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Hello this is my first time here and looking for comfort and to get the courage I need.
Well, alcoholisim is no stranger to me. My dad was an alcoholic and as I read in some of the other forums here as kids we always knew how good or bad our night was going to be depending on my fathers mood. So I grew up living in that and unfortunately my mom was no help. She had her own things going on so needless to say my childhood memories aren't really good. I loved my dad and saw this disease eventually claim his life through diabetes. Living with an alcoholic parent made me insecure and a nervous wreck as I grew older. I had a really hard time with relationships and marriages because I never could trust anyone. I am now married for a third time and unfortunately was blind to his drinking problem until after we were married. Which makes me feel stupid after living through that with my dad. Anyway, I find my relationship with my current husband extremely stressfull. I am going through menopause and with it having anxiety issues and to make matters worse my husbands drinking problems are not making this any easier for me.. In fact I live in constant fear of him whether it's due to his lies, or his anger. He has never physically struck me but has shoved, bent my fingers back to take car keys out of my hand to prevent me from leaving and taken a swings at me.
I have been to AlAnon because of my dad...so I know all about detaching myself from this sickness. But my husband has become a contolling bully and as much as I try to avoid him when he's been drinking I find him even worse the morning or afternoon after a night of drinking! I tend to be vary wary of what I say as I never know when he's going to become confrontational which is his usual demeanor after drinking. Sometimes he seems worse! My anxiety has not made this any easier on me as I suffer from panic and anxiety usually when I'm with him. The panic and anxiety cause me to have tremors and are really taking a toll on my health as well. It's easy to detach when he just goes off and drinks by himself. It's another issue all together when you become a target and he comes looking for you to talk about something and is looking for an argument which he does a lot especially when he's drunk. He doesn't remember a lot of what he says anymore which I never experienced with my dad. I'll suffer terrible anxiety attacks and not tell him why. He drinks all night long and then sleeps most of the day so luckily I have at least that time alone. It's when he wakes up that I tend to tread softly until I can find out what kind of mood he's in. He rarely is up in time for breakfast and lunch for him is 3:00 in the afternoon which has been around the time he's been getting out of bed. He usually goes to sleep or should I say passes out around 2:00 in the morning.
My thing now is where to go from here. I'm extremely unhappy living my life with this anxiety and feeling like his pin cushion. I also don't like him having full control over the money, car and house as I work seasonally and pay the mortgage and groceries. I can't go anywhere if we get into a heated discussion (which I try at all costs to avoid) but hard to do when he comes after me because he won't let me take the car and threatens to call the police if I do. There have been times he's shoved me to the ground or pushed me into a wall.
I'm just trying to decide what's best. I admit that there's a part of me that's afraid to leave him too which is not healthy! I apologize for my long post.
Hi livestrong, I would like to point out that alcoholism is a progressive disease, so this is the BEST he will be unless he starts to heal himself. In the meantime I urge you to help yourself. You say you are familier with AlAnon because of your dad, but now go for you and the present situation. (Oh, I know that anxiety and the tightness in the chest and the heat!! Not fun. I found drinking ice water helped cool me from the inside out. I always keep ice water close by.) There are people at AlAnon that will hold you until you can figure out how to help yourself. Keep on reading here. There are lots of helpful ideas.
