venusinlibra

I'm at a crossroads right now with my ABF. He has been sober for 8 months and we both go to meetings once a week. I go to Alanon and he is AA meetings.

I see some changes but old habits die hard. It seems when ever I feel down, or speak my truth, he gets so angry with me. I'm self supporting, successful in my career, and I'm still stuck financially helping him. He is not self supporting and I don't see that changing anytime soon. If I ask him to help around the house, he goes off on me that I should quit complaining. I use to think it was the alcohol his verbal nonsense but now I realize that is just his personality.

My head tells me to let go of the relationship and my heart does not know how. Sometimes I feel very alone, all the responsibilities are on my shoulder, and I allow him to treat me like a doormat. I'm ashamed of myself. I have my **** together in every other aspect of my life but this.

Any advice or sharing of stories. How to break the codie cylce.

Spiritual Seeker

if you want a healthy relationship and this isn't it maybe it is time for a change.
You are a strong woman who can do fine w/o him if he is not nourishing to your sole.

venusinlibra

I don't know why I feel so responsible for this person. I hate feeling this way. I want to get away from him but at the same time I don't want to abandon him. This co-dependent stuff runs so deep. I am trying to undo years of growing up in an alcoholic family and its just strange that I can't let go. I guess i need more meetings.

denny57

Therapy helped me understand why the only relationship I was like this in was my marriage. It's very difficult work, but so worth it. Every day I come to further understand what needs were being met.

I also believe if AH were to ever get sober, the personality would remain. It isn't always the alcohol.

kelsh

Hi Denny57,

I agree that the alcohol can be removed from the alcoholic and often the personality is the much the same. I had a friend that was sober 10 years and he had the most angry, into rage personality I ever saw. He would cuss at the football players on TV. I told him one day that if the game upset him so much, why didn't he turn it off.

There is an old saying you can take the alcohol out of the alcoholic but you can't take the alcoholic out of the man.

I don't think that is always true. I believe my personality is much the same as when I was drinking but I would get to a certain point when drinking that I would become angry.

I am pretty easy going unless someone does me or mine wrong. I had to learn to be more assertive and to stand up for my beliefs. I also had to learn to like myself, then love myself, then respect myself and then be proud of what I had accomplished.

kelsh

SaTiT

Oh man i hate cross roads. The same old cross roads for me.

I don't know, my gf laid in bed for over a year after she got sober
and she's still not well. Better in some way and worst in others.
yes, I felt along in the relationship, in her using and when she
got sober, and now.
Yeap felt like i've been stomp on a few times..

It got pretty bad for me. I was finacially secure and functional,
until king alcohol came into my life again and made it a living hell.
I could barely keep my eyes open at work from lack of sleep.
Everytime my gf and i seperate
My boss always say ...You look good..what happen, what's the change in you ?
I should had pay closer attention to those little signs.

Through the year of all the chaos...i eneded up sleeping in my car.
I quit my management job of 14 years. I thought i was going to have a heart attack.
Plus I just wanted sleep ...
Imaine that...i wasn't the one drinking..I suffered the consiquence more
than her. All she dose is move back in with her mom every time somethings
gose wrong or when we seperate. Then troubles starts there
and back to trouble in paradize with me.lol

I'm working through a lot of issues.
The only way I've ever broken the cycle was through seperations.

The problem i have is..i keep getting back with her over and over again.
and it get worst and worst each time.
I break the cycle but fail to do the accountability part.

I'm also ACOA..all of this madness i find painful and crazy..
strange as it may be, it's familar to me... i know how to function in it.
Self sabatage, guilt, shame..not sure what it is.

it's kind of screwies...being guilty of love.
I'm sorry that it hurts for you.
My thoughts and prayer are with you.

Whatever decioions you make will the right one.
i guess the trick is to make that decision for you.
mmm..i had never thought of it like that before....see, I'm writing to myself again.

Thanks for letting me share.

miss communicat

where do i turn when I'm at a crossroads?

I turn to my higher power. the perfect answer will reveal itself to me in perect timing.

wishing the same for you too, VIL

Barbara52

That is my AH. He was unemployed the 2 of the 4 yrs we have been married. I finally decided I had enough of supporting the man while he sat on his fat butt doing basically nothing all day every day. That on top of his drinking was intolerable for me. So I left.

My AH had no motivation to change since I paid all the bills, did all the housework, etc. Since I left he stopped drinking but remains in denial about his alcoholism. He tells me he has a job as a substitute teacher as of last week but I haven't seen him get paid yet. He remains in our house, still not paying the mortgage. He's agreed to pout the house up for sale but refuses to move out. He's comfortable. He's not going to change until he's uncomfortable.

