Major confusion-Need feedback

[tortoise]

I really NEED feedback. My husband and I lived on our son's property, who is an only child in his 30's. He acknowledges he had a good childhood and his father was a good dad. However, now that they are both men, my son has decided that his father needed to quit drinking in 30 days or he had to move off his property, My son was specific that I didn't need to move. He couldn't understand why I would be leaving with my husband. I wasn't taking on the challenge of "changing" my husbands behavior, since he was trying, I felt a more compassionate approach was appropriate. I was working 100 hrs/week and felt it was not the time that I chose to address this issue and felt that the roof over my head was also being removed-I felt it wasn't his decision to make for me to stay there if my husband left. I did find a wonderful place to live and my husband and I feel far less stress. My son has decided that since I chose to leave with him and didn't have enough respect for myself, he didn't respect me enough to talk to me either. My son is very strong willed and conversations usually end up in a debate-where you feel like you simply have to back down just to get him to leave you alone, debate is putting it lightly, if you don't agree he is down right confrontational. My husband used to drink 12-18 beers a day and was obviously intoxicated, would talk ridiculous and did many disloyal things while drunk. However, that has since changed years ago. I feel that is between my husband and myself. He is currently drinking 6 beers a day. He makes no demands on me and we have always been very close. Childhood sweethearts. I know the line "he is such a good man" is a cliche but I feel that my husband is trying quite hard and making great strides. I love my son very much and this really saddens me. My son suggested a family therapist for the 3 of us. My husband agreed to that but now my son doesn't want that. I am not sure if I am being manipulated, being codependent, or verbally abused by my son or is he trying to help? My family background is that my father was a very mean alcoholic and eventually died due to complications of all those years of drinking. How am I so mixed up??? This just doesn't even say it all....but ran out of letters.

[Bernadette]

Hi tortoise--
Jeeeez - tough situation.

I learned in AlAnon that I have to accept people the way they are. That people will do what they will do and all I can do is choose how that will affect me - I can't make anyone do anything differently. Whether that person is an alcoholic or not - if they are an adult they have the right to their beliefs and their choices.

Maybe your husbands drinking was bothering your son more than he realized and he finally reached a limit of tolerance and decided he just didn't want to enable it any longer by giving him a place to live.

It is very sad when families cannot get along but it is very common. There are probably some long standing dynamics in your family, especially if you come from an alcoholic father yourself and you are married to a very heavy drinker - or former heavy drinker.

I found AlAnon to be a great starting point for learning about these dynamics. Can you try AlAnon?

Peace & (((hugs))) during this hard time--
B.

[FormerDoormat]

Living with an alcoholic parent who typically drank 12-18 beers a day doesn't sound like a wonderful childhood to me. Living with an active alcoholic who's idea of "cutting back" is drinking a six-pack a day sounds like far from an ideal relationship to me, too. Working a 100-hour week is outrageous as well, and makes me wonder if one partner is carrying the bulk (or perhaps all) of the financial burdeon for the family.

It sounds to me like your son has had enough of living with an alcoholic under his roof and has decided to set some boundaries to protect himself from further harm.

Long-term partners of alcoholics often don't realize how much harm their alcoholic loved ones have caused them, their children, and extended family. That's because as an alcoholic's behavior worsens over time; so does the level of tolerance their partners display. This co-dependent like behavior is often likened to the Stockholm Syndrome that hostages display--meaning that over time they begin to sympathize with the hostage takers and view their horrendous behavior as completely acceptable.

It's also common for codependent partners of alcoholics to lay the blame for their predicament on others. In this case it appears you may view your son as the bad guy, but he's not the drinker and his behavior isn't the problem. He's just an adult who wants to live a life free from the effect of another person's drinking. And that's his right.

I lived with an alcoholic for 25 years. And for most of those years, I excused his behavior, too. But as his disease progressed, his behavior grew increasingly less tolerable and his health deteriorated to the point where I felt like I was taking care of a misbehaving dependent child instead of living with an equal partner. Yet still I hung on and still I claimed he was a good man and that I loved him. And I continued to make excuses for his bad behavior and refused to see the harm he was causing my child.

When life became completely unbearable, I found SoberRecovery. The folks here encouraged me to attend Alanon and learn as much as I could about alcoholism and co-dependency. And as I learned and grew and participated on this forum, the fog that had been hanging over my head for years slowly began to lift and I started to see that what I thought was a fairy tale life was really a horror show and I was intentionally choosing that life for myself.

