Old 10-04-2013, 10:13 AM
  # 23 (permalink)  
BookNerd
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Join Date: Sep 2013
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Originally Posted by ShootingStar1 View Post
BookNerd, I think the issue is much deeper and bigger than whether you get to use your (oops, HIS) tools or not, and whether dealing with his tantrums if you build a sandbox are worth it.

His behavior, plain and simple, is abusive. If you haven't read the sticky at the top of the Friends and Families page, I'd recommend it. It's "What is Abuse?", written by English Garden. I posted my story there.

You are not able to live your life as you want to, and as you need to because of his intervention. You are not able to take care of your children the way you want - i.e., build them a sandbox.

You are not able to go on family outings because he throws tantrums and spoils them.

You do not have money for tools and are dead broke. Is that because he spend the money on alcohol and drugs? Is it because he isn't working enough?

You are FORBIDDEN to buy your own tools. That is abuse.

What part of this life is allowing to be your own person, an adult who gets to make her own choices and live without the controlling presence of a man who does nothing and demands everything?

This is very deep into co-dependence and a very common reaction of an abused person. I see myself in what you have written.

Do you go to Alanon? Or to therapy? It may be time to reframe the questions you are asking. The exchange about tools here is more of a smoke screen for the dynamics of the relationship and its deficiencies than it is about how to get a hammer to make a sandbox.

I'd say read as much as you can about alcoholism and its progressive nature. And read about abuse and control by spouses. And read about the effects of alcohol and abuse on kids.

You are welcome here, and for me, when I came, deep in a fog with no comprehension of what my abusive alcoholic husband was doing to me, SR gave me incredible support and shared their wisdom, and finally the light came on and I saw what was happening to me.

ShootingStar1
ShootingStar, thank you. I am well aware now that I am being abused, and that I have been abused pretty severely for many years now. Over the past few months the scales have been falling from my eyes. It was shocking at first when I realized how bad things were, how much abuse I had gradually become accustomed to, but I have come to accept now that my husband is a very sick, abusive man.

Rest assured I have no plans to continue living this way. I am stuck in a very bad situation right now, where finances are so terrible (as in, our account is seriously overdrawn) that I can't see a way to escape for now. (And to answer your question, our money problems are both from his addictions, and from not working enough right now.)

So I am trying to just understand the situation the best I can, so that for the next little while, I can hopefully make life bearable for myself and my kids. It's not forever. You're right, my AH does nothing and demands everything. I can't let that continue. If I do I am setting a horrible example for my kids of what a marriage is supposed to look like.
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