Kboys

Oh Butterfly, I feel your pain... I torcher myself with the same question. It's so hard not to, even though I try to tell myself it DOESN'T MATTER, and just to focus on me. My therapist told me, that for my sanity's sake, to assume the kind loving things he says when he is not drunk, is what he really means....
What article is it that you read?

Sungrl

Kboys, don't go there!

Kboys

Sungrl, thank you... I know, I'm shaking my head at myself right now

ladyscribbler

I found the best approach for my sanity was to assume that if the drunken raging didn't mean anything, then neither did the apologies and loving words that followed. You're listening to a disease talking, not a person. I also have this same issue with my schizophrenic mother. The ranting and raving is all just part of the disease.

theuncertainty

I told myself pretty much everything that Gracielou wrote at one point or other. And in pretty much the same way. "He hurt me, but he loves me!" The next, unspoken assumption on my part was "So he won't do it again." Until, he did. It took a while to see it differently. Maybe rephrasing it just slightly might help with seeing it a different way:

He loves me, so he drank again
He loves me, so he lied again
He loves me, so he stole again
He loves me, so he lost his job again
He loves me, so he cheated on me
He loves me, so he hit me

Maybe it's just semantics, but it's a little harder for me to see the actions behind the "so" as an action of love, and the 2nd list sounds and feels different than the first list.

Butterfly, if he doesn't love you and told you the truth when he said that, is that a relationship you would try to hold on to? Or, if he truly does love you, and just said he didn't to hurt you, he still intentionally hurt you. Is that a relationship you want to try to keep? If you factor in the other issues? I'm not posing it as a question to answer here. (For some, the answer may be 'yes', and for others 'no'. It depends on so many factors.) Take gentle care of yourself.

LoveMeNow

Sadly, I had realized I had developed a very warped sense of what love was. I came to realize it was me that didn't really love my husband or I wouldn't have tried so hard to change him to be what I wanted.

Can you imagine that you were the person you Loved most? How would you treat yourself?

This single sentence became my focus and my goal and helped me get over the hump!

Butterfly

Thank you everyone for your kind, thoughtful and loving thoughts.

Thumper I apologise if my posts are a trigger for you I honestly don't intend them to be upsetting or hurtful to anyone. I acknowledge what you say about my obsessing over his words and your right I can't seem to get beyond the words. I am an anxious and obsessive person, not in the way I control and become aggressive but with thoughts, I constantly think about something someone may have said and ruminate and turn it into something it's not.

I have days where I feel so strong and determined where I'm looking honestly at my marriage and thinking mmmm that's not the type of love I want to feel, trying to stop splitting him into two different people and accepting that he is one in the same and understanding my codie behaviour and how I played a part in his addiction and I don't mean blame myself, but the usual codie behaviour, crying, threatening, controlling, manipulative, refusing to speak to him for days anything for him to accept he needed help. I needed to control the situation and the environment, that's why I hardly ever went out over the door, if I was at home I could monitor his drinking and maybe he wouldn't drink so much and so on. I'm trying to look at how my actions I pacted on my life and sense of worth.

I also apologise for my comment about what does that say about me and I didn't mean any offence towards anyone and you are right it doesn't say anything about any of you and is no reflection on you as individuals but here's my problem, my counsellor told me tonight that my default mode is to blame myself and she is right if it's my fault it's easier for me to understand not necessarily control or change it but blaming myself is easier to accept.

It doesn't matter what he has said about how he feels as he has proved time and time again that his words are meaningless yet I hang onto those words of I love you!!

Ive had NC now for 2 weeks and as I previously said this is usually about the time I would contact him, I don't think I've gone longer than 2 weeks and I always hope that after a period of time, 2 weeks, he will have more answers or he will have started recovery but that's never how it is. I didn't contact him to ask him any questions or check up on him, I came and posted here, I'm also glad I had an appointment with my counsellor tonight!!

Thank you again everyone

CAPTAINZING2000

Always sad when, alcohol is the number one love over spouse, family members etc.

BooJudeBoo

I'm sorry you're hurting. Please understand that trying to understand the thoughts of an alcoholic is useless. All it will do is drive you insane. I have spent YEARS trying to wrap my mind around why my AH does this or that and all it has done is left me crazy and paranoid.

redatlanta

From your posts:

Two weeks later he tells me he's leaving that he can't keep hurting me and needs to be on his own to figure this out as he hasn't been happy.

he told me over the phone that he was leaving he wanted to do his own thing.
within 2 weeks he had himself talked round to I can manage my drinking I don't want to stop.

