Philippe

Hello, I have been married to an ACoA for 16 years . My wife's father was an alcoholic and she fits perfectly the 13 points describing an ACoA.
It has come to a climax and we need to deal with it.

I have 2 questions:
- What can I do to help her through recovery (she has read the books, I am reading them right now)?
- Do my 5 children and myself risk of becoming some kind of AcOA ourselves?

Thank you for any comment that can help.

DavidG

Hi Phillippe,

My wife has been married to a ACA for 30 years.
It has been really tough for her... at times...

it was tough on our kids- but they did not have to
deal with any drinking behaviour.

My life was better than my parents...
and my kids had a better deal [je pense...]...:ghug3

progress, not perfection...

keep in touch,

DavidG
NZ.

dollydo

Does your wife just have the tendancies or does she have an addiction problem too? I ask as it will better help me to answer your questions.

Philippe

Well she does start to have a bit of a drinking problem. Nothing major, she doesn't really get drunk, but drink more than she should.

Her problem is more with detachment, depression, showing a total different person outside of home to what she is at home, and many more. Problems with intimacy, lying on little things, etc...

dollydo

Ok, thank you.

I am the daughter of an alcoholic, my mother who is 87 and still drinking, daily and never has been in recovery. She will die an alcoholic.

How this has affected me is that I have made bad decisions when it comes to relationships. I have in the past suffered from low self-esteem, and have a rather
impulsive nature. Although, I have inherited the gene that predisposes me to addiction, I am not an alcoholic or drug addict, yet, if left unchecked, I could easily become a gambling addict.

So, your children will have tendancies as adults, codependency is sort of a benchmark of ACOA's, and if you are an enabler and codependent it just enhances the trait to be passed onto the children. Have you read COdependent No More? Might be of value to you...it was to me.

I would suggest that you keep reading this forum, not only ACOA's but Family and Friends
of Alcoholics, and don't skip the stickeys, lots of valuable information at your fingertips.

Kialua

Yes I agree, please read the stickies above, they are full of valuable information.

We are all just human and being human we all have problems no one is perfect. I must say the problems you listed while distressing, could be attributed to just about anyone. Growing up in an alcoholic home is impacting but not insurmountable. If your wife has issues she can certainly find some answers here. Has she been inclined to look for help? How do you deal with your frustrations concerning her? It's great you are looking out for the kids and want to deal with this.

Philippe

This is difficult. An ACoA cannot take any criticism, so if I comment on the drinking, she will turn inside herself. I understand that I must build an environment where she will trust me and open up to me. On the other hand if I say nothing I am an enabler.
I figure that all I can do is not to drink myself, maybe sh'ell get the hint...

My strategy for the moment is to read up, pray, and let her be, not trying to force her boundaries.

I haven't gone trough the whole forum yet, but will. I haven't heard of the book you mentionned, but will hunt it down. I can find a lot of info about ACoA and about how they should deal with it, but the information about people who live with ACoA and how they should deal with it is pretty scarce.

The big problem for me, is that the whole situation seems extremely unfair, I feel like I haven't done anything to deserve this situation. You can't have normal communication to deal with it, you are being shut out. I guess I have to deal with the worst part of the "for the better and worst" of marriage. I will deal with it, but it sucks...

Thank you for the tips.

Philippe

Let's just say that I haven't wrote down the whole story, but I am definitely dealing with a severe case of ACoA.

She has read the books I am reading now, but she does not know about this forum, nor she knows I am consulting one. I think it wouldn't go well if she knew that I posted on a forum about her.

She went to talk to a priest after I blew up one day and told her quiet rawly what I thought about her beavior. She says that the priest told her not to beat up herself, that it would take time to improve, she should learn about how to control her anger, and that I should just be patient and withdraw when she is being "erratic". She felt very much apeased by it, but frankly I do not see much change. She has read 3 books, confirms that she is an ACoA and says no more...

After almost 2 years of seeing that things were definitely not right with her, beyond standard depression, I told her that I noticed around me that most man I knew who had gotten into divorces had told me that their wife had gone crazy. I think maybe this men did not stick and try to help their wifes. I told her that I really thought that she was going crazy, that it was becoming dangerous for our relationship and our family, but that I was going to do all I could to help her.