I'm sorry you are going through this. I'm not sure I can offer help but I can share my own experience of living a similar life to you. I am no longer with my alcoholic. I lived this way for over 20yrs though. I think I found my ex just as you found yours. We often search out what we are comfortable with on a subconscious level. I think you are accepting unacceptable behaviour, I also do so pls don't think I'm judging you. I too fail to hold people fully accountable for their actions. I complicate things snd bring my emotions in. When someone lays a finger on us the correct course of action is to call the police. Why should anyone get away with that because when they do it will happen again and get worse. More importantly we are not loving and caring for ourselves yet we expect others too. Alanon has freed me from so much. I go to meetings, read the literature and come here. There is another way to live. There is hope. Take care of you first.x
Abuse takes many form. It's not always just physical, it's mental and emotional abuse too that can cause just as much damage. I lived with a controlling bully for 18 years who behaved like that because of his alcoholic illness. I felt trapped for years and thought there was no way I could leave even though I had a job and earned my own money. I eventually got him to leave but had to suffer his rages before he went, but I kept my head down and eventually he did gp. Although even after that I took him back but ended up calling the police one night when after an argument he went to get an air rifle from the garage (I still have no idea what he was going to do with it and I didn't want to find out). I have no regrets that I called the police. They came to protect me and they removed him from my house. From going to al anon I know that in a recovering state he would never do or behave the way he did. I know that the excessive use of alcohol caused him to behave the way he did, but I also learnt that I didn't want to be around someone who had no control over what they were doing. It took me going to al anon to figure out what to do. Its different for everyone and some people learn to stay and live peacefully (as best they can) with the madness. But I needed the wisdom of others who had been in similar situations to get there. Good luck livestrong, you are in my prayers. x
Hi, livestrong. The parralells in our lives amazed me when I read your post. I'm on my 3rd marriage as well, grew up with an alcoholic dad and mom wasn't any help either. I chose an addict for 2/3 marriages unfortunately and am just now getting around to finding Al-Anon. Though I've never been to a meeting, reading here has been helpful the past couple days.
I understand your anxiety, I have a panic disorder and being with my husband just makes it terrible. I start to shake when he tries to start arguments with me, starts slamming things, or doing the dishes (only does them when pissed). My husband also will stay up late drinking, not get up until 3pm.. he doesn't accomplish anything all day besides going out to get another bottle of booze. His mood swings are all over the place and I just try to avoid him but it's hard when he seeks you out, then gets mad you don't want to kiss him or let him touch you because he's really drunk. He has pushed me down, into a wall, grabbed my stomach and shook it when he got mad that I wasn't wearing a shirt he bought me (though I'm thin I have extra skin on my stomach due to pregnancy and he knows I'm insecure about it). Just hateful, hateful things.
I wish I would have called the police before, but I am ready to now should anything else happen. I hope you are ready to do the same because you don't deserve to be treated that way.
I'm sorry I don't have a lot to offer right now, I just want to thank you so much for posting this and everyone that has responded. Your stories and advice are so helpful and make me feel less isolated and alone. I'm new to this and it's scary standing up for yourself to an alcoholic and setting boundaries. I still don't know what I'm going to do, but I am anticipating having to move out.
I'm sure someone else with more wisdom than I will come along and have much more helpful things to say, but I just wanted you to know you're not alone and I pray you find some peace. Hugs!
I want to suggest something for you to consider. The way you describe it, you have an anxiety disorder. And also your husband is not physically abusive, but his volatility is wearing. But it looks to me as if he is physically abusive. Frequently we become so used to the chaotic way we're living that we lose perspective on what abuse really looks like. Unless it's knives-drawn, head-pounding violence we might think it's not "really" abuse. He has taken swings at you, shoved you, bent your fingers back to forcibly take away the car keys (which is physical control as well as violence), and he's shoved you into the ground and pushed you into the wall. And violence and physical coercion is never justified, but even so he has done all these things despite you walking on eggshells and taking extreme care to try not to set him off. I am afraid that the truth is that he is a violent abuser. And I don't think you have an anxiety disorder. An anxiety disorder is something that happens when there is no external cause for it. It sounds to me as if your anxiety is an entirely realistic reponse to the circumstances in which you've been living.
The way I see it, you should give yourself credit. Despite your husband's controlling ways, your mind actually knows what's happening here -- it knows you need to be on the alert because he is dangerous and out of control.
The fact that you've been bringing in income sounds very helpful to me. And believe me, I know the pain and terror of thinking about removing myself from a draining and horrific situation. But your first responsibility is to take care of yourself. The National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1800799SAFE(7233) or http://www.thehotline.org/. There are details on there about how to plan for a safe escape. Whether or not you plan to leave your husband (I would urge you to, since the one time Al-Anon makes suggestions is when people are in physical danger, but I recognize that it's not as easy as flipping a switch), you should have a plan for what to do if things become dangerous when you're not expecting it.
If you read through the threads on these boards, it will help take away the insanity that being around an alcoholic drags us all into. I hope you can find a local meeting (they say to try 6 because they're all different) and that it is safe for you to get out of the house. A sponsor can be a life-saver. Also a therapist familiar with these issues. Also the Al-Anon literature. Please take care of yourself. You're very precious and no one should have to deal with this alone.
