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 came into the program about 6 months ago, because I found out that my husband had been secretly gambling. He never talked about it and I found out by accident. I was very shocked, we'd only been married about 3 years. I had thought I had avoided marrying an addict - he didn't drink or smoke. Ha ha. I told him that I didn't want addiction in my life. He said he didn't either.
OK. My question is this. He very, very rarely talks about his gambling and I'm trying very hard to not question him or try to work his program. (Actually, he isn't working a program...) But this whole deal has become like the elephant in the living room that we aren't talking about. I was wondering how those of you in recovery cope with this. I think one of the reasons why we got together in the first place, is because we both come from alcoholic families, where there were "no talk - can't trust" rules. We are both terrified of conflict. So, I just keep quiet and hope for the best. I want to break this pattern for myself.
How do you deal with the elephant in the living room?
For me secrets were and are a huge part of my dysfunctional family. The A I live with is still secretive but I no longer feel like its the elephant in the living room. I think I missed a whole lot of signs because I didn't know how to read red flags then I didn't know what to do about them. I was like you pretty afraid of conflict. The A I live with deals with conflict badly. He just bulldozes it there is no planned solutions. He is deathy afraid of it too. I recognize that too and don't push them on him. I have of course pushed and pushed and pushed for years and I go nowhere I just got belligerance, more denial and more substance abuse. He wasn't willing to change and eventually it got so that the only thing I could do was to change myself. For me personally it was do that or die because I was definitley dying emotionally.
I must say for me there is a tremendous push pull I want to stomp all over the A's denial and at the same time live in my own denial about my own issues. The only way I have found through it is to work on myself. What is my elephant in the living room rather than his. I can't make the A recover. I have definitely tried and I got nowhere. Since I tried working just on myself my life got better. For some reason when I work on myself I set better limtis and get less involved in whatever the A is doing or not doing.
I hate secrets. I hate that undercurrent that is always there. Dr. Phil says you can't fix what you don't acknowledge (something like that). My AHsober hates confrontation so he just goes along with everything. I always say that things just get bigger and bigger when they are ignored. Trust your instinct.
I would say that the way to approach this is to focus on YOU rather than him. That is, if there is something that you feel needs to be said, then say it. However, if the reason you feel you must talk about it is because you think that talking will change him, don't bother.
I don't think there really is, or should be, a "no talk" rule - it's more a "no nag" rule. If he knows how you feel then what is the point of saying it again? It' s not like he will say "Oh, the first five hundred times you said that, I didn't really get it, but THIS time, why, it all becomes clear. I'll stop immediately!"
I know that I used to use talk as a substitute for action. I would confront my husband, usually the morning after a night before, with "I really can't go on with this, if this keeps up I'll have to leave you, blah blah..." He'd say something, I'd say a lot more, and then we would go on as before. I was never satisfied with the results of these talks, but I felt I needed to have them - if I didn't say anything, didn't that mean I was "putting up with it"?
It wasn't until I got the the point when I no longer wanted talk, but action, that things strted to change. Oddly enough, he never even knew of the action. I decided, after taking the kids to a motel once more for the night, that this could just not go on. The next time I left, I told myself, I left for good, not just for the night. So, I kept bags packed in the trunk of my car, for me and the kids. I squirreled away some money, and made some real plans - where I would go for the first little bit, etc. Just that decision made enough difference in how I related to him, that things started to change between us. I never told him how close I was to going, but he must have sensed something. He did not sober up for three more years, but the verbal abuse dwindled, and within a couple of months completely stopped.
You might find it works better if you state your position clearly once, and then stand by what you said. Talk only goes so far, after all.
".....Honey, there is an elephant in our living room and I am having a few reservations about it."
Relationships are like gardening. It takes pruning, planting, watering, digging, weeding, nurturing. It takes a lot of work to keep that garden looking beautiful and as healthy as it can be so that it can last as long as time and the care for the garden will allow. It is a daily process. The moment we stop caring for our garden in one area or another, the whole garden suffers. A beautiful garden is something of great envy. Most of all that garden of envy is for our benefit alone. We did this. This garden is made to look so beautiful through our hard work and it shows.
