Originally Posted by
Plath 
Anyway, this is what I'm dealing with right now. I don't want to divorce my husband, we have things to work through for ourselves, but I often don't feel that he does his part in checking his own behavior or motives, and I'm starting to feel really resentful and hostile towards him, and it's being returned in kind (or vice versa).
What you're saying sounds like, "I'm only going to be happy if he changes." Reminder: We are powerless over people, places, and things. Particularly
other people, places, and things. Hate to state it so bluntly, but that's how it is. "I'm only going to be happy if she stops drinking" is pretty much the same thing as what I'm hearing.
The thing that happened to me, after I had been going to Al-Anon for awhile, was that I stopped reacting (or, more important, feeling that i
had to react) to whatever my AW (at that time, AGF)'s provocation might be, on any given day. Once I figured out that I could deal with her sober, slightly in the bag, half-drunk, plowed, or passed out, things started to calm down a lot. It's hard to put a finger on it, but I just found that when she wanted to pick a fight, I didn't have to accept. Eventually, "the family situation improved," and she finally went to treatment, got sober and healthy, and so on. But even with no change on the part of the other person, there is a lot you can do to de-escalate things.
T