Originally Posted by
stevieg46 
Hi Ericar .
At least you have made a start by telling your husband about how you feel and what your thoughts are with the baby on the way and how his behavior is affecting you , is good that you are not financially dependent on your husband and if it came to a needs must situation then you would at least be able to afford it .
Reality is your husband still has too many excuses against seeking help , not AA for a start , having to go to meetings etc whereas, if he is really really serious he would be willing to do anything especially for you and the family and that unfortunately does not seem to be the case . Fact is that one can stop drinking if they really want to they do not need to go to meetings and ''then stop '' if I were you ''even if you do not really want to '' tell him in no uncertain terms that you are really really serious and you are not going to take any more of his unreasonable behavior , he is selfish and self centered to the extreme and cannot envisage life without alcohol.
Who knows maybe going to Smart will bring some hope to first and foremost himself , because if he keeps on feeling he is hopeless then he will remain hopeless , but you cannot put all your cards on this making a difference, I certainly hope it does but you need a contingency plan because you know deep down that this cannot go on .
Ericar please keep in touch cos who knows maybe by sharing you are getting rid of some stress rather than bottling it all up, so stay in touch , thinking of you .
Regards Stevie
Thank you. I agree that nothing will change unless he himself wants to make changes and actively tries to make them. He seems to think that just not wanting to drink or going weeks without drinking means much more than it really does. I suppose it IS a big step/change for him but in the long run it means nothing if it's just continued failure.
In the past I have gotten sucked into focusing on the positive and the fact that he has greatly cut back his drinking. But I think this has been a wake up call to me in terms of the fact that it is still a big problem even if it isn't too "frequent." I know for sure I can't take it any more but I also don't know what that looks like in terms of reality, so it's hard to tell him that without anything to back it up. I HAVE told him that I can't take it and he says he knows and I think he does know but I also feel that that isn't enough. I don't have much hope that he will change and I think at this point if it happens again I'll be beyond the stage of ultimatums, I think I will just want to leave him because I can't fathom staying with someone who puts themselves over me and our family to that degree. I was thinking that I should express to him "one more chance" so he knows it's make it or break it time, but I realized that if I don't have something concrete to back it up with, it will be an empty threat that could do more harm than good. And by the time my threat has teeth to it, I'll just be beyond my breaking point. I don't know if that makes any sense but it's how I'm feeling.
I think I've reached the stage where I realize I deserve more. It's strange because in many ways he is so great to me and I love the life we have and I don't know what I would have done without him through certain parts of our marriage such as when we lost a child etc. On the other hand I have to balance that with the knowledge that he is willing to drink even thought he knows it means negative consequences for us and even though it could mean death! So what do we even really have, maybe it's all built on a lie and it has just taken me way too long to figure that out. I feel like a life of watching him "relapse" and suffer and not be there when we need him is not a good life and if he doesn't want to change it then I am going to have to, for myself and our kids without him. I'm not looking forward to that at all but it has to be better than the slow and depressing alternative.
And I don't want to count him out, maybe he really will change, but if he seems to think he will just somehow make it work this time without doing anything differently than he did last time, then I have to assume that nothing will really change. I do want to explore any options I could do first so that I know I didn't just bail. I'm glad he'll go to a meeting with me although I'm skeptical of how much it will help just based on his unwillingness/motivation to go but at least I'm trying. And maybe the next step is to set up a plan so that I can really say, okay if it happens again I will do x, y, and z, and then really be able to carry it through, and maybe just the knowledge of knowing I'm serious will make him change. I doubt it but I guess that's the next step. I'm not sure but I do know that I'm sick of it.