Do alcoholics really love us?
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Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: Texas
Posts: 2,872
I know I loved...I mean loved...my then husband. Even when I acted crazy or not nice , I loved him. However, it took getting over my stuff and loving myself to truly be able to love him. He never believed I loved him-he told me that, among other things, over and over when he was drunk. I know my ex loved me too. But not as much as drinking. Oh well-life goes on!
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Join Date: Oct 2015
Posts: 1
Astonishing comment from former husband
Former husband, active alcoholic, of 25-year marriage, divorced 20 years with whom I have a telephone relationship. He recently said the only honest thing he has ever said to me: "This is so hard to say ... I think the only thing I have every loved is my cat."
The reference is to a cat that he currently has as a pet .
I was so astounded at his honesty, I could not be personally resentful. His statement was of great value to me because in the past he has reported that he would lie to me about where he had been, that he would say he had been to the bank when he had been to the store. That was said with a tinge of pride, one of those you-are-lesser moments but the cat statement was from the heart.
So no, my A does not love as a normal person does.
The reference is to a cat that he currently has as a pet .
I was so astounded at his honesty, I could not be personally resentful. His statement was of great value to me because in the past he has reported that he would lie to me about where he had been, that he would say he had been to the bank when he had been to the store. That was said with a tinge of pride, one of those you-are-lesser moments but the cat statement was from the heart.
So no, my A does not love as a normal person does.
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Join Date: Dec 2015
Posts: 1
Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801 
Haven't been here in a while, but I was just on another forum about relationships, and the topic was about emotional abusers. Someone said that even though it had been five years since she broke up with her emotional abuser, she still felt damaged, and that kind of hit home.
It's been ten years since I divorced my alcoholic/drug-using husband, and most of the time I feel as if I've moved on. I am certainly not the same person who allowed him to treat me so badly, but I am not whole and never will be. That's pretty much evidenced by the fact that I know I can never date again, because alcoholics are all that have ever been available to me. I am 52, so the likelihood of dating again is slim regardless.
Some time ago I was reading something, a self-help sort of thing, that suggested an exercise to clear out old anger and negative feelings, blah blah blah, by writing a letter to someone who had hurt you, forgiving them, and then tearing up the letter. I thought that would be a good idea. So I wrote the letter, and by the time I was done I knew damn well I didn't forgive him. I know I "should" because that's what we are told, but I don't. He stole 16 years of my life, put me so deep into debt that I've never really recovered, and did all this by claiming to love me when he is not capable of loving another human being. And that's the rub. They can "act" loving, they can say they love us, but they simply do not have the capacity to do so. Whether it's a disease or just bad character (yes I realize I'm not supposed to question the "disease" story, but I do), in the end, I think that's the sin that's unforgiveable to me: You said you loved me, and you lied.
It's been ten years since I divorced my alcoholic/drug-using husband, and most of the time I feel as if I've moved on. I am certainly not the same person who allowed him to treat me so badly, but I am not whole and never will be. That's pretty much evidenced by the fact that I know I can never date again, because alcoholics are all that have ever been available to me. I am 52, so the likelihood of dating again is slim regardless.
Some time ago I was reading something, a self-help sort of thing, that suggested an exercise to clear out old anger and negative feelings, blah blah blah, by writing a letter to someone who had hurt you, forgiving them, and then tearing up the letter. I thought that would be a good idea. So I wrote the letter, and by the time I was done I knew damn well I didn't forgive him. I know I "should" because that's what we are told, but I don't. He stole 16 years of my life, put me so deep into debt that I've never really recovered, and did all this by claiming to love me when he is not capable of loving another human being. And that's the rub. They can "act" loving, they can say they love us, but they simply do not have the capacity to do so. Whether it's a disease or just bad character (yes I realize I'm not supposed to question the "disease" story, but I do), in the end, I think that's the sin that's unforgiveable to me: You said you loved me, and you lied.
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Join Date: Dec 2014
Posts: 120
Originally Posted by TeM
My AW tells me fifty times a day that she loves me, but it is a cloying, suffocating love. Looking back, she was that way before the alcoholism... always jealous, insecure and clingy.
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Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: Newport Beach, CA
Posts: 103
Originally Posted by Daneydoo
One thing that's always come to mind is do our alcoholic partners really love us like they say they do and do they realise half of what they put us through and how upset they make us?
Do they feel any guilt when they lie to us about how much they've had to drink/how much money they've spent on drink? Do they even know they are lying in the first place? Do they realise that we know they're lying?
Do they think about things from our perspectives at all? Or are they too wrapped up in themselves and their problem to be able to do this?