One year ago, her mother came to live with us. She dearly loves her mother and insistedmuch that she lives with us. It is when her mother came to live with us that things turned very bad. My wifes attitude toward her mother is awfull. It is a real case of eldery people abuse (verbal and emotionnal, not physical). As a result I am loosing a lot of respect for my wife. My accepting of having my mother in law living with us, makes her a direct member of my family, whom I have a duty to protect. So I am cut in between my wife, to whom I owe my foremost loyalty, and my mother inlaw, whom I owe protection. A moral dilema that is tearing me appart.

As far as dealing with frustration, I first tried to detached my self emotionally from her, in a way to protect me, because I am very hurt by the situation. I realized that in detaching myself their was a risk that I would detach myself so much that I would end up not loving her anymore, and it would the end. Detaching myself would fill me up with anger rather than bring me peace.

So I changed strategy...

1-She is complaining about being tired, so I sent her alone in a spa resort for a week, where she could get pampered;
2- Pray a lot because God can do much more to solve this situation than myself or any therapist;
3- No reproach, no comments, helper out more in the house and with the kids as not to be perceived as a threat so she can tust me and open up.
4- Read anything I can and the subjet of ACoA and not bring it up until I have a clear picture and that she feels confortable enough to really talk about it.

With this new strategy, things are way better, also that her mother is back in the US for a while. My frustration went way down and is perfectly tolerable at the moment.

The hardest for a man is frankly the sex thing. It's hormonal, we are build like this, we need it regularly and frequently. Rebucals and poor quality have a devastating effect on a man's balance and self estime. I often have the temptation to go look elsewhere in the meantime. But I know it is not a solution and the contrary. So I have stopped requesting it try to discipline myself to do without. In a nutshell, I ain't getting laid, but I sure feel screwed (pardon my french). Prayer helps a lot and I try not to think about it.


Regarding the kids, I am just paying more attention to them to access how they are. She is very devoted to her role of mother, so I don't think they will be impacted so much. However, this create a new moral dilema: I f I can must take it on myself to save my marriage, I morally cannot put my children at risk.

The biggest question is how to bring up a real calm conversation with her and to when she will be ready to talk about all of this.

Sorry for that long, long post. I feel that I am sobbing about myself and it is humiliating...

dbh

Welcome Philippe!

Thank you for sharing your story.

I too grew up in an alcoholic home and have/had many of the traits associated with being an ACA.

Reading, therapy, meetings, and participating in groups such as this helped me in my recovery. I actually didn't realize that I needed help until I was in my mid-thirties. I started to look into 12-step recovery work 10 years later.

Similar to an addict needing help, I personally think that any recovery work has to be self-directed.

Since I grew up in a dysfunctional home, I have many relatives who struggle with the affects of growing up in a chaotic home. It took me a long time to realize that I couldn't "save" the members of my extended family. The traits that ACA's develop are protection. It takes a lot of strength, courage, and desire to learn healthier ways of interacting with the world.

When dealing with an addict, an ACA, or a person with a mental illness I have learned that:

1. I didn't cause it.
2. I can't control it.
3. I can't cure it.

In the recovery world they called this "The Three C's".

I can truly understand the desire to want to help, but the sad truth is that your wife may be like this for the rest of her life.

The only thing you can do is focus on yourself. Making sure that you are the healthiest you can be. An Al-Anon meeting and/or therapy might help you learn how to set boundaries and decide what you do and don't want in a relationship. This will also help your children as you will be able to model healthy ways to interact with difficult people (e.g., their mother).

I also found it useful to look at myself and think about what was in my background that made me attracted to people that needed saving in the first place.

Best of luck.

db

SLady

Philippe, I am wife of an ACOA.

How open is your wife to seeking professional help? If both of you have individual and joint sessions guided by a therapist / councillor who is qualified in childhood trauma / ACOA, it may provide a 'safe' environment for her and you to talk about your issues.

