to hear other experiences.
I also thought that if we left he would change. Mine asked for the divorce and said some pretty cruel things. I packed up me and my four kids, not his kids, and we immediately moved out. I thought he would come to his senses before we left. Then maybe he will after we left. Then thought maybe he would after a period of time. Well, he has realized he does not want to be without us but still does not own up to the drinking or what he does. He also now puts more blame on us because he is fine alone so it must be us that caused the problems. I had to do it for me and my kids. They are so much better without him and so am I. Believe me, there were many days, minutes and seconds when I thought I did the wrong thing. My HP would put him in front of me with a email or phone call that would remind me I chose right. When its right you will know. After almost three months I finally this last weekend stopped second guessing my choice. I heard what he was saying and thought to myself how I would not even go on a second date with this kind of a man let alone be his friend so I certainly dont want what he is offering now. He wants to divorce and only date with never marriage or living together. Not good enough for me. I doubted for a long time, but now love the peace. I wont trade it for anything.
So much of our thinking and actions as spouses of A's is centered upon in how it will make others feel. This is habitual and a symptom of our illness.
You divorced because maybe it would make HIM enter rehab.......now HE is angry......your CHILDREN are upset.......all of your married life you have tried to protect your KIDS..........what about YOU?
Learning to trust and value yourself first is hard as the spouse of an A, but you must learn how to do it. This is where Al Anon helps.
For me, I have so many moments of striking clarity during my day that I made the right decision to separate from my AW when I recall and reason through past horrors and abuses. Sometimes old habits and emotions do try to sneak in, where I place the feelings of others around me first instead of my own. But I am learning, and it feels wonderful.
To me it seems that using divorce as a means to get the A to seek treatment is not the best reason........but you also said you reached your breaking point.......that is a better reason. If you want to reassure yourself, focus on this and not weather or not your decision was effective in reaching your desired aim of getting your A to treatment. Peace and serenity to you and your children.
I am convinced that in my situation, separating from my A was the very best thing and the thing that needed to happen. He was endangering our toddler because he could not take care of him responsibly, being drunk and sometimes passed out. After one extra scary incident -- when I thought he was staying sober, even -- I realized that he was not going to stop drinking. I had heard all the excuses -- "I don't have a drinking problem, you're just oversensitive" -- "I had a problem but now I've solved it and things are fine" -- "I don't need AA, those are real drunks, I'll just stop" -- "I don't have to stop because I don't have any problem" -- "I'm not drinking and you can't prove I am." Meanwhile he had the DUIs, the expenses, the lying, the stealing, the weird temper, all the rest of it. He wasn't violent or even very angry, but it was beyond chaotic anyway. I had lived in hope of him stopping. I finally, finally realized that he wasn't going to. It turns out the statistics are low -- only something like 25% of those who enter recovery achieve longterm sobriety (and that doesn't even count the many who never enter recovery). Of course for someone who wants to enter and wants to make it work, that raises the odds a lot. But it finally became clear to me that my A did not want to enter recovery and did not want to be sober. He wanted to mislead me and keep on with the same old behavior.
Right when we separated I had a crisis of doubt. My friends sat down with me and started listing the things he had done which no one should have to live with. I had lost my perspective because we get sucked into the insanity. And embarking on a new stage of life can be daunting. But they talked me through it and I got as much support as I could and things were better almost immediately. Living without that daily chaos was amazing. And I feel much better knowing that my child is not growing up thinking "This is normal." Hopefully if he becomes involved with someone who has a drinking problem, he will move on before he gets very involved, not think, "Ah, this feels just like home."
I did have some addiction problems in that I was addicted to my A and to the chaos, strange as it seems. The lack of turmoil meant I had to think about my own life, and that was painful. But life is so much more peaceful. My ex is still drinking, but ironically our relationship is calmer than it ever was.
Right now I'm in the throws of beyond messy divorce. He's in over his head and I'm literally treading water. Now I say this and guess what, .. I would do it all again in a heart beat and make the same choices even knowing that I would be struggling right now. Things in my house are sooooooo MUCH better. The kids are calmer, I'm calmer and he can spin whatever tornado he needs to spin. Without his push, it would have taken me a lot longer to leave. I would have been dying a slow internal death.
