Old 02-16-2013, 07:37 AM
  # 3 (permalink)  
LexieCat
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Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: South Jersey
Posts: 16,633
OK, here's the first thing that jumped out at me in your post: "Everytime we talk on the phone he either makes me cry or makes me mad." Um, NO, he is not. YOU get mad, or YOU cry. He cannot "make" you do either one. There is a wonderful book by Dr. Paul O (who wrote the most awesome story in the Big Book, "Acceptance Was The Answer"), called "You Can't Make Me Angry." Excellent, excellent read about our being responsible for our own emotional reactions to things.

Anyway, he is only 55 days sober. It sounds like he is working on his recovery. I was still a complete mess at 55 days. I am VERY grateful I lived alone, as I probably would have been hell to live with. In a lot of ways you are fortunate not to have to deal with the day-to-day ups and downs of early recovery.

He is only now beginning to sort out who and what he is. The fog is probably beginning to lift a little, but he has a long way to go before he is going to be good relationship material.

I understand you would like him to give you more relief in the parenting department, but you can't force him to step up, and your getting upset about it isn't achieving the desired response. Is your problem really that you need more help with the kids, or is it your anger that he isn't living at home as you would like him to?

Your comment about whether he is "allowed" to be this way make me chuckle a bit. Well, he IS that way, so I guess he is "allowed" to. No, people should not scream and hang up on someone. It isn't right. I know it took me quite a while to get my emotions in any kind of working order, and I was pretty impatient and hostile to people who didn't deserve it (lol, I once went off on some poor server at Burger King when I was a few weeks sober--not normally how I would ever behave, but I felt ready to explode over trivial problems with my order).

So my best advice is to keep working on your own emotional reactions. Time will tell whether he gets recovered and whether he moves back or not. His recovery will improve things even if the marriage ends, but only if you work on your own anger at the same time.

Hugs,
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