With regards to sex, it could be two fold. If she is beyond standard depression, she herself may not have any inclination to have sex. If she is taking medication for depression, one of the side effects of certain anti-depressants could be 'no libido', if that is the case, it may be a good idea to ask the doctor for a change of prescription. Have you tried bringing up the subject of sex with her? Sometimes, it is good to be honest. Tell her what you tell us. That you feel rejected by her and its affecting your self esteem, and if she keep on refusing to meet your needs, you may be pushed to seek those needs elsewhere outside marriage.

As to whether you and your children are at risk of becoming some kind of ACOA, I am not sure. My husband is the one who raised my daughter, she turned out to be a well adjusted young lady with very good esteem. When my daughter was young, I used to be so worried because before I met my husband, he suffered from a major depression whereby he even tried to take his own life. Now I know that his depression was primarily due to his bad childhood, I can breathe a sigh of relief.

However, if your wife is emotionally unavailable to your children because of her depression, they may develop some issues.

We have been married for 25 years and about 1.5 years ago, our marriage almost broke due to an emotionally damaged, toxic woman related to my husband's past. Her appearance in his life trigerred his 'abandonment' issues. He wanted to help/save her at all costs. He was acting crazy which drove me crazy, I had to set some boundaries.

This crisis highlighted some problems in our marriage which was:- poor communication and an inability to resolve issues in a health way since we rarely fight for the last 23 years.
I tried to detach myself emotionally to stop myself from getting hurt, my husband was upset because he thought I was angry with him and stonewalling him. Nowadays, if we argue, I tend to extract myself from the situation, let it blew over and discussed the issue calmly the next day when emotions were not running high. At least, we did not threatened to divorce each other anymore.

The fact you said you blew up and your wife shut you out suggested to me that you may have the same problem as us. Counselling might help.

If things gets too much, it helps if you just focus on yourself.

Stay strong. Best of luck.

nowinsituation

Phillipe - Have you (or your wife) read any of the books by Janet Woititz? She has written many books on the topic of ACOA, and specifically a book called "Struggle for Intimacy". I was just looking on Amazon to get the correct author/title, and I see there is an updated version that speaks to the issues of being a partner of an ACOA.

I have read her book "Complete ACOA Sourcebook" and found it very useful; it includes within it a section on Intimacy. I am ACOA, and it has been helpful for me to read this to understand why I have so much trouble with intimacy. It does not go away easily, if ever... but I think I have learned better ways of dealing with it. I had my partner read it also so he would know what he was getting into, LOL.

Philippe

Now in situation,

Thank you for your recommendation I just bought "struggle for intimacy" along with Women are from Venus and man are from mars.

Got finally to get my wife talking and believe I got an as honest an answer as it is possible to get from an ACOA. The truth, is killing me but happy to know what I have to deal with.

The problem is that the only way to forgive is to recognise that it comes from an ACOA and they don't "comput" normally. On the other hand by accepting that she is an ACOA, I also understand that I have no insurance that it will never happen again and I don't think I could survive emotionnaly the ordeal I am living right now.

Thank you all for your supporting messages.

dbh

Dear Phillippe:

Glad that you came back, sorry that you are still in the mist of a crisis.

Just want to clarify that you do realize that most of the people who read and post here are ACOA's. I sort of took offense to "they don't compute normally".

Everyone goes through life with their own struggles. Growing up in an alcoholic home is just one of those struggles. All any of us can do is work with the cards that we were dealt.

My life improved greatly when I stopped trying to analyze and fix the people around me and just worked on myself.

Thank you for letting me share.

db

DesertEyes

It's a matter of perspective Ask any woman what she think of how men "compute" and you will get some interesting comments about caves, troglodytes and knuckle-draggers

You may find it easier to think of it as a difference between cultures. Say, for example, the difference between the culture of the stereotype American Cowboy living on his horse trying to start a business with a partner who is the stereotype Swiss Perfectionist driving a chauffered BMW. These two people are going to have to learn each others' languages before they can begin to communicate.

So it is with people who have survived a toxic childhood and those who come from a different background. It's just a matter of finding the best translation between them.

Mike