The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
I have posted here some months back and I really haven't been back on the board unfortunately. The insights and thoughts I gained really helped me to see that my wife's addiction was her problem and that my co-dependency problems were mine. They were so helpful at that point in her recovery I am forever grateful.
She has been doing amazing. She is out of her 60 day intensive care program, has been clean for 110 days, still goes to 3 or 4 meetings a week, is working her steps, and has 2 sponsors (each of them give her something a bit different) and has really turned her life around. The problem is that I have relaxed a bit on my work and now we are both paying for it..
I just never imagined that I would have a more difficult time than her dealing with everything. I have not been continuing to really do my work and I have never attended a face to face meeting (something I plan to rectify this Friday after work). I guess I just wanted to say to everyone to keep up their work. As soon as you think you have it down and are doing much better you might start to slack off a bit and that's a big mistake I am dealing with.
That attitude has caused old relationship problems to resurface and it is really causing us to struggling.
I still find it difficult to see her go through so much pain, yet there isn't much I can do directly at this point as I have burnt some bridges and she doesn't feel as safe as she once did sharing everything with me. I still have the old attitude creep up on me that wants to fix everything for her instead of just being there for her.
I'm in the same boat. AW is now 4 months sober. Goes to at least 4 meetings a week. Was sentenced to 6, but probation officer took pity on us and said if she does 4 and some extra credit each week, he will count that. And she is doing it. And making progress.
Now we have to work on some of the things that made her start to abuse in the first place. It's very hard, and not very rewarding quite a bit of the time so far. Sometimes she gets confused and tells me conflicting things (gee, you aren't very reliable/you are very appreciated for all you do) and sometimes the anger comes out both on her side and my side from 24 years of bad relationship practice. We have a therapy session tonight that I am starting to dread, last week's was so bad.
So I will keep on working my side of the street as much as possible.
Do go to a meeting, you will get some amazing support from it. There are online meetings here as well.
Thanks Kenny, and I hear you. I am starting to see someone I trust for individual therapy today but I do not want to go to couples therapy. I have read too many books and talked to a lot of people who feel that it can be bad, especially for the male. It seems so many therapists expect men to turn into women in these sessions and now allow the strengths that make me a male shine through in it's own way. I know it can help but I think for now I am just trying to worry about me and let her worry about her.
A few years ago there was a book that I read which really changed my life and our relationship. She was ready to leave me and I was able to really turn around and we built a pretty good relationship. However her addiction and recovery have made it more difficult than ever so I am currently re-reading it right now so that I can re-learn some of the things I have obviously forgotten.
The Secrets of Happily Married Men: Eight Ways to Win Your Wife's Heart Forever
And you are right, it's so hard because even though I understand we are going through so many changes, there are times that I find it hard to convince myself that it's all worth it.
Wife just called and said she doesn't have time to go to the session, could I go by myself? I think this is legitimate, we are trying to sell our house and realtor is coming over tomorrow to get the selling process started.
So I will go by myself tonight. This is good for me, I would like to have some time just devoted to me. I still get short shrift on all of these processes - AW sentenced to 6 meetings per week when she has no license, so I am driving her around a fair amount.
BTW I just had to make one snarky remark - you mean there are only 8 ways to win my wife's heart forever?? Ha ha, just kidding! I will check this book out.
Yeah, that's hard. I see a counselor on my own and that has really helped so far, it's just the group therapy I'm afraid of :) It obviously depends on the therapist of course. I would like to know how it goes.
This is such a very important post because it deals with the questions of "What was/is my part in it"? It deals with "It was/is all her fault" and then I arrive at having to know rather than wishing denial was the answer. It isn't. Skahtul this is classic perception of what happens when I left it all up to my alcoholic/addict and still got sicker when she was in recovery. One thing I learned early on almost cost her, her life. The alcoholic/addict really rely on their enablers to support their drinking and using...really...so one night my alcoholic/addict wife came home from a meeting and was, inside, questioning whether she really was "one" not wanting the answer to be yes. So she came to the one person in her life she could count on a "No" for ...that was me and after I gave her a 'No"...she went back out for 5 years, we lost everything we hadn't up until that time and she almost died from an alcoholic fall no thanks to me. The disease needs enablers...don't be one of those. Have a good meeting and keep practicing. You'll love it. ((((Hugs))))
Thanks for expressing interest. It was a good session, I think. It all comes down to communication and how much baggage we drag into it. We have 24 years worth of it. When we walk into the therapist office we are dragging it on a big rack behind us and it takes a minute to get it all put down so we can have it handy to pull out for any offhand comment.
