Is it REALLY alway's ME ???
 

Me and the wife's 40th wedding anniversary tonight. I suggested we go to a steak House nearby to celebrate. I figured just me...and her.
Well, next thing I know, she calls the daughter and her "husband" (?)... to join us...with there 2 1/2 year old...that is a "Holy Terror".

The night is a disaster! The kid wont behave...Screaming....and just freaking out...people are getting up and walking out...my wife takes the kid to the restroom trying to calm her down...Daughter does what she can to no avail...and I'am setting at the table by myself...feeeling like I have a thousand eye's boring down on me...totally embarressed !!!...and it happens again.

She calms down for a few minutes...but then cranks back up. This is disrupting the resturant and the patrons are getting fed up as well as me. I told daughter to take her out or take her home!!! I hated to tell her that! I felt so bad...but I had to do it. Enough is ENOUGH !!!

All I wanted was a quiet celebration dinner with my wife!!! I didnt need all this other crap that was brought on by my wife agreeing to let our Daughter and Grand Daughter join us. i know...kids will be kids...BUT the kid didnt need to be there on this occasion !!!

I'am upset and pissed at my wife mainly...for not drawing the line...but even more at MYSELF for not doing the same thing !!! My wife will not let go of my Daughter and let us live our lives !

Bottom line is this. After 5 month's of sobriety...and after the disaster of tonight...I ordered a beer!...then 2 more. A major "F" it moment...

Am I wrong for feeling the way I do ??? I'am mad !...and really pissed at the wife. She didnt HAVE to call the whole family in to spend "our time" with us !!!

I just wanted to have a nice quite, "Just the Two of Us" Aniversary dinner and was planning to present her with a 4,000.00 Dollar diamond ring to mark the occasion !!! I didnt do it. It just wasn't the right time...or did I even HAVE time !!! The ring is still in my pocket and I just may return it to the jeweler!!!

Tell me...Am I over reacting?...Have i been Wronged? ...I'am mad and upset. Do I have a right to be or...no? Should I be upset...or No ??? You're thought's...Please!

Yep. It's you.

I've been there. But until you stop looking at outside influences as the cause iof your drinking, things aren't gonna get better.

You didn't throw five months away, get back on that wagon and come back here. It's hard, and it sucks at first, but you can do it.

I can understand why you were upset. The night was a disaster and you wanted it to be anything but that.

That being said, you used alcohol to cope with your reaction the events. Events became an excuse to drink.

Look at the lessons to be learned.

If it were me, I would look at the role of expectations (reasonable or not) in creating negative emotions (primarily anger). Can you find any way of letting go of expectations as you see them being violated?

Can you find a way to work with your wife which can minimize the potential for things going wrong during similar important events in the future? Specific things you could do?

Can you visualize yourself doing something different (than drinking) if a similar situation were to come up in the future (despite your preparations)?

There are lessons in every mistake. Use the opportunity to see how you made mistakes, repair any damage you may have done, and prepare to cope with events that might have similar elements in future.

Give her the ring.

I agree with awuh1, give her the ring.

Did you communicate to your wife that you wanted it just to be you and her? You can never assume anything you have to speak up. I have found that miscommunication happens because we all think we can read minds or someone should read our minds.

I see a lot of me in your post. I could make a situation even worse, make myself furious over it, all in order to have an excuse to drink. I would work myself into a frenzy I tell you. I still have to watch that too. Sometimes plans or situations don't go the way we want. That is life, you just go with the flow.

Recovery is all about learning, pick yourself up and learn from it and continue on. And happy anniversary, the day is only a failure if you think that. 40 years is awesome!

Life is full of things I don't like, and my plans are often thwarted Dave.
I had to learn to roll with life, and not default to old strategies like drinking.

I think that's part of being a responsible adult - y'know?

