CodeJob

Hello Try,

I hope things work out for you two. I've been watching your thread as it is rare for a recovering A to even acknowledge relationship issues.

LemonGirl

Firebolt, I'm with you on that one! I'm the "codie" in the relationship, and I left before we destroyed each other with the blame game. I think the longer people choose to stay in these relationships, the harder it is. I DO have some experiences with my xabf that weren't great and have been upsetting, but I am FULLY aware that my responsibility is not to sit and play the blame game and ask for an apology. MY job is to let go of resentment and understand my part... which was, I chose to stay with someone who was sick. That was (is) my sickness. It is really, really hard for most of us to admit our own part in a tumultuous relationship, but there really is no other way to reach that "we made it" state. Fingers crossed my xabf really does go through with getting sober. Whether he and I end up just friends or married, the only way there is to work our own programs, and then do some counseling together.

Dee74

Let's keep comments constructive please.

Dee
Moderator
SR

Dee74

I found it took me a while to work out who I was after I got sober.

I'm an old fashioned guy.

I hope you find that you still love your wife and that your marriage is worth saving.

It takes two partners to work on that tho.

Nothing was ever exclusively my ex-wives' fault, y'know?

chickippo

yeah, my husband was sleeping with someone else by the time i had a month sober. it took 2 months after that for me to find a place to live, and it was a very, very difficult time.

my husband thought he wanted me to quit. but, when i finally got into recovery, he didn't like it one bit that the party was over for me permanently. his drinking buddy on all-day sessions - gone. few glasses of wine after a stressful day - sorry, no booze in the house please. he reacted by going out drinking til the early hours which he had never even done when i was still drinking! of course, i discovered later that he was with his new squeeze.

we're happily divorced now. funnily enough, whenever i talk to him he's keen to tell me about how he drinks at home alone now; he even said to me that our drinking had been heavy but 'fun'. ugh.

i am way, way happier now and i hope he is. i was awful to live with for our last 2 years together. he watched me drink away my job, then my daughter. he never knew what he was coming home to. i would disappear for days on end, holed up in a cheap hotel, drinking.

so yeah. it was tough times and we didn't make it. i couldn't have got sober in our house, with him. i've done it living alone in the end, for almost a year now. i don't think it sits very well with him but what the hey.

wow. that probably didn't help you much. i hope things are going ok.

TryTryAgain

Actually, this helped a LOT. Your early recovery and my early recovery are strikingly similar with regards to what our partners were doing.

What I most liked about your share is that regardless of how the marriage wound up, YOU ended up in tact.

I think I am starting to understand the roller coaster ride that this is, and whether we stay together or not (still hope we can), I want to have my head on straight just like you.

Thanks.

NYCDoglvr

It's certainly not uncommon. When one person becomes sober the relationship dynamics suddenly alter. Will your husband consider Alanon?

IndigoBreeze

I appreciate this thread. As a codie, I find helping others is my drug. When I am no longer needed, I have to face my own emptiness and pain. It's like going through withdrawal. I may not consciously want you to drink, but I don't know what do do with this emptiness if I am not needed.

NYCDoglvr

Good for you knowing your own dynamics!

zvang

you know what i learned in my drinking . im always under control of booze , people and specially my partner.

my partner never asked me to quit she was happy with the controllable me .

i always knew that i deserve better than her . but my drinking made me dependent on her like theres no body else . shes my ex now . and i knew that i have to sober up to find whats good for me . who i am .

utopia

read "the family afterwards" in the big book. helping me with new sobriety and the effects on my home with my partner.

Che

Interesting posts in this thread.

I hope first and foremost you'll have respect for yourself and set your standards. It's definitely not okay for him to act like that. I hope too that you can have that talk without it turning into an argument, because I think "you have to treat me with respect if you want me to live with you" is a pretty straightforward premise, and doesn't have anything to do with your drinking history.

It's easy to predict that an argument will involve guilting you with what you did in the past, but you just have to clear that there's a difference between atoning for your past by living better today and being nicer today, and just taking abuse.