Reddmax

Guys... roller coaster just started. Want to call, want to see if everything is all right. Any suggestions to calm the anxiety?

Red

Barbara52

Number one, remember you control your thoughts and actions.

Number 2 try any one of the many suggestions you've been given to stop the thoughts you don't want to have.

Bernadette

Reddmaxx-
Don't do it!!
It's just like a drug.
Nothing has actually changed.
Nothing will change if you keep doing the same things over and over.
Remember YOU are TRYING to change, and here's an opportunity!!

Courage!!
B.

LaTeeDa

This is a good time for the phrase "play the tape all the way through." You've called before, so how did it make you feel? What was the outcome? Did it make things better or worse?

L

Reddmax

Thanks for the help guys... you're right... its not going to help anything. She's gonna do what she's gonna do, and me being self pitying isn't changing anything.

Red

prodigal

It sounds as if you are in the throes of a panic attack. My codependency frequently brought one on when I started thinking to myself, "I wonder if he's out driving drunk" or "I wonder if he's smoking in bed and going to burn down our house."

This may sound like lame advice, but I'd leave my office and take a walk. I'd walk fast, and I'd think about why I was thinking about this stuff. The physical exertion alleviated some of the anxiety. Thinking it through helped me get off the ride.

As LTD said, recall the previous outcomes of your calling. What do you feel is triggering your need to call at this moment?

ToughChoices

Call someone else.
A good friend, some family, a sponsor.

When I have an overwhelming urge to call and check, it's not really that I want to make sure that my A is OK. It's that I want to make myself feel better.

I want reassurance. I am afraid. I am afraid that he is drinking. I am afraid that he is angry.

I want him to say, "I'm great. We're great. No problems. I love you. I don't want a drink. Can't wait to see you."

Rarely does he say these things. Even when he does it doesn't really quiet my fear. Only I am capable of that.

Calling the A doesn't help. Checking doesn't help - it just irritates my A and keeps me from focusing on why I need/want SO much attention and reassurance.

Talking to friends and family when I feel like this is helpful for me. I don't talk about my desperate need to check on him or my quest for constant reassurance, I just talk about the quiet, pleasant details of life with people that I love.

And in the process I am reminded that I am loved. By many. So are you.

Our A's cannot give us everything that we need. We must stop expecting them to.

Take care.
-TC

Reddmax

The why behind the call is a sort of "testing the temperature". If I call, and she's in a good mood, it might be a sort of tolerable night. If I call and she's snappish, irritable, and doesn't give a rat's behind, or is disrespectful, then I'm prepared mentally.

The weird thing about all of this is that normally, when I'm not wrapped up in this madness, I'm usually in a pretty good mood. In general, I'm attentive, humorous, and easy going. This dealing with crazy moodiness, uncommunicative behavior, and inconsideration drives me nuts.

She's sober now, as she's at work. But, she puts work ahead of the relationship now. Her new promotion has her feeling special. It gives her a feeling of high status and achievement.

I have problems with it though and she thinks I'm crazy for having those problems. My first problem with it, is its a demanding job, and she hasn't been doing to great in the relationship with her older less demanding job.

The second issue is, that when we first got together, I had a choice of jobs. One had a lot of travel, and she said, and I remember this distinctly "I'm selfish, I know if you were away a lot, it wouldn't work for me, so your jobs need to have as little travel as possible." Now she denies she ever said that, and I'm just a jerk that's jealous because of her new found success.

What I am, though, is mad because, when she's gone, she's gone, and when she's home, she's gone because she's drunk, mean and nasty. Also, when she travels, she works all day and parties until 10,11,12, or 1 in the morning. She won't make time to call when I'm available or she'll call at 12:30 or 1 AM drunk and get mad when I don't answer.

I gotta stop that line of thought, I'm ranting. Oh well, it feels good to get it off my chest.

LaTeeDa

So, in a nutshell, you want to call to find out what kind of mood she is in so you can plan your evening based on her mood?

Why not plan your evening based on your mood? Why not do what you want and let her have her mood? That last post is all about her. Her moods, her drinking, her job, her traveling, her, her, her. What about you?

What would you like to do this evening? Go see a movie? Maybe take a hobby out of the closet you've been neglecting for a while? Call an old friend you haven't talked to in months? How about a walk in the park? Can you do something just for you without regard to what she does? Just this once?

Try taking the focus off of her and put it on you. Just for a short time, like a baby step. I think you will be amazed at how good it feels. And it may even help you sleep.

L

Mair

Be strong don't call I know this is hard, I agree with LTD play the whole scenario through.

