Hello my wonderful SR friends. It's been a while, but I needed to post as I'm struggling with guilt and need some healthy perspectives. I have very few people I can talk to about this (that really understand the dynamic of living with an alcoholic)- not even my counselor has as much experience and wisdom as the collective on this site.
So, as some of you know, I lost my wife to alcoholism approximately 6 months ago. My kids and I are doing pretty well for the most part. I've even started dating again- all good. BUT, I can't shake this profound guilt (and resulting sadness) for how I handled my wife's downward spiral. Without belaboring all the details, suffice to say she was in complete denial about the severity of her disease and all the repercussions to herself and the family. As a result, I attempted to enforce boundaries/consequences to her for not working a recovery program. She would come home from rehab, maybe hit a few AA meetings, but then stop going and just sink back into the same pattern of drinking, and denial. After much rumination, the first change was making her get an apartment on her own for 6 months- so she could really focus on recovery activities. When that didn't change her course (or her appreciation for the damage her addiction was causing), I felt my only option was serving her dissolution paperwork. One month later she died of acute alcohol ingestion.
I KNOW the 'I didn't cause it', etc, etc. mantra. And I know that only SHE could have helped herself. BUT, the nagging pain I feel is that she so desperately wanted to come home and be with her family. In her own words, "I just need to come home and be around you guys and I know I can get better...". Again, I realize this is disease rhetoric, but my struggle is that since the disease causes flawed thinking in the alcoholic, I truly believe that SHE believed this to be her only way towards recovery, and I was the one who 'broke' her emotionally by enforcing the separation. Knowing her as well as I did for 27 years, I know she felt truly abandoned by me and family. I know I didn't put the bottle of vodka to her lips, but can't help but feel I had a hand in it all the same.
I feel like this is going to haunt me for the rest of my life...How do you get through this?