Only you can decide if you want to continue to making his life comfortable so that he doesn't have the motivation to change.

GiveLove

Venus,

As a fellow adult child of alcoholics, I understand too well how you feel. I too had it all together in all areas except how I interacted with my significant other....and those relationships were really unhealthy and stressful for a long time.

Al-Anon is not designed to help ACoAs work through their past, identify triggers, and plan a step-by-step course of action to grow as a person. They CAN do that, but it's not what they are for.

I didn't start getting better until several things happened:
--I scheduled several visits with a therapist who specialized in Adult Children like me. It was amazing how many traits we all have in common. It turned my life around completely.
--I had to learn to set boundaries. One of them was, "you have until XX date to contribute your 50% of this household." It's hard. But everything worthwhile in life is hard work, at least for a while. No matter whether that date is tomorrow or next year, whatever is acceptable to you, but make it clear that he is a grown man who is in charge of himself. You HAVE to do this. And there's not a darned thing in the world wrong with it. You need to find a way.

It sounds as though this is entirely the wrong relationship for you....as were many of mine (dependent, controlling, abusive, hairtrigger-temper men) A therapist or coach will help you work through whether there is anything there for you to save and, if there isn't, how to take small steps toward detaching yourself from it while still retaining your sanity.

When I think back to myself when I was in your situation, I just want to cry for all the wasted time. I hope you can find your way to happiness without the years and years of sickness I had to go through first.

Know that you are operating now out of habit and fear and obligation, not love. You are NOT responsible for another human being unless he/she is your minor child. Repeat that a hundred times a day if it helps.

I hope you find the support and help you need to make your life better.
You deserve it.

venusinlibra

Thanks guys, this helped alot.

Lilyflower

Hey Venus, sounds like it's time for some solid boundaries. He is getting through sobriety, now comes along life with its responsibilities! He can't keep acting like a kid!

CBrown

Venus, I agree with you. I believe my XABF's sober personality wouldn't be any better than his drunken one. My guess is that he would be even more of a sarcastic, manipulative SOB than he is now. Maybe he's better drunk, because in the evening after a day of 25 or so, was the only time a softer, more loving side came out. Maybe sometimes they use the booze to cope with the miserable human beings they really are. I don't know. I don't care either.

Bottom line was that I couldn't live with him as he was, and he had no intention of giving up alcohol. I wasn't going to be verbally abused or watch him kill himself.

So I stood at a crossroads like you. I could shut up, travel with him, put up with his flirting (or worse) on the side, put up with the chaos, take the verbal abuse, and know that every word coming out of his mouth was a lie and in exchange he'd give me some really nice stuff, take me on expensive vacations, and maybe (if I was "well behaved") he'd put me in the will.

Now, it seems like a pretty easy decision, but it WASN'T! It took me weeks to know that I made the right decision - to tell him no, I wouldn't go for that kind of life. I hope you find peace with whatever decision you make.

mushroom

The abandoning thing is so familiar! I went through all the same BS until I realized that I was trying to save people from what I'd been put through as a child. Until I truly understood that there was nothing I could do that would change my past, and nothing I can do that will save others from themselves, I was stuck in dysfunctional relationships too.

I think ACOA may be for you too. I know for me, because my parents were totally dysfunctional and all but abandoned us our entire childhoods, I was stuck trying to 'fix' others and NOT abandon them, not do to them what had been done to me. And looking for gratitude from them for doing so! But ya know what? You Can't Fix It. The past is past. Nothing you do now will change your painful childhood. And you canNOT fix anyone else.

You are not doing him any favors by propping him up. He is an adult and you have to treat him like one. Doing for him what he should be able to do for himself is not love, it's bribery.

8 months into sobriety is still very very early for him. Being dry is not the same as being recovered. And, you may best be able to help him recover by giving him lots of space. Sometimes staying in the same old relationship is like a boat anchor, holding them back from the hard work required in recovery. His recovery may require big changes in his relationships. Yours might too. Sometimes people find it best to separate for a while til they're farther along or more secure in their recovery, so they don't keep triggering each other. You can separate now without committing to a complete breakup of the relationship. When I separated from AH, it was only for a few months to get myself out of the situation and see what I wanted once I'd had some space, and give him some space to get his act together. Best decision I'd made in AGES. We ended up divorcing, but I didn't make that decision right away, not until I'd seen that he was not going to get better so long as I remained in his life.

FWIW he'd been dry for 13 years, but not in recovery. Then he fell off the wagon, hard, and couldn't pick himself up again. And the harder I tried to pick him up the farther downhill he went.

Whatever decision you make right now, at this particular crossroad, does not have to be permanent.