D

Talk to your wife. Explain how much the five months meant to you .... Which by the way you didn't "lose" as some say. She's proud of your marriage and the milestone so wanted to share it with your daughter and family. I'm sure it was that innocent. I'm bad about preconceiving how events should go. We have to roll with it. That said, your hurt and u drank. Talk to your wife. Keep the ring handy for the right moment.

You figured? Did you express this verbally to her?

One thing I have learned is I have to talk, out loud, I can't assume what others are thinking or feeling nor can they assume what I am thinking or feeling.


But she did not know that, at least from what I can tell from your post. You are blaming your wife, your daughter and your granddaughter for YOUR feelings.

I don't see our lives, I see YOUR life. Your wife is allowed to have her life too

In other words it is all about you! You wanted your wife to place all her attention on you and nobody else. You must be the center of her universe. Have you done the same for your wife?

Did it or has it ever occurred to you that your wife may cling to your daughter and your granddaughter because that is where she gets her love? That is where she gets the attention she needs? That is where she finds her peace, solitude and serenity? That is what makes her happy, or is it all about you? What you want? What you need?

This is all on you.

And you didn't have to drink either, but you did. So she is wrong but you are not?

So you are going to punish your wife! That will show her! How dare she invite your daughter and your granddaughter to celebrate an occasion? How dare she want to share her attention with others?

I just gave them to you.

Now, you can get mad at me too OR you can do something about it. You can stop drinking again, get in recovery and deal with YOUR issues and stop worrying about what your wife, your daughter, your granddaughter are or are not doing in their lives. Recovery is about you. Your actions. Your feelings. Your thoughts. You reactions. Not anybody else's.

Everyone at that dinner may have been wrong but the only one you need to concern yourself with is you.

After typing a rely I scrolled up and read what gracieLou had to say, backspaced and will keep it short for me:
Ditto want gracieLou said.

This

if i was in your shoes i would of been happy with whatever the wife wanted to do about celebrating it, rather than what i wanted to do about celebrating it

if i let myself get drawn into what i want to do then i end up getting hurt and frustrated as things havent gone my way

this can lead me to feel sorry for myself and a good cure in my head to pick me up is to have a drink

hence it is me and my attitude in life that has to change,

it not easy by any means as i am battling my selfish nature but i soon learn after all the pain it brings with it

now just imagine if you had let your own feelings go and just enjoyed seeing your wife happy having all the people she loves around her

it was her anniversary as well as yours she just wanted all the people she loves around her thats all

but this is how we learn or we should learn to make sure it doesnt happen again next time

Hi.
A major contributor to an alcoholics triggers is CONTROL. I’ve recognized that when I use the words I want and other people are involved I’m heading for disaster even when the want is for the benefit of someone else.
My old sponsor Al Anon wife use to say:
“Man plans, God laughs.”
When things are not going my way and I can step back and remember that, I’m often able to chuckle.
Another good one I heard years ago: “It’s OK to plan ahead just don’t plan the outcome.”

BE WELL

GracieLou said everything I would have said.

AA is onto something when it says "Resentment is the number one offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else."

Well you showed them! You started killing yourself again. That'll teach 'em.

I typed that as much for me as you. I used to drink at problems, annoyances, disasters, bad situations, bad luck, bad haircut, you name it. Never fixed any of them, just screwed me up more.

Rewind that crap and figure it out. Grandmas think they got carte blanche to bring all the kids to whatever unless they hear otherwise. You won't fix that. Deal with it.

I wouldn't return the ring 40 years of marriage is a very special event sorry it went so bad for you.

If I were 5 months sober and in that situation, I would have excused myself and gone to call my sponsor for advice - he would have told me pretty much all of what has been said in this thread and the result may have been different. This is why it's so important to have a support network you can contact whenever you get wrapped around the axle over anything making you angry or fearful, because that's when we are at highest risk to use or drink. We drink because life situations become unacceptable to us right? Life is too boring, or hectic, or stressful, or (you fill in the blank.)

