Hard morning. Hard, hard morning.
I didn't expect that sobriety - or at least my current attempts at it - would make my marriage so much worse.
For the past week my husband has been steadily escalating fight-picking sort of behaviours: he's acting critical, nasty, name-calling, etc. When I let him be and remove myself (trying to set a decent boundary for myself) he starts on the kids instead.
I've gone over this with my therapist: I know about co-dependency. I don't know, but I am guessing that perhaps he expected all the problems in our lives were to do with me drinking. Now I am not drinking, and they are still there, he either has to look to his own part in things, or find another reason to blame me. I think what I am seeing is him trying really really really hard to find a reason to blame me.
He's also angry - and I get that - he has every right to feel however he likes about the way I behaved while I was drinking: the fact I abandoned him emotionally for the bottle, and left him to take care of anything remotely difficult in our lives - from the practical to the emotional stuff. That really happened, and I am responsible for it, and he is entitled to feel any way he likes about that.
I guess he's not entitled to punish me. I want to listen to him and work with him, but I don't want to be verbally abused.
I am afraid - really really really afraid - that setting healthy boundaries for myself (I don't sit there while he's calling me names, I don't let him control my time etc) will implode our relationship. That I can't be healthy and be with him.
It is early days. I know it is. I know right now I need to work on myself, set healthy boundaries, and find ways other than my marriage to meet my needs for warmth and encouragement right now.
I know I have to respect his boundaries too. I want warmth and affection and intimacy and encouragement from him. I want honesty. I want to know what is really going on with him, past all the ranting. And he is saying 'no' to all of that, and I have to respect his right to say no to that kind of relationship.
I know all this. I just feel really really really really terrible today.