Thread: disheartened
View Single Post
Old 08-30-2014, 07:08 PM
  # 8 (permalink)  
Stung
Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Silicon Valley, CA
Posts: 2,066
Does your happiness hinge on your husband's choices? Does your family hinge on his choices?

Believe it or not, I consider myself to be a happy story here, if not for the simple fact that I'm making the necessary changes in myself and my parenting to give my children the best shot at not becoming alcoholics or enablers themselves. That's pretty freaking awesome. Further, relapse does happen to most alcoholics. My husband is currently in rehab after a series of relapses after a few months of sobriety earlier this year. Things didn't spiral to absolute insanity like the did in the past and I credit that to the emotional growth that we have both been doing this year.

Are you looking for stories of rainbows and unicorns? You are unlikely to find those here. There are women in my alanon groups that have been married for a long, long time to recovering alcoholics, to active alcoholics, to alcoholics that go in and out of recovery. If you want to be happy, the answer is to look inward and stop focusing on what your partner is doing or isn't doing or could possibly do in the future.

In my humble opinion, the continued willingness to be self reflective and strive to be better is a success and its gradual and never ending. My success does not hinge on whether my husband relapses again. My children's happiness does not hinge on that either.

I feel like what your post is really asking is if there is more work to be done. From what I've learned, people that find themselves on these boards, on either side of the fence, need to work on their issues for the rest of their lives to really have satisfying, healthy relationships with others.
Stung is offline