38 days is not very much time yet. My RAH was in inpatient rehab for 90 days and it took a good 7 weeks before he was starting to see his manipulative ways. He’s been 18 months sober about and even from leaving rehab to now a year later he has continued to evolve and improve. So I’m not surprised that your H is still manipulative, he didn’t get to be that way overnight and it will take time to change, he can change if he is committed. At this point I would not make any rash decisions probably. You are both changing a lot and both in early recovery to to speak. That doesn’t mean that you won’t still want a divorce later per se but this is all so very new and different. If he is really committed to his recovery he will likely change a lot in the next year still.
I’m still with my RAH and like I said he is doing very well. But things are not going well between the two of us and at this point that is mostly on me. I’ve been with him for 16 years and when I confronted him 1.5 years ago I was at my rock bottom. Naively enough I still figured that if he got clean things would be better. I told him I was giving him one last chance and he took it. I also really meant it. I really had no intention of leaving him if he got clean and got treatment. But rehab was really hard on us and now that everything was out in the open it was like the floodgates of my emotions finally opened and I was able to feel what I really felt. I still have a really hard time with feeling and emotions and especially expressing them or sometimes even recognizing them but it was like I no longer had to pretend I was happy. Because in all reality I had not been happy for a long time but jut plugged through. It has been so hard. I don’t want him touching me even after 1.5 years, I have a hard time being interested in what he does and so it makes it very hard to have small talk about his day etc. He knows I’m not truly interested which in turn makes him not interested in sharing. I feel so guilty about this. But I feel like our relationship has been dysfunctional from the start (obviously didn’t know that then but have learned so in the past year) and I feel like we just have very little in common. I’ve come to like doing stuff alone with my kid over the past few years while he was not much present because of his drinking. Now he is present and wants to be involved. I’m glad that he is able to do stuff with our kid now because she deserves that but I just don’t feel comfortable around him. He is 11 years older and he has matured a lot since becoming sober. I like to hang out with my friends and our kids (we all have girls) and I like to drink. I don’t drink at home by myself but when I’m out or with friends I like to drink. And of course a lot of our past activities involved drinking. It shouldn’t matter that much but I guess I feel like it sort of does. I don’t usually get drunk but just a little happy and sometimes he ha a hard time when everyone is drinking and becomes less inhibited (not drunk). I feel like it had changed our social life. He doesn’t care if I drink when we go out to dinner. I had one of my friends tell me that their social circle really changed after her H got sober and I can’t imagine not hanging out with our current friends (except for one because I now see how dysfunctional she is and mainupalitve and she doesn’t even drink)
Anyway, it is so hard. I feel like I should be grateful for him being sober and doing so well and having changed. I am grateful because he needed to do it for himself. But I guess I feel like things have changed and that I was probably more done than I thought I was 1.5 years ago. I would have a comfortable life and anything I need or want and my kid would have a family that’s intact. And here I am considering giving all that up and tear my kids family apart and it feels selfish.
It is still so hard to be able to be ok with what I feel without thinking about what it does to others. That that whole codependent thing.
Take your time, you don’t have kids so that’s one less thing you have to worry about. Your H is only very recently sober and his brain is still changing. You both may realize that this marriage is not going to work or you may rediscover each other and decide that you do like the new person he and you have become. Early recovery is selfish and he needs to figure out who he is just like you have to figure out who you are now. Our marriage counselor keeps saying how blessed we are that we get to start all over and rediscover who we are bla-bla-bla. He equates it to an arranged marriage and we have to get to know each other. Except for we have this long past of how is alcoholism really screwed up our relationship and my feeling for him. And that is really hard for me to get past. Including the not wanting to be physical with him.
Like others here say all the time (and it hard to accept that for me) it is ok to be done whether he is clean or not. Things happen in a relationship even when addiction isn’t present. To me the hardest thing is that he did what I asked him and is doing so well with it that I feel like I’m the bad person for not being able to get past this . But staying together like this isn’t doing anyone any favors including my kid. I wish I could get past this but feelings are hard to change after years of getting dragged down. I’m still here because I really need to figure out me and learning to love myself and it is a work in progress but so very hard after so many years of dysfunction (that started long before I met my H)