He won't talk to me or give me any explanation except some days it's I want to be on my own to drink

wants to be on his own to do what he wants and doesn't want to be constrained by marriage.

Recently he has said that being able to drink when he wants is helping him deal with life at the moment and that it makes him feel better??

he said hasn't and won't resolve the current situation as he is still unwilling to seek help or give up drinking.

He said he wants to be with me but knows he can't because of his drinking.

Those are just a very small excerpts out of your posts that all say the same thing. He has told 500 times why he left. He is not going to stop drinking. You, mention in your posts many times, that his drinking made you very anxious clearly him drinking was not making home life happy for either.

So, its not about what is wrong with you, we already know what is wrong with him. This is two people on a divergent path of lifestyle. It doesn't matter if you love each other. Its not about that at all. He won't quit drinking, you don't like it, and he can't live with how you feel when he drinks, and the guilt that he feels. It really is as simple as that.

I am sorry this has been so painful I know how it hurts. If we could love our alcoholics sober this board wouldn't exist.

GracieLou

And this is how it is for the alcoholic. If I may be so bold...allow me to change the wording...

I've had no alcohol now for 2 weeks and as I previously said this is usually about the time I would drink, I don't think I've gone longer than 2 weeks and I always hope that after a period of time, 2 weeks, that the craving to drink would be removed or I would start feeling better. I will have more answers or I will have started recovery but that's never how it is..so I drink again.

It can look and feel very much the same. The urge to contact him is not unlike the urge to drink.

You hope that by NC that you will feel better but you don't because you are not working on your recovery. You cave and call.

He hopes that if he does not drink for a period of time he will feel better but he doesn't because he is not working his recovery. He caves and drinks.

Of course for him, he escapes all those feeling and the pain by drinking and you do not.

You live with them, deal with them and get help, he does not. You are trying to change, make a better life. You are trying to learn and grow. Not only is he not doing these things, he is not capable of doing them while he is still drinking. It is not possible.

But it is possible for you! It is time to get selfish and think about you. You matter and your life matters. The hands on the clock only move forward. You have to move with them.

meggem

GracieLou that was pretty awesome!!

Butterfly

I know why he left, he left so he can drink unrestricted and not have to deal with the guilt and shame!! What I struggle to accept is how someone who professes to love me so much and can't bear the thought of living without me (as he told me for many years) or bear the thought of being divorced from me, as he told me 3 weeks ago won't get help so he doesn't live without me, unless it was all lies and manipulation to keep me on side and how if I meant so much to him how he can walk away as if I didnt/don't matter? I doubt if I hadnt been in contact with him over the last 71/2 months I wouldn't have heard from him!

This is where I am struggling at the minute

dandylion

Butterfly...what are you doing, if anything, to distract yourself from these obsessive thoughts?

dandylion

Butterfly

That's the thing I am keeping busy I've been off work this week and haven't had a lot of time to myself but when I have moments of being on my own I always come back to this, I always think of him and how he's hurt me.

Maybe I just need to keep saying to myself butterfly he doesn't love you and doesn't care about you, not the way you deserve to be loved and cared for as he has his freedom to drink which is what he wanted, he's happy and really doesn't care about anything else

Butterfly

There are days where I honestly feel I will never accept what he has done and how he has done it and that I will never get over the hurt and I know I should be further on in my own recovery than I am and the hurt is so overwhelming at times it honestly feels that it will never end

MissFixit

Obsessing over someone/something when you cannot redirect yourself, merits therapy. This is a therapy issue. Also, it takes a long time to get over someone.

Butterfly

I'm in therapy.

FireSprite

Butterfly, it feels like you are trying so hard to make this make sense.

But addiction is not logical, this may NEVER make sense - even if he got sober RIGHT THIS MINUTE, it likely wouldn't even make sense TO HIM.

If you are looking for a simple 2+2=4 type of answer here you will likely never find it; is it worth torturing yourself over something that can never be known?

SparkleKitty

Things did not start to change for me until I decided to accept even that which I did not understand.