Opus2

It feels weird writing this .. just found this board and my parents weren't drinkers, but I have all the same symptoms as ACOA. Until a few years ago I thought I came from the perfect family (of course). Then I got engaged, and my fiancee was not welcomed at all. It was mostly passive-agressive remarks at first, then escalated to trying to assert their control around decisions we were making about our life. Fights started and I felt like I had to take a 'side', I agreed with my future wife but felt paralyzed that I had to basically tell my parents there was a boundary in my relationship with them. Not good way to start your marriage. Most of my extended family boycotted my wedding, because I had the nerve to think on my own. After several years I built back a relationship with my parents, who got divorced in the process. (I have no guilt over this, in fact it should have happened long ago.)

My marriage hasn't been so lucky. We recently separated after 6 years and I have a 5-yr-old daughter. The thought that has run thru my mind alot lately is maybe it was so hard to confront my parents because I had many doubts about my marriage as well. I cared for my wife alot but found myself thinking about other women even during our engagement. I know guys do this but it wasn't because of the other women .. looking back I wasn't sure if I wanted to marry this person but I kept those feelings to myself. How could I not listen to my gut on one of the most important decisions in life??

It's so hard to admit to yourself how screwed up you are. In general I'm a good person and people like me, but of course this is the problem. Fear of conflict, fear of relationships, having no idea what you want,never quite reaching your potential, people-pleasing until it hurts you personally and at work, plus throw in a fixation (addiction?) with sex fantasies in lieu of real sex .. from what Ive read this is classic Adult Child behavior. My question to myself is, So what are my parent's addictions? Something has to explain how I ended up as an ACOA. (Any thoughts would be appreciated)

At least it's out on the table now. I don't want my daughter to inherit this way of life, and I'm reading alot of books and I'm going to counseling. I want to find somebody to love in the future, who is truly my decision and my gut. I hope to get some answers and I know it starts with admitting everything. I'm a good liar so this is going to be very hard.

Thanks for listening .. O2

Tiro

Hi, Opus. Welcome to the forums.

My understanding is that sometimes, alcoholism can skip a generation, perhaps even more than one generation.

Although alcoholism may not be manifested in the family,dysfunctional behaviors can still be passed on through the line. Dysfunctional behaviors such as Control and Manipulation.

In other words my grandfather might have been a manipulating and controlling alcoholic. My father never touches a drink in his life. He has sworn never to drink after what he has seen alcohol do to his father, however without either of them even realizing it, the dysfunctional behavior has been passed from one to the other. My father has learned form my grandfather that the only way to survive in the world is to control and manipulate others....this as well as other dysfunction is then passed to the children......

I of course cannot say how you ended up the way you have but some of the symptoms you described have also manifested itself in my life; Fear of rejection leading to people pleasing, fear of confrontation because of an inability to cope with emotional pain, sexual addictions because of a need to escape the emptiness and boredom of life.....I too have mistrusted my feelings and ended up in unworkable relationships......

I am just now coming to the understanding of how dysfunctional things were in my family. Many memories although deeply embedded in my subconcious still affect the way I behave today.

I am glad to know you are working with a counsellor.

Counselling helped me to identify some crucial aspects of my life which needed work.

Knowledge is our greatest weapon against overcoming the harmful behaviours that affects us and towards arresting the cycle so we do not pass it to our own children...

DesertEyes

Hey there Opus, and welcome to SoberRecovery

The name is confusing. Adult Children of Alcoholics started in the early 80's as an offshoot of Al-Anon. None of us ever thought it would apply to anything else. Oh boy, were we wrong. Nowadays it's a program for anybody who's been raised in a "toxic" family, we just haven't changed the original name.

All of which means that you are quite welcome here

My guess is that it's the same addiction as most everybody else's. They're addicted to themselves. "Me, Myself and I". Children need a lot of attention, love and boundaries. People who are obsessed with themselves don't have that to give, and so the kids get their heads scrambled in the process.

An alcoholics spend every waking moment thinking about booze and neglecting their family. Substitute "booze" and replace "themselves" and see if that fits your parents.

My problem was that my father was _very_ messed up. My entire childhood I focused on being _different_ than him. I was not _ever_ going to be like him. So admiting that I had issues of my own was a violation of the very core that drove me to survive that family. If I was messed up then I must be just like my father, and I would rather die than ever become that kind of person.

When I realized that my father was not the evil person he was because of his issues, but because he chose to do _nothing_ about them, I was able to see that what makes me better than my father is my willingness to grow and improve myself as a man.

Excellent. I've done quite a bit of that myself. Did me worlds of good.

Well, then perhaps you should start with that. Get with your counselor and find out who you were protecting, as a child, by using lies. And who you were protecting _from_.

I was protecting myself and my younger brother from my parents. No surprise there.

Welcome again, I'm glad you decided to join us. Check out the books by Janet Woititz, she has a whole series just for us ACoA's. I'm reading her "Struggle for Intimacy" right now and it's awesome.

