Hi All,

            Each week it seems that I deal with some other crazy thing my AH has done. I had to work on a Saturday this weekend because someone at my work called in sick. While I was at work, AH had both kids. Lately, he only has our DD (3 yrs old) while he is unemployed, and she is easier. Our DS, who is 6, is a bit more challenging. Very hyperactive, and lately having trouble in school as well, and they have implied he might even be on the "spectrum," since he is having issues socially with other kids (although when talking with his previous pre-school teacher, who understands what its like to live with an alcoholic, she thinks that he did fine at her school and that is related to the stress in our home due to AH's drinking). I am agreeing with this, since it is hard to pin a label on my DS, but something is wrong. I am already seeing the affect it is having on him. However, he is a sweet kid, not vendictive, just a bit wild and hyperactive, has trouble listening...even at six yrs old we still have a fear of him crossing the street and getting hit by a car....in other words, he doesn't pay attention. He is often distracted.

So AH had to watch both of them on Saturday and he took them to an outdoor event. He is more strict than me in the first place, and because of his drinking, if they get in the way of his drinking or his fun, he is impatient and angry. Well I came home from work and got literally "blasted" by his anger at how bad the kids were at this festival and how they did not listen to him, how DS broke his back window in this truck (because he put him in his truck "alone" for a time-out and DS was upset about being there but actually I don't think he broke the window, just got it off track because he was trying to call to his Dad).

AH was super angry, still yelling at the both kids and drunk when I walked in the door. Lately when he gets this way, DS holds his hands up to him with his fists and says, "If you hit me, I'll hit you back." Meanwhile, I am trying to stop AH while he gets more angry with DS "disrespecting" him by trying to defy him and mad at me for allowing the kids to "disrepect" him. Our daughter also has an issue that she was born with a chromosome abnormalty that is not supposed to affect her future much but it is still a concern and he spanks her all the time now when she does not listen to him. I fear that her self-esteem is going to be so eroded over time that when she gets to be an adult she will go for abusive men. I try to tell my AH about this but he still tells me that our problems are 50% mine, that we share the issues equally and that I am letting the kids disrespect him by interfering when he disciplines. I tell him he should be modeling good behavior and making consequences and sticking to them, instead of verbal threats, cursing, hitting. But then he brings up any time I have been verbal and yelling at the kids, which is infrequent but I do have my moments I am not proud of (which has increased for me since living in this awful chaos, I don't feel like I am as good of a parent anymore).  So yes, I have felt guilty about yelling at them or "trying" to do things his way....I didn't spank them at all for a long time and now I do occasionally but I do not feel right about it, and I usually apologize to my kids if I have gotten out of hand. It just that anything I try to do with the kids such as a new way but a good way of disciplining, he destroys with his anger and impatience and I get caught up in it as well at times. Often I am in the middle, trying to devert a crisis, an argument with him and the kids and I are walking on eggshells not to upset AH.

So AH kept getting more angry at DS that night and finally AH grabbed him, took him to his room and said they had to have a talk and he closed the door. I went up to listen in and couldn't believe what I'd heard...AH was telling our son that if "he disrespected him to that degree again and behaved that badly he was going to beat him so bad his nose would be in his throat and he would be in the hospital for at least 20 days." He had him pinned to the bed and DS was crying when he said this and I walked in and said, "No you won't because I will make sure you go to jail for longer than that."

From there, we went on to argue and curse at each other in front of the kids and that I would be calling the police if he began to threaten any further (I wanted to make a point that AH has never hit me or even pushed me, all of it has been verbal abuse over the years, which I recognize can be just as bad. He has not threatened me with harm, but has now threatened severely harm his son...at least the first time I have heard it and in no way was I going to put up with that).

I told him to leave, that I didn't want to see him the rest of the evening, and that I was done, done, done and wanted to file for divorce, that no kid, no matter what he did, deserved the treatment that our son got from him. Of course, all I heard were arguments that his kids behave so badly, and then I commented about how they live in chaos every day, but AH will not admit that, and certainly not drunk. So I slept with both kids, and DS even wrote an apology to AH on a piece of paper and wrote that he loved Dad, and he is just learning to write. It was so sweet. Did he get the same apology from AH? Of course not.

AH left the next morning at 6 a.m. and spent the day out "thinking" he said. I told him to hunt for an apartment (but I know he will say he did but not do it). To make matters worse, the kids told me that he was talking to a "dark haired woman" at the festival and not paying attention to them the whole time, and I was quite sure it was a woman he had an affair with this summer that he denies, and that he is still in contact with her. She was still texting him as late as November. She was married as well, but just a week ago had gotten a divorce. I brought up her page and photo on FB (theres one good thing about FB!), and my son said, "yeah, that was her!" (I would think a 6 yr old could identify someone correctly). Then our roommate, (who used to be good drinking buddies with AH and is now sober and paying rent to one of our extra rooms) said that he had helped AH move a friend of his last week. I guess he didn't tell me because men seem to have this "secret alliance" that they have to keep when they cheat on their spouses and tell their friends about it, or do something otherwise dishonest. I showed her photo to him as well and he said he "thought" it was her. This makes me really, really angry, but I am supposed to believe that he did not have anything to do with her (he was caught red handed this summer going on a hike with her and texting, and also emailing her and they were seen in the bar together). Also this same woman came up to our roommate in the store (even though he really doesn't know her except for helping with the move) and seemed to know his name and asked how he was doing like they were old friends. This roommate has also been telling me stories about when he was getting drunk with AH. Well now some of these stories are coming out and he is telling me, and they are shocking and hard to believe, like how AH sent this friends girlfriend a photo of his you know what and tried to get her to like him and apparently AH's friend (and our rooomate now), even saw it and was disgusted and had a talk with him and this was several years ago! He is also the one who has told me about AH's work ethic (and it not being good) because they worked several jobs together. But I don't know who to believe, since I don't know if the roommate's memory serves him well, since he drank a lot during the time all these things happened and are now coming to the surface.