It took much of the hour for her to expose my baggage and really get for the point where I realized that I am still walking on eggshells around the wife. She is having some stressors happening right now, and is emotionally exposed on multiple fronts and is protecting her recovery as trained. I'm glad she is but it *is* entailing a lot of yelling and fear on her part. I then get scared to talk to her - not because I am afraid she will drink, but because I am just afraid of the raw emotions. So I've gotta deal with that. She wants to communicate but her style is threatening to me. I wanna communicate but not so intensely. So we will be working on whether we are going to do that or just give it lip service.
Meeting tomorrow night. Can't wait for that. I know that will be all about me!
Kenny, thanks for sharing. I really like what you said about her protecting her recovery, I never thought of it like that but it really helps with what I am going through right now. I met my wife when she was 16 and I was 17. We have been together for 18 years in may and married for 10 so in a lot of ways we have grown up together. In a lot of ways my role and yours are reversed. I still carry around a lot of guilt (for my co dependent/enabling behavior) anger (for all that has happened because of her addiction) and I am the one who gets angry. She is the one who has to walk on egg shells around me and not say the right thing, which does not make any sense. For the first part of her recovery I was really there for her in all the right ways. Somehow over the last month my recovery has slowed down and regressed and I'm working on that. My wife is also having a lot of stress from some very serious childhood problems that she is dealing with now for the first time and I wasn't there to support her like I should have. Now there has been a lot of damage in the relationship and I just hope that by really focusing on doing my work things may slowly improve.
I have my first Alanon in person meeting tonight so I hope that will give me some guidance.
I still consider myself new to Al Anon even though I've been attending meetings in my area for almost a year. It can be hard to be really dedicated. Sometimes I feel like I'm doing well, and some days, like today, I just feel like it's all gotten away from me. Your posts here made me feel compelled to join your conversation. I hope you don't mind. I've been with my husband for 22 years (married 15) and I always knew he drank heavily, but I never considered it an issue. Now that we're in our 40s, I suppose my perspective has changed. When I really started looking back, I realize he's always drank this much, I just chose to ignore it (I'm a huge enabler and codependent, which I never thought I'd say).
It's hard to find others in Al Anon who are still with their alcohol spouse. I need to check out some different meetings, but I know I'm still finding excuses. I think I'm afraid of the recovery b/c I'm afraid I'm going to lose him. So, to you, Kenny and Eric, I hope to gain (and hopefully share) some wisdom that has enabled you both to still be with your spouses, even though it's such a difficult situation. This is my first post to the board, but I do hope to "see" you around. Thank you for being here.
All are always welcome. I know how you feel about the enabling/codependent behavior, I have been doing it for so long that I can hardly see where she end's and I begin, not a good place to be. I am slowly getting back to being my own person by setting my own separate goals, doing my own work and focusing on myself. It always seems strange, but it seems like the more I give up controlling the situation and focus on me instead, the better everything becomes.
I also knew my wife used for a long time but I just chose to focus on other things and not address the issues right in front of me. And you are correct, there is a lot of fear as they start to enter recovery. The more progress they make the more they change, they are not really the person they once were but neither are you. I have only just been to my first Al Anon meeting today but I had been going to a family group with my wife at her recovery center for about 4 months and I made a lot of progress. The problem started when I thought I had made all the progress I needed in that 4 month time and started to slack off. Because of that I actually started to regress and really affect and interfere with her recovery, something I never wanted to happen. There are not a lot of people in her life that she can trust and somehow through our recovery process we became close in some ways but distant in others. There was an incident last weekend where I really stomped all over her trust in me and things have not been the same since. However after my meeting today she did open up a bit and I think it was becasue I was doing my work, focusing on myself and showing her that I can be trusted by trusting her with my feelings. There is still a very real fear in me (which normally comes out as anger which is something else I'm working on) that no matter how hard I try, thing will not turn out as I expected. But I have been told time and time again that we can not fix everything, we can not project our own version of the future onto what may come, we can not have expectations, these are all illusions of control.
I know for me being the super massive codependent that I am the relationship is difficult to figure out. Am I here because I really love her and can't imagine my life without her, or is it mostly that I can't imagine my life without her becasue I do not know who I am without her? That's obviously not a good place to be. I am trying to be my own person but it's easier said then done.
Jerry,
You are so right, they can't do it alone. I was very lucky in some ways that she finally came to me as I am fully aware now that it's the only way they can get better, when they decide they want to. And recognizing all of the ways I was helping her habit is the only way I can get better.
"Just for today I will adjust myself to what is, and not try to adjust everything to my own desires. I will take my "luck' as it comes, and fit myself to it".