Today, I see that I accepted intolerable behavior from a man who claimed to love me. That my devotion to a broken, irresponsible, emotionally unavailable man who loved a bottle more than he loved me cost me my sanity, my health, my child's trust and respect, the respect of my friends, my family, and more.

That's not love, in my opinion, that's a serious case of dependency and it's an illness all it's own. Co-dependency was my problem. Alanon was the solution. I hope you'll stick around the forum for a while and share and learn.

Welcome.

[AWEDA]

Well said Former Doormat!!!!!!

[HealthyLimits]

Very spot on assessment of the situation formerdoormat. In this case the person posting happens to be my mother and while I feel a little out of line posting in her thread I also feel the need to clear a little up as I don't want her thinking how she thinks I feel is exactly how I feel. I also hope she takes notice of the nine people that agreed with formerdoormat but didn't respond with a post in the thread.

If you're interested in the other threads I started on this situation they can be found here:

soberrecovery.com/forums/adult-children-addicted-alcoholic-parents/159163-facing-my-fathers-drinking-first-time-help.html

and

soberrecovery.com/forums/adult-children-addicted-alcoholic-parents/159899-wow-things-get-pretty-messy.html

Also I feel a need to post a couple small parts of the letter I gave my father to address the his drinking as this is where the above conclusions were drawn from.

I have had a lot of guilt to deal with here, in fact a tremendous amount to carry. I can say without the support of the people on this forum it would have been impossible for me to deal with this so thank you all so very much! I'm sidetracked slightly so here is some idea of the tone of the letter I gave my father.

I feel the need to write this letter to clear up any issues or miscommunication that may still be out there. I'm sorry it's long but this is the way I think and I don't feel we can speak with clear heads free of emotion at the moment so this is what I have to offer in the way of communication. I feel like some of this I expect you to know and that isn't fair, you can't read my mind and you truly may not have any idea what my real issue is. You live your life every day and I don't know what that life is like. I don't know your battles, struggles, insecurities, flaws or anything about what you're dealing with, facing or running from emotionally. Because of that I want it to be clear off the bat that I'm not passing a judgement or saying I understand the things that make you tick as I don't. This is about myself, my relationship with you our small family and my growth as a human being. This letter is just to put that in a small package so you know where we sit. It's free of the inside scoop I know, pointing fingers or anything else that should cause you to either go on the defense or feel I'm speaking without first thinking about the words I'm saying.

So that brings us to me clearing up the issue at hand. I'm unwilling to accept anybody in my life that has a substance abuse problem and I've removed the people that have. I have up to this last broken promise been willing to accept your alcoholism issue but I have also ignored just how damaging it is for me. The current situation as well as your inability to even see the real issue or cause of my hurt has made many things far more clear to me. The first being that I can't set a limit in my life of not having people that drink around and still have a father. That if you have to make a choice to stop drinking or have a relationship with your son or wife for that matter you will find a hundred reasons that it's my/our fault but in the end you will come to the same conclusion. My only hope is that it isn't on your dying bed. You will be forced to see that I'm choosing to not have people in my life that drink and you're choosing to drink. You will see this isn't an ultimatum, me trying to control you or any other reason you need to justify your actions. The day will come you conclude that you're doing something unhealthy and damaging to the people in your life and you chose to continue doing that even in the face of loosing the family you do have.

I also want to touch on something else. You have never had to hit bottom, you have had a wife and son that love you very much standing down here keeping you from hitting it. Now you have lost one of those and the only thing keeping you from hitting bottom is your wife. She grew up with the same mentality so while she's more understanding of it she's also going to see that you will choose alcohol over the relationship you have with your son and I highly doubt that's going to make her feel very secure. In a couple months you will be in a smaller place, you will have your huge truck payment, a mother in law, four dogs, the same work stresses and no longer have a son that's willing to help keep you from hitting bottom. Stress has never been something you've dealt with well so I don't know how well you're going to hold up like that. There will only be so long you're able to place blame on me and than you're going to have to start taking some of it, pawning it off on mom or drinking it away. So what I'm telling you is that if things fall apart in your life, I made a choice to not want people in my life that drink and you've made one to keep drinking.