Mike

GingerM

Welcome Opus2,

In addition to what others have said, I just wanted to add that ACoAs can perpetuate the behavior without being alcoholics themselves. In fact, we often seek out the behaviors in others that we despised in our own parents because it's in our 'zone' - we know the rules of engagement in those relationships, so we continue with the same behaviors we grew up in. Replace "we" with "your parents" and it's quite possible that you may be a 2nd or 3rd "dry" generation ACoA.

I'm glad you're seeing a counselor. One of the best things this site offered me was the 13 common characteristics of ACoAs that's stickied at the top of this forum. I took it to my therapist (I'd been in therapy for years by then, but never had a cohesive understanding of how all these issues fit together). I read it to him and said "Pick one". That one list finally made everything fit into place in my head and I could see the big picture.

You have gotten past the hard part: realizing you have a problem and deciding to do something about it. It keeps getting easier and better from here on out.

Oodles of encouragement from me.

Opus2

to you 3 for your posts. DesertEyes, I think what you said is a huge insight that's going to take some time to sink in -- substitute "themselves." Of course that's it. Mom was full-on narcissist, Dad was busy with whatever it was he did by himself, when he wasn't yelling and arguing for no obvious reason. From time to time I remember my mom saying things like, "I'm glad we have such a close family, loving family, no problems, etc." when a friend got divorced, or something similar. But there was plenty of denial to go around. I kind of always realized it but I'm only now realizing its importance. Mostly, I think it was denial of feelings. Everything was "fine." Nobody had any emotional problems, they were just "sick," "old," "cranky," "tired" etc. Now that I'm typing this, and imagining my family growing up, while many of my relatives were quite smart I see them as emotionally about 16-17 in my mind's eye. So in a way I was raised by a bunch of high-school seniors. (No offense to anyone in high school

Had a pretty emotional therapy appt today -- I just sort of gave in to all of these emotions, the feelings of powerless to change anything, the acknowledgment that I'm "fine" except I've never had a healthy female relationship, that I've been floating thru life based on what everyone else thinks, my heart knows what I want but my head won't listen .. I used a lot of tissues lets put it that way. In a way it felt good to admit all this, acknowledge the lies I've told myself and see that I can't fix everything and make it all better myself, it's something I just cannot control. Its' a relief in a way, you know?

Glad to be here, again thanks -- somehow I want to believe we'll all figure this stuff out in time.

DesertEyes

Hey there Opus

I'm glad you've gotten a good start on getting rid of the "Baggage of your Parents". You're going in the right direction and moving fast

And yes, you _will_ figure out all this stuff. Take a little time to browse the posts here and you will see that all of us have figured out lots of stuff and our lives are much improved. You will too

Mike

Opus2

Something came up this morning, if anyone has any ideas I would appreciate any help understanding ..

I mentioned that I've been separated a few months, living in a furnished rental month-to-month and my wife let it be known that she wanted me to take furniture and all of my things out of the house by end of summer. I told her I wanted till end of year, but not very forcefully (people-pleasing, fear of confrontation, you know the drill). She pushed back, we never set an official date but I didn't offer an alternative, so end of summer was sort of the default. This morning I told her I needed some more time (therapist strongly suggested it), and that I would be out by end of November, I offered to make a plan of milestones (i.e. we split up checking account by 9/1, etc.) so she would know I am serious about getting a regular leased apartment and moving my things. She said "Ok ..." hesitantly at first, then told me that it would be too close to Thanksgiving, and I would forever put a negative mark on "the holiday season" for our daughter. She said she was not OK with it at all, and when I told her that our daughter would be effected regardless of the season, (we're splitting up "officially" and there will be pain).. she became very angry, we argued for a minute, and she told me I was the most selfish person she's ever met and slammed the door to go downstairs.

I don't know what I have the right to feel or ask for. If she is right, and moving my stuff on Nov. 29 is more traumatic than Oct. 29, I can accept that. But then there's Halloween. So is it really about that? My gut tells me all of her anger about what she feels are my misgivings throughout relationship is coming out .. we could have compromised on this pretty sensibly, I feel, but ...

Am I selfish here? Is she?

Peter

I would try and get my things out as soon as possible. Separating is always going to cause pain for everybody involved.

It took me months to eventually get all my stuff out of my ex's house and everytime I went there or spoke on the phone it was more pain.

The most you can do is try to minimize as much pain to the children as you possibly can. They should not have to suffer any more than they have to because of our actions.

GingerM

It sounds like you have two concepts mixed together:

Concept 1: You have difficulty setting and maintaining your boundaries (you tell her you won't be able to move until November, she pushes, you give in)

Concept 2: You want to have more time to emotionally process.

As for #1, setting and maintaining boundaries is a problem nearly all ACoAs have. It is something I suggest you bring up with your counselor/therapist for help with. It is terribly difficult to learn to do if you've never been allowed to have boundaries.