So what's done is done, but if you want to continue on in sobriety, learn from this and try something different - see what you can do to put a mechanism in place that you can rely on in times of trial. What happened is completely understandable and I sympathize, but you can still use it as a way to learn and change and grow some more. We learn so much more from our mistakes. Taking a drink wasn't "wrong" in a morale sense - recovery has nothing to do with morality - it has to do with making new choices because if we continue drinking we usually end up in jail, court, mental institutions or the morgue. It's just what happens to us.

DuhDave, I am sorry to hear about your night.
I think there was just miscommunication. I would imagine your wife thought it would be a nice night out with you, your daughter and husband and kid and that she wanted to share the night with family for a special moment. However, I don't think she thought it would turn out the way it did. I am sure she feels awful and embarrassed about it as well, probably moreso since she was the one to invite and could also feel that you're not happy about it.
I can understand your frustration and disappointment since you had something special in mind and it went south. However, I think your wife is also in the same boat.
Why not plan for something special at home tonight and give her the ring?

you are spot on with that advice as i to would have had to have rang my sponsor as i wouldn't of been capable of thinking the way i do today

this what i mean when i say we learn how to live this new way of life and the new way of thinking
for me its taken me years of getting it all wrong first as i had to become aware of just how selfish my nature really is and its painful as well

as i can make anything sound like others are being unfair to me as i can not see past the me part.

so yes the sponsors role in aa is such a valuable one all the more reason to have someone who is well grounded in living sober and living through these sorts of mishaps
its how they pass on there own experience just like was passed on to them and how it really is true about how one alcoholic truly understands the nature of the other

its not just about the drink its our whole way of life and the crazy thinking that has to change.

from being selfish to learning how to live unselfish
its knowing the difference that had to be learned and sadly we tend to only learn it through pain or i do i should say

the good news is we do learn and we do grow. just so long as we do our part and dont pick up that first drink

I sympathize with you, Dave, and I'd like to offer both support and a more complete comment. Given that there's so little information about your relationship in your OP, I'll only say that I've worked with many couples over the years. Although I doubt that I've "seen everything," I have worked with couples wherein one of them complained that their SO sometimes/frequently/always invites friends or family for an anniversary or other special event that one of the two wants to spend alone. Most times, the reasoning is that their partner has no desire to spend an evening alone with the person who plans the event, and I've heard a few different explanations for this.

--They spend "too much time" together at home and/or they rarely do things together without other people being involved.
--They have nothing to talk about.
--One or the other is uncomfortable being alone with his/her partner.
--One or the other dreads spending time alone with his/her partner.
--The relationship is dead, or at least wheezing its last gasp, and the pain of that reality would be thrown in sharper relief with a planned evening alone with each other, and the buildup of anxiety before the event would alone be intolerable.
--They have lots to talk about, but one or the other just does not feel ready to go down that road, and scheduled time alone with each other is not an option.
--One or the other enjoys spending time alone or with others rather than spending time alone with their SO.

At the very least, it appears that you and your wife have a lot to talk about, based on your OP, in the event that either of you wants to improve the quality and frequency of your intimacy. This is not meant as a criticism about you or anyone else, but anyone with a debit card, a phone, and/or a computer or smart phone can buy a ring or send flowers with a minimum of effort. The challenge lies in staying together emotionally through adversity, through the aging process that all couples experience, and through change generally.

You are allowed to be mad at your wife, but should have told her before you got there that you wanted a quiet night with just you two. It's likely she just misunderstood.

As far as drinking....your life is always going to have stress. It's your choice how you handle those stressors. Your first reaction cannot be to drink or you will never continue to achieve sobriety.

You are putting in some hard work. Life is not perfect, your wife is not perfect, nor are you. Give yourself a break, ask how this can be prevented in the future, climb back on the wagon, and move forward. Resentment is toxic to not only a relationship, but to YOU, so don't let that build up.

Good Luck to you!

Congratulations on 40 years.

I am just sad that you describe your 2.5 year old granddaughter as a "Holy Terror".