hello everyone. i am new to this board; new to this site. i have been married 14 years and have 2 young kids. i never have more than one drink; just don't really like the taste, and i always thought i was the "abnormal" one. my husband did drink throughout our marriage, and i assumed that was "normal". he did come from an alcoholic family, but i thought he could "handle" it. throughout the years there have been times he embarrassed me at parties, many times i had to drive home, and he got a dui a few years ago that he totally blew off as nothing. there were also the times he left right after our son was born to go have a drink and when he went to an office xmas party right before i was due to have our daughter, and i was concerned he was still buzzed when he had to drive me to the hospital in the middle of the night. for many years, i have just had a dull loneliness, even when i am with him. i never thought he was an alcoholic because he was a great dad, was generally nice, and seemed to be fine most of the time. anyway, the troubles began 4 yrs. ago when he got me to sign a power of attorney to refinance our house for a lower interest rate. what he didn't tell me was that he was cashing out $75k in equity to pay off some business debts. i found out a year later and was sickened. i thought about leaving but our kids were 3 and 1 and i just tried to suck it up. we ended up going to 2 counselors in the last 3 years (now on our 3rd), i saw two counselors, and even tried anti-depressants. nothing could shake that "unwell" feeling. i lost all respect for him, and that made me not like him, not be attracted to him, not want to be intimate with him. fast forward to this december, when i opened our equity line bill and it was much, much higher than i thought. i asked him about it, and he admitted he had been using it for his new company. i said this was exactly what happened before, but he didn't seem to care. i also found out that part of the reason the bill was so high was that he paid off a $35k amex bill that i knew nothing about. the bill was sent to his office and he paid it with a different account. i told him i was done; that i wouldn't live this way anymore. we agreed to wait until after the holidays to deal with the situation. we started seeing the 3rd couples therapist. in therapy, i asked to see all the statements for the equity and the amex. what i discovered was that he was using the amex to pay for all his trips to bars and liquor stores -- it was about $4k, at a time when we were scrimping and saving just to make ends meet. i asked for a divorce at the end of january, and first he was calm, then he was livid, saying i was making the worst mistake of my life and that everyone would be miserable. in the space of three days he went from saying the money problems were my fault because i was too emotional and he couldn't risk upsetting me, then he said it was my fault because i "dominated" him throughout the marriage and this was his way of gaining independence (when i asked him what i dominated all he could come up with was that i picked where we went on our honeymoon and decorated the houses we have lived in), and then on the third day he asked if i thought he had a drinking problem.
i said that it was possible, and he immediately stopped drinking and started going to AA meetings, sometimes twice a day. he has been sober for 3 weeks as of yesterday. i feel like he is a totally different person. it's as if the pod people have taken him away and left someone new. everything from suddenly eating sweets -- never did before -- i understand this is due to the lack of alcohol. suddenly in contact with his family -- who he avoided like the plague throughout our marriage. suddenly working out. suddenly reversing his beliefs about everying -- now he's "spiritual", now he agrees the dui was awful, now he says he did the financial things because he was sick and depressed. it's like someone vehemently saying 2 + 2 = 5 for 14 years and suddenly they're like, "oh, yeah, it is 4, you were right..." it is like living with someone who had a religious experience -- he has become like a gandhi.
anyway, you would think i would be happy, but i'm not. he doesn't seem to get it that i had to experience all this right along with him, and i'm still grieving -- him admitting he was an alcoholic hasn't really changed anything that happened. in some ways it just makes it worse because i think if he stopped earlier these things might not have happened. he says i "saved his life" by asking for the divorce. i have gone to several al-anon meetings, and everyone says not to do anything dramatic until he has been sober 6 months. so now, the focus has suddenly gone from our problems to alcoholism, his meetings, his sponsor, etc.
i know it has taken me a long time to get to the point, but i would like to ask you how long this "pink cloud" typically lasts, if that's what this is. does his behavior seem typical? are there going to be more changes in him? somehow this all seems like it was too easy for him, and i am just waiting for the other shoe to drop. thanks for your replies!!!
