Originally Posted by
doggonecarl 
Alcoholic here, so I'll reply from that perspective. We may drink to avoid pain, but we don't escape it. It returns, and in our failure to cope with it, we drink, yet again. A terrible cycle. And you don't know what pain your alcoholic feels. Could there be something in his past fueling his drinking? Some trauma? Some great shame?
So don't say alcoholics don't feel...we feel. We just don't deal with feelings very well.
As for being selfish. It's not selfish to start looking after your own well being. And it seems that is where your relationship is.
Thank you for your response. I believe he had childhood issues, his mother had him young and he never knew his father. He seems to bring that up a lot...I tried to get him to see a therapist to help him, I do believe if he got help from a therapist, that could help with the drinking. Again, what do I know? I believe that he felt shame from letting everyone down (5 relapses) and he had a great job, they actually held his job for almost a year while he was in and out of treatment. He was nervous that they would treat him differently. I don't mean that alcoholics don't feel pain. From what i have seen with him he just gets nasty and screams at me to go away. Or he will bring up something hurtful I said to him. Its just overall hard to understand. I just want to know he cares and he is feeling we have not talked in four weeks, after almost three years.