So I spent the day with the kids and we were out ALL day until dark and didn't call AH once single time, and he finally texted me (we do this a lot instead of even talking on the phone, it shows the disinegration of our relationship) and said he wanted to speak to DS and apologize. I repeated that I wanted him to move out and that I hadn't changed my mind. Instead, when we got home, he did what he usually does, and that is...the laundry was done, rooms were picked up and beds were made, he apologized to DS and said he realized what he had done was wrong, etc., in other words he was sober and trying to make up for everything. I know it won't last. The only thing that will work is if he moves out. Yet I know it's going to be a hard road, he is going to pretend to try for a few days and if I don't accept it and things go back to what "normal" we had, he will say he was trying but I "hate" him and don't love him, blah, blah, blah and immediately he will go back to drinking. But I do not want this to ever happen to my kids again and I am determined to not let him watch them alone again or lay a hand on them (spanking), even if he thinks it is for a good reason. I feel that I am weak in this area and he knows how "to get to me" and some how entice me back into this madness by playing "good daddy" for a few days...so why am I such easy prey? It would be so much easier if he would just admit to his "other" woman and move in with her, but he thinks that I will take the kids away from him forever somehow. I would like to right now at this point. I have no feels but pity left for him and a burning desire to still take care of him as if he were my child, and that is what it has felt like for the last several years. Tell me your stories and help me to be strong.

Minaret

Mattie,
Thanks for your post. I actually have no one to go through this with. I have been to a few alanon meetings, but it has been at least a year, and I did not feel comfortable, everyone was at advanced stages and had recovering alcoholics in their family and didn't seem to be in the "thick" of it like me. They also only meet once a week in the evenings and I have tried hard to make some of those evenings but I don't want to leave AH with the kids, even though it would only be an hour or so. I do leave our daughter with him all day, but she is turning into an angry little mess and I worry about this. Since AH is not working, we can't afford daycare. My father is a borderline alcoholic and my brother and parents live 2,000 miles away and they are in denial about everything. I can't really talk to them about the drinking much because they don't understand. On my AH's side, he is from another country and his whole family situation includes a lot of abandonment and lack of knowledge of who his real father is, and this is some of the result of the drinking. He has some friends that unofficially took on the role of being his parents for a while, but they have their own "addiction" problems.

I tend to not be very private when I am dealing with something this big, and when I have friends, I often have blurted out issues I am having with my AH and I have lost two friendships in recent months for that reason. I am not a menace about it, in fact when I mentioned the issues I was having to these two particular friends, one had a similar situation and another had been through it with her mother, but didn't obviously want to go back to that place, and I realize it's not her role to help me in that way, it's just that I thought she would understand and instead she called me up one day and said she could no longer be my friend. It was very, very painful. I was always very supportive and loyal about their issues and whatever they wanted to talk about. In other words, I didn't just talk about myself and my problems or become a "downer."

So, for the most part, I live with this alone, except for occasionally telling my roommate who was my AH's former drinking partner (he is now sober), about it and he has been very helpful and supportive, but he is now telling me things about AH that are hurtful and shocking. Also, I do have one person who I text and she seems to be supportive. I have thought about calling the domestic violence hotline and a few people have suggested that. I don't want to move out of the house, I am the one that makes the majority of the income, I would want him to move out. But I don't know if we would survive and be able to keep the house. In about a year or so, some of my expenses will go down and I would be able to afford living without his income. I know he would have good intentions about supporting the kids if we kicked him out, but he is bad about managing money, as most alcoholics are. He will not go quietly if he is still drinking. And I think if this recent riff between us gets serious and I continue to tell him that I want him to go, he will try to start back at AA, but even if he goes into recovery and I insist he still moves out, I know it will lead him back to drinking. I know that's not my problem, but it will just make things more difficult. I don't think he would get violent, but his personality is very weird on alcohol, and sometimes very bizarre and unpredictable, he can get extremely angry and he has made a weak threat about suicide once, and this was after he'd been to AA and I thought he was doing well.

I have tried counseling with him (which we all know doesn't work when one is drinking), and I have tried counseling alone and didn't feel the two counselors I tried understood what I was going through or had experience specifically with alcohol addiction. (This is a small town). I tried these counselors through my work and they were paid through them, as I couldn't afford it on my own. I'm also in deep financial doo-doo, and half of that debt is his. I am beginning a reduction plan to pay back most of it over the next five years, but it will take a big chunk out of my paycheck. I have a good job, but I am finding it hard to concentrate at work and focus on my duties when I keep having to deal with issues relating to his drinking and our chaotic family life. I seem to be able to "manage" okay until my right before my period, and then I flip out and feel very desperate, alone and depressed. I need to reach out more, it's just that I've been hurt. I know I need to reach out to professionals, but I'm in my own denial thinking I can somehow solve this when I can't. I am working on it.

Minaret

So sorry that you don't feel like you have anyone to go through this with. I'm thankful that you found this site. I kinow I had looked long and hard on the internet and learned a lot about addiction but still felt alone until I ended up here. There is always someone who will listen and understands.