mle-sober

Hi. I'm a recovering alcoholic with 109 days of sobriety. I'm attending AA 2 times a week, at least. I log in here and read and contribute in the Early Recovery Forum regularly. I went through 12 weeks of outpatient treatment and I now go to 1 evening a week of a alumni group for that program. I am reading and absorbing information about alcoholism and recovery all the time. Oh, also, I see a therapist once a week.

My husband has attended Al-Anon 5-6 times and didn't really feel a connection. Plus he's very busy running his own company and I think that's always been a factor.

My husband and I really struggled for the first 3 months of my recovery - I'd been lying to him while I was drinking about all my drinking (not about anything else, if that matters). And I know I really hurt and betrayed him by lying about my drinking. I've been working hard to regain his trust. And we are now doing muhc, much better. We are in the same bedroom again and are having fun together and are working through things all the time. In general, I would say our relationship is better than it's ever been.

The other afternoon, for some reason, he thought I was acting as if I'd had a few glasses of wine. (I hadn't been drinking.) He said, "Have you been drinking? And I said, "NO!" He was silent and then said it seemed like I had. I said, again, that I hadn't and asked if he believed me. He said, "No, not completely."

I didn't know what to do and I felt like there was nothing I could do. I felt sad and accused and stuck in a corner for misbehaving when I hadn't done anything bad. But then I remembered how much I had hurt him and how much I want to regain his trust completely. So I offered to do a breath test (we have one in our home.) He said fine but he wasn't asking me to do it. Which was good. I did it any way and it registered .00. It seemed to have no affect on him one way or the other.

Here's my question that I'm wondering if those of you who have had to be in his shoes might be able to give me some insight to: What is the best way for us both to interact with each other in a situation where he thinks I might have been drinking but I haven't? It seems reasonable that he should be allowed to ask the question. Is that right? And I want to react in a way that builds trust. But then I want him to believe me. There are so many parts of my life right now that are indications that I'm seriously working my program.

I don't really know. Maybe I'm just overreacting and I need to just do exactly what I did and try to find comfort in the fact that I know I didn't drink even if he doesn't believe me.

Any ideas? Sorry this is so long.

Kindeyes

Time. It's just going to take some time. Trust is such an important part of a relationship. I think that offering to do the breath test was good....even if he didn't react in the manner that you expected him to. It showed that you were willing to do it.

Staying calm is important.

If your husband is not in recovery (and believe me those of us who have been dealing with a person in active addiction need to recover too!), you may find that he continues to do the same things he did while you were drinking and that may be hard for you to deal with. Recovery is a very selfish process as you know. In recovery, you have to be most concerned about yourself and your actions.......hopefully, the changes you make will allow him to trust you again......give it time.

gentle hugs

geees poncho

Welcome MLE.
Just like you,when you think about a drink.
he has a thought about you drunk.
Please be patient with yourself and him.
guilt has a way of creeping in at the worst times
What helped me most was to forgive myself
I hurt a lot of people, and getting over that was tough.
hang in there, the rewards are worth all the work.
congrats on all the good work.

Good Luck and God bless

Gman813

Your story is very close to ours, my AW has been sober about 5 months now and doing great. She too lied to me about the volume and frequency of her drinking, but those aren't the lies that bothered me. It was the years of, "I'll slow down; I'll get it under controll; I won't drink around the kids" that caused the most damage.

Trust is a funny thing, we give it to someone very quickly but, once it has been violated it is very hard to get back. I've struggled often with this as we've been recovering. There is nothing you can do to regain it quickly, time and total honesty are the only things that work.

I started Al-Anon myself with a very indignant attitude "Dammit it's not going to be because of anything I didn't do when she fails this time" I think were my thoughts as walked into my first meeting. It's stil hard for me to motivate myself to get to a meeting, but I do know they are helping, I get very cranky if I miss a week or 2. I've also suggested to my wife she attend some herself. My opinion, AA & Al-Anon, while related have very differnt focuses. AA has a difinitive goal, not to drink, Al-Anon tells us we need to change our though process to accept things better.

Be patient with him, as you know....You didn't get here in a day and you won't get back in a day.....Progress not prefection.


____________________

May your strength give us strength
May your faith give us faith
May your hope give us hope
May your love give us love

Into The Fire
By Bruce Springsteen

MsPINKAcres

This is a good statement - taking comforting know that you are doing the right thing. I believe it has and will still take a long time for me to completely trust the A's in my life.

As I have to work on not allowing their actions to affect my recovery, I would guess you will probably need to do the same.

More than anything in regaining the trust of my A's, it is their behaviors and actions not their words that I base my opinions and decisions on - that is what helps regain that trust - when I see healthy recovery behaviors in action.

I believe as your husband sees the healthy behaviors and recovery show in your life - slowly but surely the trust can start to develop again.

Wishing you continued recovery, serenity & joy,
Rita

sunshine321

I think you did the right thing by offering to take the test and it proved you weren't lying when it came back negative. Nevermind his reaction to the results. We are taught in Al-Anon not to have much of a reaction to anything because it's not our business. We need to keep our side of the street clean and the A's need to do the same. I'm sure even though he didn't acknowledge that he was wrong, he was happy he was. You are slowly building the bridge of trust once again and that's great. Like the others said, it takes a long time. Be patient.

Also congratulations on your recovery! You have made great progress and should be proud of yourself. I'm sure your spouse is proud of you too. Most important is that you know the truth that you aren't active today. He will eventually figure it out by your actions. Words mean nothing. Actions mean everything.

Jenny

mle-sober

Thank you so much. Each of your replies helped me. Are still helping me. I want so much to be someone he can love full-heartedly and without reservation. And I know I've seriously damaged how he sees me and experiences me. But I'm absolutely committed to recovery. And like you said, time is essential. So, thank you.