What Mattie said about gaining perspective and stop living in the dream. I know I was just as guilty of telling myself it really wasn't that bad .. was it? When I started looking at the circumstances I have and am living in now .. yes .. it really was that bad and no I don't have to live like that and neither do my children.
It is going to take a few years for me to get to the evolution of where others are at however I will get there just not today. I'm ok with that too. I'm getting some life lessons and I'm not sure what they are .. I do know it must have something to do with selling myself short and knowing that everything is going to be ok.
Hugs P :)
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Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation, which is not nurturing to the whole woman.- Maya Angelo
I also shake my head at what I put up with for so long. I know this guy is the father of your kids and that is a major factor, but in all your posts I have not heard 1 redeeming quality. Only nastiness, bullying, cruelty, manipulation. Basically, you are living with a terrorist. That is really toxic. "What about you?" is a pertinent question. Why do you deserve to be treated like that? Alanon is a place to start regaining your footing and knowing that you deserve to be treated with respect and kindness.
It has been a long road of pain, difficulty - but also growth for me. It took a lot of years of weekly therapy for my therapist to rip my consciousness out of everyone else and back into me. ONLY THEN did things improve.
Unfortunately, my kids were affected, did have to go be alone with a man who has anger issues. Actually I OFTEN refer to him as a terrorist like pinkchip said. I also call him a monster, I think he's both.
But out of it all my kids got to see me get better, realize what they saw in their dad was NOT ok, and as they are growing they are really showing that there was benefit in my leaving despite the pain they went through. My oldest son stands up to his dad and tells him "I refuse to see you when you treat me the way you do" and then he refuses to go. My youngest just remarked on Christmas that "you know dad doesn't know how to be joyful at Christmas". I see that as just part of a progression they have to go through to detach from feeling that his behavior is their fault (because he has always told them it is their fault).
So had I stayed, my kids might think it's normal to have a mom/dad who fight constantly, who are angry and miserable all the time and that dad's are drunken abusers. But they know now that their dad has a problem and it has nothing to do with them. So would I divorce him again? You bet. was it hard? Hardest thing I have ever done. Did anything I do make him better or worse? Not a single thing. Did my kids get hurt, yes. Did they grow? Yes.
Did anything I did help me? Immensely, I've learned how to improve myself, better my life, believe I deserve the things I work for and stop worrying even a second about him. He doesn't cross my mind even for a second unless he's in my face for the moment. People ask me "how is he" and my answer is always 'I DON'T ASK AND I DON'T WANT TO KNOW".
It's true. It's hard to remove yourself from someone where the two of you have been overly enmeshed, overly controlling each other and constantly spending your energy trying to change the other person. It's like trying to unjam a train-wreck at high speeds ... it's going to take a long time to untangle the metal and put it back together and each train team has to stay on it's own side for damage control or nothing will get done to their own cars.
Thank you all so much for the support and words of wisdom and encouragement. After being so upset last night my HP snuck up on me today. My AH went for his first appointment at an outpatient treatment center. He texted me when he was finished to tell me that the therapist there told him I need a psychiatric evaluation. WHAT???!!! I don't know any therapist who would say that about someone they know nothing about but what an addict tells her. He either lied to her or to me....probably he did both. This has to be a sign to me that I am making the right decision.
I am a therapist and can tell you that would never happen....EVER. There is too much to focus on with an individual coming in for an intake to even think about what their spouse might need and it's commonly known that substance abusers come in blaming everyone but themselves. Keep taking care of you.
A person could lose their license if they recommended psychiatric services for someone they haven't even met.
Imom, my husband told me something similar after supposedly going to an intake appointment for treatment. He told me that the psychiatrist told him that I have mental health issues that are causing him to drink. I knew there was no way any therapist would have told him that. A few weeks later a letter came in the mail saying he needed to reschedule the appointment because he never attended the intake.
They might say that they want the spouse to come in but that would be to provide accurate information because substance abusers are notorious liars. It is likely they would ask you to come in to provide more factual information about how he really acts and how much he drinks. He might twist that to sound different though.