Do they feel any guilt when they lie to us about how much they've had to drink/how much money they've spent on drink? Do they even know they are lying in the first place? Do they realise that we know they're lying?
Do they think about things from our perspectives at all? Or are they too wrapped up in themselves and their problem to be able to do this?
I often wonder the same thing. Can they love us if they don't even love themselves. More to the point can they really love us and respect us if we don't love and respect our own selves. That is my journey now... learning how to love and respect myself and allow boundaries (not doing so well but making progress) I am finding the more I love myself the less I need his validation, weird how I so easily lost that confidence as my relationship and marriage progressed.
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Join Date: Mar 2016
Posts: 216
I think the key is a healthy and proper love. I don't doubt that an alcoholic can love. Surely an alcoholic loves their children, their parents, their spouse...but they are incapable of loving them in a healthy, proper way. They need to learn the building blocks of love (perhaps for the first time due to a tough childhood of never been given the true concept of what love is and means). Same goes for codependents. Surely we love our spouses, but we aren't loving them in a safe and proper way. We give too much, enable too much, smother them, resent them, control them and the list can go on. This isn't "healthy" but we may think it is best and that it is coming from a good place... But it causes more damage than good.
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Join Date: Nov 2012
Posts: 786
We tend to think of love as an emotion, or a feeling...true love is neither of those. Love isn't how someone makes you feel...love is an action. Real love is showing up every day and wanting the best for another person because you admire and respect them for who they are, and either helping or allowing them to blossom into their best selves, whether that includes you or not, smiling at their happiness and success. True, real, deep love is unselfish action.
So...in my experience...that cannot co-exist with alcoholism because the actions of love are absent, or at best, inconsistent.
Most non-addicted humans don't truly "love" either! We experience selfish love, which is really more infatuation. I've seen very few examples of pure love (not mine, except for my children), and it's beautiful. I wish we were taught more in this area as young adults.
So...in my experience...that cannot co-exist with alcoholism because the actions of love are absent, or at best, inconsistent.
Most non-addicted humans don't truly "love" either! We experience selfish love, which is really more infatuation. I've seen very few examples of pure love (not mine, except for my children), and it's beautiful. I wish we were taught more in this area as young adults.
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Join Date: Mar 2016
Posts: 216
The term "love" is too subjective. It has a different meaning for everyone and across cultures. "Love" is just an idea, a concept and factors such as your own personal childhood experiences, movies you watched, culture you live in, neighborhood you grew up in etc. Etc. Have major influences as to how you define "love". There are billions of people in this world, it would be silly to have a straight and narrow definition of "love" which is such a powerful entity.
When you can not physically measure something like love, there is no way of knowing whether someone "truly loves" someone else. The only way we have resorted to try to measure love is through actions...but this is therefore based on whoever's subjective idea of what "love" means to that observer. We all know not to judge if someone else is telling the truth by observer's biases, we have invented lie detector machines that are sophisticated enough and more accurate. We surely can not rely on observer biases to diagnose whether another is capable of love or not. It's like an argument of which type of flower is the prettiest and one person is using scent to sway their decision of which flower is prettiest whereas another person is more inclined to use sight and color, the amount of variables you can produce is endless.
When you can not physically measure something like love, there is no way of knowing whether someone "truly loves" someone else. The only way we have resorted to try to measure love is through actions...but this is therefore based on whoever's subjective idea of what "love" means to that observer. We all know not to judge if someone else is telling the truth by observer's biases, we have invented lie detector machines that are sophisticated enough and more accurate. We surely can not rely on observer biases to diagnose whether another is capable of love or not. It's like an argument of which type of flower is the prettiest and one person is using scent to sway their decision of which flower is prettiest whereas another person is more inclined to use sight and color, the amount of variables you can produce is endless.
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: maine
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I didn't have an opportunity for closure. My AH died suddenly.
I spent a lot of time being bitter, reliving the arguments, the retorts I didn't verbalize because it would lead to arguments. In fact, AH was so clever at picking fights, I barely talked to him at all the last two years. He never noticed.
I found some scribblings in a journal, and I had overheard him asking a friend to look after me. I don't actually remember overhearing this, but I wrote it down at the time, so it happened, whether I remember it or not.
After that I evolved to process this differently. I realized I had choices. I chose to believe that he did love me, *the best he could.* Maybe he didn't do a very good job of showing it. (Maybe *gulp* I fall short of perfection day-to-day, too) This may not work for everyone, but it helped me.
I spent a lot of time being bitter, reliving the arguments, the retorts I didn't verbalize because it would lead to arguments. In fact, AH was so clever at picking fights, I barely talked to him at all the last two years. He never noticed.
I found some scribblings in a journal, and I had overheard him asking a friend to look after me. I don't actually remember overhearing this, but I wrote it down at the time, so it happened, whether I remember it or not.
After that I evolved to process this differently. I realized I had choices. I chose to believe that he did love me, *the best he could.* Maybe he didn't do a very good job of showing it. (Maybe *gulp* I fall short of perfection day-to-day, too) This may not work for everyone, but it helped me.
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Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: UK
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Since getting sober and working (daily )on my recovery, I tend to think of Love as an action verb rather than a feeling. The word Loving can accompany many actions, and become a living, every day phenomenon rather than a notion. When I was drinking, I selfishly thought of loving someone being all to do with how they made me feel, rather than how I acted towards them.
At the end of the day, if the person treats you like trash but hoards some romantic notions about you, would that make it bearable or okay? If the question is, can an active alcoholic behave in a loving way, i would answer, only when they want something in return. The state of an active alcoholic is a state of pure selfishness. And selfishness and behaving in a loving way are worlds apart.
At the end of the day, if the person treats you like trash but hoards some romantic notions about you, would that make it bearable or okay? If the question is, can an active alcoholic behave in a loving way, i would answer, only when they want something in return. The state of an active alcoholic is a state of pure selfishness. And selfishness and behaving in a loving way are worlds apart.
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Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: OH
Posts: 57
I know this is 100 percent hypothetical but think of it maybe this way:
Which would your A choose:
You (the future you as a non-enabler) and no Alcohol.
Alcohol and not you but some other enabler.
If you never make them choose, you will never know and btw you have the power to make them choose.
Which would your A choose:
You (the future you as a non-enabler) and no Alcohol.
Alcohol and not you but some other enabler.
If you never make them choose, you will never know and btw you have the power to make them choose.
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Join Date: Jan 2015
Location: Texas
Posts: 2,872
^ I did make my ex choose-and he made his choice(es) loud and clear-it was always alcohol and his FOO over me and his own children. And I knew all along it would be-it just took me getting to the point that I could stomach the reality of his choices. He never cared about a future with me it would seem, or even his own kids....just wabted to drink with anyone that doesn't get on his case and live like a teenager-those are the only people that get his loyalty. Sad, very sad life.
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Join Date: Oct 2016
Posts: 4
He left last night
He left me last night. We had this big move planned... I was upheaving my life to chase a good opportunity for him financially. But the cravings hit; when I held my boundary and suggested it wasn't a good idea... that's when it always starts. During his binging he pees on things- himself, the floor, the bed, the couch, in cabinets, etc...- he will call me names, gets emotional and cries or yells at me about an array of things. He was even so mad at me once during a drunken rage that he kicked my cat.
When I started holding the boundaries he would respond with appeals and gentle apologies. They progressively turned more angsty and full of rage about me controlling him, how he didn't have autonomy, how I need to accept him for everything he is- including the drunkenly abusive parts. He even went out on me once warning me that he was going to cheat. He spent the night at the bars calling exes and kissing strangers only to come crawling back with tearful apologies and admittence of brokenness. He said he couldn't stand the responsibility of his actions and choices...
So last night was the last time I held a boundary and I was told that he loves me foundationally- that we look good on paper- but that he dreams of being happy with someone who can partake in his consumption. Someone who is compatable (someone who enables). That he no longer feels a heart to heart connection with me because I don't accept his alcoholism as normal and healthy. It goes back and forth about whether or not he'll be ok with just drinking sometimes and then other times he is adiment that he wants to get "f'ed up with friends." But all he does is buys packs of beer and gets f'ed up alone.
I love this man so much. In sober times he is my knight in shining armor. But I know it's just an abuse cycle perpetuated by alcoholism. Last night was his first time admitting out loud that his desire to get "f'ed up" was more important (easier to feed) than our relationship. I've seen him in lucid states admitting I am the best thing that's ever happened to him. That I make him a better person. But those times are lost to him when he is craving...
I feel so abandoned.
When I started holding the boundaries he would respond with appeals and gentle apologies. They progressively turned more angsty and full of rage about me controlling him, how he didn't have autonomy, how I need to accept him for everything he is- including the drunkenly abusive parts. He even went out on me once warning me that he was going to cheat. He spent the night at the bars calling exes and kissing strangers only to come crawling back with tearful apologies and admittence of brokenness. He said he couldn't stand the responsibility of his actions and choices...
So last night was the last time I held a boundary and I was told that he loves me foundationally- that we look good on paper- but that he dreams of being happy with someone who can partake in his consumption. Someone who is compatable (someone who enables). That he no longer feels a heart to heart connection with me because I don't accept his alcoholism as normal and healthy. It goes back and forth about whether or not he'll be ok with just drinking sometimes and then other times he is adiment that he wants to get "f'ed up with friends." But all he does is buys packs of beer and gets f'ed up alone.
I love this man so much. In sober times he is my knight in shining armor. But I know it's just an abuse cycle perpetuated by alcoholism. Last night was his first time admitting out loud that his desire to get "f'ed up" was more important (easier to feed) than our relationship. I've seen him in lucid states admitting I am the best thing that's ever happened to him. That I make him a better person. But those times are lost to him when he is craving...
I feel so abandoned.
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Join Date: Aug 2011
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Abasche....you may find this an odd thing for me to say---but, he is right---if you can't accept him as he is---abuse and all--then it is best that you are not with him.
Knights in shining armour don't pee on stuff, try to cheat in order to hurt you, and kick the innocent cat. They don't do that stuff--ever.
They don't hurt the people who love them...
You don't have to stop loving him...But, you do need to protect yourself.
Many of us have had to learn to love from a DISTANCE...otherwise they will hurt us too much and destroy us in the process of destroying themselves.
You don't have control over another person. You can't control him....actually, the alcoholism is controlling him....
You are fighting a losing battle....I believe that he has done you a favor...
He has cut the chains that bind you......
Knights in shining armour don't pee on stuff, try to cheat in order to hurt you, and kick the innocent cat. They don't do that stuff--ever.
They don't hurt the people who love them...
You don't have to stop loving him...But, you do need to protect yourself.
Many of us have had to learn to love from a DISTANCE...otherwise they will hurt us too much and destroy us in the process of destroying themselves.
You don't have control over another person. You can't control him....actually, the alcoholism is controlling him....
You are fighting a losing battle....I believe that he has done you a favor...
He has cut the chains that bind you......
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Join Date: Oct 2016
Posts: 4
Lessons
Yeah... these are all lessons I'm learning the hard way. I know I shouldn't have pushed so hard for change but I also know that the abuse cycle was very real in the relationship. He has to want to change his behaviors. So much easier said than done when you're in it.
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Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 3,699
OY, I've had a hard time with this thread since it's been popping up.
Probably because I just don't know, and maybe part of me doesn't want to know the 'right' answer.
This truth stings me.. BAD.
It's clear to me that XABF was sick and so was I throughout the relationship. It's clear that neither of us loved or respected ourselves in a healthy way through it also. It's logical that because we couldn't love or respect ourselves, that we certainly couldn't love or respect the other. NEITHER of us...no matter how insanely in love we felt. Ouch.
Based on everything logical I know, the final answer to the original question is really really hard for me to accept. It's hard to accept that I didn't fully love him in the correct way either.
Reconciling the HUGE difference between what I felt, and what actually WAS, is difficult....i felt utterly and completely in love for a long time. And XABF wasn't the first. I've been in what felt like mutual 'madly in love' more times than any single person deserves.
I guess I'm left with - we were passionate, we had a lot of lust, we wanted eternal love together - desperately, we were enamored, we were crazy about each other, we were twitterpated, we were over the moon, we were in sync at times, we had things in common, we cared deeply about each other, and we liked each other a lot...off and on.....
but we were not, no, we COULD not love each other unconditionally in a healthy way. We were both too sick.
OUCH!
Probably because I just don't know, and maybe part of me doesn't want to know the 'right' answer.
I often wonder the same thing. Can they love us if they don't even love themselves. More to the point can they really love us and respect us if we don't love and respect our own selves.
It's clear to me that XABF was sick and so was I throughout the relationship. It's clear that neither of us loved or respected ourselves in a healthy way through it also. It's logical that because we couldn't love or respect ourselves, that we certainly couldn't love or respect the other. NEITHER of us...no matter how insanely in love we felt. Ouch.
Based on everything logical I know, the final answer to the original question is really really hard for me to accept. It's hard to accept that I didn't fully love him in the correct way either.
Reconciling the HUGE difference between what I felt, and what actually WAS, is difficult....i felt utterly and completely in love for a long time. And XABF wasn't the first. I've been in what felt like mutual 'madly in love' more times than any single person deserves.
I guess I'm left with - we were passionate, we had a lot of lust, we wanted eternal love together - desperately, we were enamored, we were crazy about each other, we were twitterpated, we were over the moon, we were in sync at times, we had things in common, we cared deeply about each other, and we liked each other a lot...off and on.....
but we were not, no, we COULD not love each other unconditionally in a healthy way. We were both too sick.
OUCH!
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