As for #2, I would write out a list of pros and cons to waiting that long. If you know there is no hope for repairing your relationship, and you have the financial means of living on your own, then what purpose does waiting serve? Why do you *want* to wait - is it because by moving your things out you will be forced to admit "failure"? If so, then I suggest taking a look at what "failure" is. If "failure" to you means "not being perfect", then you are a classic ACoA. If you can allow yourself to be human, in that all humans are fallible and are not perfect, then you can allow yourself to make mistakes and can allow your wife to make mistakes, and thus there is no blame and no failure - all there is are two people who are human, who are behaving like humans, and who can *choose* to point fingers or *choose* to simply accept that people aren't perfect (others or themselves), and these things happen.

As for what you have the "right" to ask for, you have the right to ask for anything you want to ask for. You could ask for the moon. Bear in mind that "asking for" and "getting" are not the same thing though. As with all rights, there are also responsibilities which come with that right, such as the responsibility to yourself to not negate or diminish yourself, the responsibility to do as little harm to your daughter in this traumatic event as possible, and the responsibility to take ownership of your own actions.

Unfortunately, only you can determine which way the land lies in this situation. It's a tricky spot to be in. Remember that you can not take care of others until you can take care of yourself and it is not a bad thing to take care of yourself.

Opus2

Ginger and Peter thank you -- I feel like I keep saying thank you here on this forum, but I do mean it. What you said and how you put it, and what the other people said on this thread, it almost feels like you are the first 'normal' people who've spoken to me in my life. (lol) I got very little reality from my family growing up, I'm realizing. My adult girlfriends were either non-entities or extremely harsh and nearly impossible for me to set boundaries with. And my wife is closer to the latter, but it's as much my doing as hers. I realize this too. The positive event was she called later today when I was at work, apologized for flying off the handle, and told me her feelings, and I did the same. We are both humans .. but as I think about everything I can't believe the pressure I've put on myself during my life to be something greater than human. When I have an opportunity to possibly not be perfect in the real world .. take a risk, try something new, go out on a limb and do something I'm not sure about .. I bail out, give up, shrink away, convince myself I didn't want it, grin and bear it. Of course in my fantasy world in my head, I'm still perfect -- it's everyone else who is the problem. I guess that's ACOA?

Well thanks again, really, I'm so glad I found this board. I hope in time I'll be able to give something back to everyone.

GingerM

I've given up on figuring out what "reality" or "normal" is. There is no subjective "reality". Each of us views our "realities" through our own set of filters. "Normal" can be described as a statistical grouping where the majority of people fall in a bell curve - which means most "normal" people are emotionally unhealthy.

Don't worry about 'reality'. Don't worry about 'normal'. Worry about 'healthy'. Healthy is when YOU decide what you're going to do. YOU - not the old tapes playing in your head, not other people pushing or bullying, not what other people (including me) think is right. YOU decide. That is healthy.

ACoAs have a very difficult time making decisions without someone else pushing them this way or that way.

As for speaking to 'normal' people...hah! We wouldn't all be here if we were 'normal' Instead, you're speaking to people who have been there, done that, got the tee shirt, and are trying to get rid of it. We help others to remind ourselves to help ourselves too. Some day, if you continue on the path you're currently on, you will be able to help others as well.

123onelove456

((((((((opus2)))))))))))) Glad you are here keep coming back!!!

Love you ((((((((opus))))))) Your doing good just keep moving forward!!!!

123onelove456

Opus2

Thanks onelove -- hugs back to you. Moving forward is all I can do now, I'm tired of being stuck here!

newblue82

Welcome, Opus2! "I'm tired of being stuck here". . .we all feel like that hence why we're here I had to see what ACOA was; I'd never heard it before. I do understand to an extent what you're going through though. For me in particular, I was raised with a bunch of alcoholics and alcoholism runs in my family. It's actually caused a few deaths in my family. My dad has a drinking problem as do I and my dad is like my best friend. Funny the relationship a daughter has with her father.

For me, pleasing my family and my parents in particular has always been a high priority on my list even if it meant sacrificing my own happiness. I was in a relationship with this guy off and on for 5 years in all honesty because I knew it pleased my parents (all the while knowing in the back of my mind that I was "different"). I had almost successfully brain-washed myself into believing I loved him because every one else had convinced me I'd be a fool not to. The day I took charge of my life (and my sexuality) was the day I almost had a nervous breakdown!!

It's a difficult process as was mentioned above to set boundaries and ENFORCE them but necessary if you don't want to lose your mind! As for your wife; I'd like to think that she really has your daughter's best interest at heart but often times when it comes to issues like separation and divorce one's motives may not be as pure as they should be. Don't worry so much on who is or isn't the selfish one here. You're on the right path toward recovery and making your OWN life. Focus on that. No one can change your wife not even you. The most important thing you can do is do what's best for YOU and that's not selfish at all!

With time you will develop a relationship of your own with your daughter that your wife cannot touch or corrupt but first things first Good luck! And keep us posted.

duet_4-8

Hi and welcome,
May I suggest a couple of books to you? Both have helped me tremendously. I do not come from an alcoholic family either, but boy do I have baggage!! LOL!!

'Bradshaw on the Family' by John Bradshaw

'Toxic Parents' by Susan Forward.

Both can be found on Amazon. Keep coming here; wonderful folks and a wealth of knowledge and understanding!!!

((hugs))