Paintbaby

Hello, all. Glad to be back and gleen the wisdom from everyone here who has had the same struggle of letting go of their alcoholic spouse.

Monday is my one-year wedding anniversary. Two weeks ago, my husband left, after a huge argument we had over his jealousy and insecurity. He has never stopped being suspicious of me, even though I have been faithful to him throughout our relationship. At one point, he broke into a locked trunk and read my journals. He has erased innocent text messages from my phone from platonic male friends, and read my emails without permmission. I thought by marrying him, it would all stop. But then, I also thought that he could stop drinking on his own, too. Ah, foolish hope!

I told him I could not live like this anymore---feeling policed and suffocated, and always on the lookout for signs he was drinking again. He stopped drinking for a few months, and was attending one-on-one counselling to address his anger issues and childhood sexual abuse, but as soon as we had another conflict, he used it as an excuse to go live at his buddy's place and get his drunk on.

I'm glad he is gone, because it has given me time to get my head peaceful again, and decide what I need to do for me. Last year, I was going to move away, but I decided to stay and try to work it out. I gave this relationship one more year of my life, and I am not going to give it any more years of my life. So at the moment, I am busy getting my house ready to put on the market, and I am going to be returning to the city I moved from to come here. I am looking forward to the move, and getting back to my friends and hobbies I left behind.

I have reached the point where I feel detached, emotionally numb and "done"--and I have never felt this way before. I have fallen out of love. He took all of my mental energy, and I realized I just cannot have a spouse that will never be capable of doing for me all that I did for him---and probably doesn't even have those instincts to do right by me in the first place. You don't know selfish until you have lived with an alcoholic, I learned. I realized this man will never have my best interests at heart, and that hurts. He will never his own best interests at heart, which is worse.

Interestingly, "morbid jealousy" can result from alcoholism---one more way the brain gets its chemistry all switched around and broken. Once I discovered that, it truly hit me---he was changing who he was through drinking. He is breaking down his brain, his liver, his kidneys---slowly poisoning his organs. Hastening mental illness, hastening his death. I don't want to watch it anymore.

My husband is part native, with a family history of alcohol abuse. Last year, his mother , who was full-blooded native, died from the result of her alcoholism after falling into a coma and suffering massive organ failure. Before she died, she was severly mentally ill for years as a result of her alcoholism. He watched his own mother die because of this disease, and he continues his love affair with the bottle.

I have finally realized how truly helpless I am in this, something I didn't want to admit for the longest time. I thought if I loved him hard enough, and supported him, he would want to get better, and would get better.

Maybe I'm leaving so I don't have to watch him die.