Lilyflower

Hi Chris, so many things going on here...

You are choosing to loose your serenity here. Why were you and your sister in law awake at 2am fussing on whether he got to work or not? Are you both his mummy? In fact, I think I'd be a little peeved if my mum was checking on my where-a-bouts, or whether or not I went to work. I am an adult, if I choose to go to work or not it is no one elses business other than mine. By the same reasoning, it is no one else's business if your AH goes to work or not because he is too drunk to bother. All you and your SIL are doing is caretaking for a grown man who can make his own decisions and suffer his own consequences.

There is a word for this behaviour - enabling. You are actively covering up for your AH. Making sure his life keeps ticking over, that he doesn't get into trouble with his boss. You are right that you shouldn't have done that. i have done this for my exabf too. He kept missing work, he lost his paycheck due to absences, he eventually lost his job. All my covering for him didn't stop that. It just made me act in ways that were not true to myself - I lied regularly for him.

If the job is so good, surely your AH knows this too? Knowing this then, he should want to keep it. If he still cannot get himself there on time, it must mean he is not bothered, like all A's in active addiction his drinking comes first - before anything and anyone.

This is your AH keeping you sweet, keep you enabling, keep you caretaking.

I got this too! ''You leave if things are so bad..'' etc etc. It is the A's way of handing over responsibility of the relationship onto you and off them. They don't like responsibility, they don't like making decisions, and they don't like losing their enablers. So by ducking out of the moving out, he has effectively given over all that onto your shoulders. It will also mean that if you do move out, and things get ugly, he will be able to point the finger at you and say it was all your choice.

Your daughter may well love him, as she should her dad, but as many will testify, growing up in a household with an addicted parent and the other enabling and constantly giving of them self, does not make for a healthy functioning adult.

She is right. He will stop believing you. Plus if your daughter is witness to these ultimatums (Or if you lay down laws with her and don't stick to them) she will quickly learn that mommy doesn't mean what she says and she can basically behave in anyway and do what ever she wants. After all, when did she ever see you follow through with what you said?

Chris, your husband will never be the man he was when you married him. heck, I am not the same person I was a year ago, never mind 5 years ago, or 10! We all change and develop. The man you are with now IS YOUR HUSBAND, part of my recovery has been learning to live with reality, not on the possibilities of life, the past, or my hopes and dreams. If things stay the way they are now for the next ---- years, are you doing anything that will ensure you stay healthy and centred?

Sending you serenity...
Lily xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx