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Old 03-10-2011, 02:55 AM
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Eight Ball
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Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Australia
Posts: 436
Hi Destiny,

I read several parts in your thread that has happened to me, living with my AH.

Your AH is blame-shifting big time, he is also making all his current woes about you. Unfortunately its what they do. Mine did it over and over again. It used to go something like this:

Me: Please cut down your drinking, you scare me when you are drinking.
AH: If you drank, then we wouldnt have a problem.
AH: If you werent so boring then I wouldnt drink.

He would avoid at all costs, discussing or talking about the actual topic I had brought up and always made it about me. They dont have to look at their own behavior if they make it all about you. Its easier (part of the disease) to say its your fault than to recognize that the alcohol may be causing all their problems in life, that way they can carry on drinking.

Through Al-anon and this site, I now recognition this alcoholic trait and find that less and less, I get sucked in with this type of avoidance. I have learnt a few lessons; these days I very rarely even mention his drinking, I pick a sober time to discuss anything important and I stop a conversation if it 'turns' and try not to get sucked in.

I have had some psychotherapy and currently counseling and it really does take some time to get your head around the right way and wrong way of thinking and dealing with an alcoholic. Keep going to your meetings and visiting/posting on SR and it will get easier for you.

One thing about being treated like a Queen my psychotherapist explained to me - its what keeps us trapped into staying, alcoholics can be very manipulative and will treat us this way to keep us where we are, so that there drinking remains unaffected and in status quo. Basically the nice parts of an alcoholic are a lie as you live with the whole.

My AH started verbally abusing our 18yr old daughter, whereby she was sometimes scared to be at home or felt as though she was treading on eggshells. Sometimes she would phone me, if I was out, from outside the house crying because of what her dad had done. She moved out at 19yrs as she couldn't live like that anymore. My AH accused me of 'turning her against him' said 'she would have moved out eventually anyway' and that 'she was lazy and not university material'. Either its too hard for the alcoholics to think about what damage they have caused or they dont have the morals and values to know that their behavior towards their (in my case) daughter is completely wrong. Again much easier to blame it on you.

My husbands saving grace is that he works hard, very hard, is a great provider and he does a lot around the house (more than me). I very rarely hear verbal abuse these days (mainly because I ignore his drinking), he sends me sweet text messages during the day and sometimes leaves romantic notes around and tries really hard to limit his drinking. The worse thing about his drinking is that he is always tired and I lead a fairly lonely existence in the evenings.

I am not dealing with a man who has rages, who doesn't work, who throws clothes around, who cries in the street and tries to strangle me, even so, I am still very ambivalent about being married to an alcoholic and getting some personal counseling to cope with anxiety, stress and depression issues, a lot of that due to my roller coaster marriage.

I know this is not my fault.
This is definitely not your fault but sometimes we enable our AH just by staying and being wishy washy about what we are willing to put up with.

I have allowed my AH of 22yrs to blame me, verbally abuse me, disrespect me. I chose to stay with him when he had an long term internet affair, abused our daughter, was mean, visited porn sites, smoked behind my back, bought more beer when I asked him to cut down and told me that he was going to drink beer for the rest of his life and if I didn't like it, I could leave. I know that I do that because I have become emotionally unhealthy. I am sure that a relatively healthy person would read my last paragraph and say 'why on earth do you put up with that?' Deep in my heart I know the right thing to do would be to say 'I will not live with you whilst you continue to drink' make my boundary clear and be strong. If he chooses drink over me, then I get my answer and know that I deserve better and someone who will put me first. This scares me right now but I am working on that.

Why do you put up with what you do? Start asking yourself that, get some help and maybe you will want more for your life too. Real Love isn't abusive.
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