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 been dealing with this disease for 12 years now. Lots of pain the mistrust. Now I am retired and my husbanc is retiring in 2 days and I am wondering if I want to spend the rest of my life with him. I have no faith in him. My trust is shattered and I dont know if I can be happy living like this. He says he is not drinking but after being lied to for so long I don't believe anything he says to me. Can a 47 year old marriage survive if you cant trust the person you love. I know it is my issue but I just don't know what to do.
Aloha Jujubean (love that nick)...welcome to the family which is just filled with members who have dealt with what you are going thru in very similar ways. Simply said the marriage might not survive and you must. I've been married twice to alcoholics and addicts and both marriages failed. I'm still alive and more sane than where I came from. More said is that I was born and raised within the influence of alcoholism. We don't get to choose our families and parents.
Juju must survive and the best way I know from experience is to find out where the Al-Anon Family Groups are meeting face to face in your area and then get there as early as you can. Their hotline number will be in the white pages of your local telephone book. You might be shy however understand that this program is in almost every country on this planet...where the disease goes that is where you will find us mostly.
Al-Anon is for those who are affected by someone else's drinking and/or using. We learn to restore our sanity and lives whether "they" are still drinking or not. This is a disease...not a moral issue...it is listed in the journals of health and medicine so information is very available. If you go after the information make sure that it will tell you what happens to the spouses, friends, family and associates of the alcoholic because we get as affected as they do without the anesthesia of alcohol to block out reality. We go thru it wide awake and we get crazy. Al-Anon restores health...mind, body, spirit and emotions. Go get the number.
Keep coming back here also...this is family and it is very very experienced. (((((hugs)))))
Juju I am coming up forty years married and I also am wondering how long I am willing to go on. Guess what really bothers me is that, while he is a loving and caring husband in so many ways, while we have weathered some pretty brutal storms together leaning on each other for strength, while we have built a rather nice life, he is always willing to put alcohol first, drinking with his friends first, being what he calls sociable first! And yet he loudly proclaims that I am the most important person in his life.
Guess that is true as alcohol is more of a poison than a person.
Alanon has really helped me to see that I can do nothing about anyone else's behavior. I am indeed powerless over the choices they make every day. I have been working on detaching from both husband and son. Bottom line is I do not want to be around them when they drink, I have the right to live soberly and , if that means we live apart, then so be it. Life is becoming much shorter for me at this age and I want peace and serenity. Investigate your choices and keep coming to alanon because it really does help if only to clear the muddied waters.
Face to face al-anon meetings saved my sanity and once I got there and found my sponsor and my own al-anon family group things made more sense for me. I hope you are able to find some meetings near you and find answers to your questions. Sending you love and support!
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Sending you love and support on your journey always! BreakingFree
Al-Anon/Alateen Family Group Headquarters, Inc. 800-344-2666
" Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional."
"Serenity is when your body and mind are in the same place."
Hi, Judy: In many ways, I experienced living with an active A to be a very lonely life. He was abusive on top of being an A, so isolation was also part of our relationship unless it was his drugging and drinking friends. You don't say your A is abusive but in some ways that disease may be isolating you as much as it did me? I, too, hope that you will find some Al-Anon meetings in your area. Just being with others who understand this disease and how it affects us can help to break the isolation that is but one way the disease damages us if that is part of what you are experiencing? The loneliness I felt eased as I shared some of what I was experiencing in relationship to an A. I learned that his issues were too much for me to live with or to endure with and without a supportive community. Not everyone divorces their As or separates from them, but I'm fairly certain most all of us experience the damaging affects of this disease and can learn to counterbalance some of it for ourselves in Al-Anon whether or not we continue to live with the A. Keep coming back here, too.
-- Edited by grateful2be on Thursday 1st of May 2014 09:21:29 PM