I think you're going to have to hit bottom to see there's an issue that needs to be addressed but if that isn't the case I love you and will support you and stand by your side 100% if you decide to really get some help. This is an issue you can not deal with on your own and you have cut back only to kick it into full gear too many times for me to accept you're going to resolve this by yourself. I will support you and even go to meetings with you, whatever you need. Whatever it is you need I will be there and support it but until you face your drinking issue head on, get some help and stop drinking I will not have a relationship with you as you are too damaging to me.

I have just started to sort through the issues you have contributed to in my life with your drinking. I have starting talking to other Adult Children of Alcoholics and seeking support as well as trying to handle the guilt you have used as a tool for far too long. I think you may be reading this thinking you have no problem and I'm crazy but if that were the case you could stop drinking. The fact that you will justify in some way loosing a son and I hope for moms sake a wife soon after will force you to see that you have an addiction that's damaging to the people around you and you need some help.

As for me, I don't think you're going to understanding this at the moment but I'm writing it because I think one day you will. I am accepting that I have a father that will give me up before he'll give up drinking. I have a failed business and on top of having money issues I have reached the end of a wonderful 8 month relationship with a great woman that I'm dealing with. Having you on this property causes me far more stress than I am will to allow so I need to stick to you being gone on the 18th. To be clear this applies to you, I'm not kicking anybody off the property, I'm not giving an ultimatum, being controlling or telling mom she has to change anything. I'm simply saying that your drinking is damaging to me, I'm choosing to no longer accept it in my life and if you choose to continue drinking you need to be gone on the 18th of this month. If that means you have to stay at in InTown Suites or whatever so be it though I hope the threat of loosing one of the two people you have in your life is enough of a wake up call for you to start going to AA and addressing some of your issues.

As for the situation with not speaking to my mother. I took issue with her enabling my father yet again however I was willing to keep my relationship with her as healthy as I could. I think the pressure of everything, my father and myself and her feeling the need to somehow pick a side made it clear to her that she was either going to have to pull the cover off this mess and face it or keep pretending like there wasn't an issue. So she told me the following:

"You are abusive and should really think hard about who I'm co-dependent on you or dad"

"You just need a cause in your life and now you've taken on this, when this is done you're going to have to try to find something else"

"You need to stop blaming your fathers drinking for your problems in life"

There is a longer list but these are all damaging things to hear from a parent when you're trying to force yourself to not trust their advice anymore as you know there is a sickness causing them to say things to avoid the real issue. I knew at that moment my mother was willing to harm me emotionally to keep this problem hidden and I had to remove myself from that for the time being.

This has forced me to face my own codependency issues and those played a huge roll in a failed marriage. It was in reading on the topic because of the above quote that I learned it was learned behavior, that she got that from her mother and I from her. No blame placed on my mother there but it's an issue I have that needs to be addressed now that I'm aware of it.

So there's the other side to the story. I'm not putting this here for anybody to pick sides. To challenge what my mother is saying or feeling or anything else. I put this here so she had a better idea where my head was and anybody else facing something similar would have the full story.

As a side note, the last week has been tough and frustrating to me. My mother has always said that she "can't have any friends" because of my fathers drinking and she "can't take him out anyplace". This has resulted in my mother calling all of my friends to help them move and a very uncomfortable place for them to be in as well as me having to deal with that. It has defiantly felt like a huge slap in the face having to watch my friends be brought in by my mother to further enable my father.

[Bernadette]

WOW. Well I would never "choose sides" in anyone's family issue. You are all adults and can choose to behave as you wish - including your friends who had a choice to say yes or no to helping your parents move - so it's OK whichever they chose.

-- I can only Stop my own enabling behavior - I cannot stop anyone else's. I am finding that out first hand now as my mom has become a major enabler of one of my alcoholic brothers. She has given him a soft landing, free room and board, and is pretending he is not still drinking under her roof, and letting him drive her car...ugh the list goes on and on... my mom actually said to me when I expressed concern over her enabling my brother "I lived through this with your father - I know what I'm doing!" I don't even know WHAT to do with that statement! It's like she's getting her Masters in Codependency now?

It is very hard to detach and set boundaries and you seem to have done so with a lot of thoughtfulness and clarity. Keep the focus on yourself healthylimits - and Mom tortoise - keep the focus on yourself....

I hope you will all find your own paths to healing whatever direction those paths take you!! Although this situation seems explosive and sad - it may just be the change everyone has needed to break their denial and see things fresh. The past is gone. You are free in this moment!

Good luck & peace-
B.

[Ago]

my response

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...60610-wow.html (wow)