Last Chance
My husband and I have been married for 14 years. For 14 years, he has been drunk nearly every weekend. He also suffers from Crohn's disease, seronegative spondyloarthropathy, severe depression, social anxiety, and insomnia. All of his ailments have become increasing worse over the years. The hardest thing for me to deal with is the verbal and mental abuse. Over the last 8 years I have put up a wall to for survival. We have been semi-separated for 3 weeks now. It took me leaving with my 5 y/o daughter to prove to him that I did not intend to live the rest of my life in this manner. We are now in individual and family counseling. I think it is going to be good. The scary thing is that our counselor told me that he probably wouldn't be the same person when he becomes sober and that I may not even like him. I very hopeful that won't be the case.
I was reading the post about the way a spouse becomes an eabler. I have played all of the roles at different times. He has never accepted any responsibility for the problems in our marriage that are a direct result of the alcohol abuse. He has no concept of how he has hurt me over the years. Over the years, he has also become more helpless. He seems like he can't do anything or figure anything out. He completely relies on me for virtually everything. We are both phyical therapist and have always worked together. I have had to do his job for him for the last 10 years. He takes advantage of me and manipulates me. I am angry. I feel like I have been cheated out of a normal, happy family. But I am working on my anger one day at a time. I do love my husband, it is just hidden by this wall I created to protect myself.