Someone here advised me to write a journal about my xab, I must have written 30 pages or more of the cons and two pages of the pros. When i got this urge to phone and check up on him, i would read all 30 pages of the cons, and my urges to contact him would weaken.

I would always remind myself that i am enabling him and by caretaking the way i was, i was making things worse and delaying his recovery.

Take good care of yourself, and try to relax. And remember she will do what she wants to do it's her life. You must try and do things for you and start living your life.

Mair xx

Pick-a-name

I think you did a great thing by coming here instead of calling. I've done it many times and ususally it takes the "edge" off.

Habits ARE hard to break;;especially when emotions are emeshed!

I bought a digital camera for myself (after wanting one for many years) and if I am home alone and those thoughts hit,I often get the camera and go outside and look for some picture to take. There are beautiful things I notice when I take the time to look! Takes my mind completely out of the panic,thinking about something else.

Glad you are here. Hope you are feeling better;I do hate that feeling,esopecially when I turn it around and shame myself for feeling that way on top of it all. That is a bad habit I have come to see,now that I stop and think about things instead of react.

isitme

Redd, Does she call you during the day? I only ask because I've learned to loath the calling cycle. I absolutely can't stand it!! A lot of times I just don't feel like talking to him. He's not around at night.. doesn't answer the phone past 5. And comes home when he feels like it. So why on earth should I be calling him all day to see how his day is?? But, if I don't call it's an excuse for him to be mad at me later in the day. But if I do call then I feel all stupid for calling for no reason. It's like, if my call did any good besides prolonging some misconstrude reason for him to be mad at me for Not Calling, I would probably want to do it. But now.. I just do it because I feel like I have to.

So that's why I ask. Do you feel like you have to call her to change the outcome of what happens later? or are you just trying to test the waters? What is her side to the calls? Does she feel good about your calls or does she feel like your checking up?

Either way I feel like you should stick to your gut feeling. Get up and move around. Sometimes I do things out of "environmental habit". If I always eat in the car, then I'm going to be hungry when I get in the car. If I always call at a certain time of day from my desk.. then I should not be at my desk at that time.
Good Luck, Stay Strong

prodigal

Redd, I think venting is a good thing. I also am in total agreement with LTD on this one. You have given away your own power and your own peace of mind. Your AW knows this and she is using it to beat you over the head with the "guilt stick." A's are master manipulators.

She is just outright disrespectful and abusive to you. Perhaps you should consider taking yourself out to dinner and a movie. I used to spend hours in a bookstore. I also took myself out to dinner and a movie when I could afford it. Most of the time when I got home, AH was passed out cold. I got on with my life and left him to wallow in his own addiction.

It's been four months since he has so much as made a sarcastic comment. It took about two years of my detaching and going about my business and IGNORING HIS. But it worked. I got a job. Not much of a job, but it earns me a few bucks to pay my bills. I also work a lot of evenings and weekends.

For all his blackouts, on some level he knows that I am not going to get on his side of the street. No matter what he does or does not do.

Keep venting if it helps you alleviate your stress. Hope we can continue to help you through this rough spot. By the way, has anybody suggested you pick up a copy of Melodie Beattie's Codepdent No More? It's a good place to start down the path to recovery.

Reddmax

Excellent posts on how to handle this. Its been hard to figure things out. What really bothers me is the flip flops in emotions that I go through, as well as the flip flops of emotions she presents to me. Like for example, last night, she was relatively nice and loving, until she got totally drunk. Then she was verbally abusive and then poof, nice again. That's what gets me. For a while, she actually seemed to listen to me, but nothing ever changes.

theotherone

Never does...you have to change and what stinks about that is how we are responsible in the end for any change...not the one doing all the damage. Hang in there...detachment can be accomplished, but sometimes it takes a mack truck.

Quote from a friend..."Just remember ....sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is a train."

Good luck!

Reddmax

Yeah... I listen to the things that made our marriage special become sayings out of the mouth of a drunk. She says things like "You're my rock, my soft place to fall". No, I'm her patsy, the one she can abuse and get away with it.

respektingme

Reddmax,

With as much insanity that is twirling through her mind (and glass) all the time, no doubt your stability is part of what keeps her going.

Reddmax

You mind can play tricks on you, you know.

Today, my AW is on a day trip to the other side of the state. My mind thinks or is she? Then I spin of tale of deceit and treachery. Gotta love the powers of imagination. The tale I'm spinning out in my mind goes like this:

She's going to call late in the day and say she's getting a hotel for the night because it lasted longer than she expected. Then she's going to go and fool around with her ex.

That brings up some rather interesting feelings, which builds resentment and anger, and I don't know if she's actually doing that or planning on doing that.

If it happens, it happens, and there is nothing I can do to control it. She makes decisons, and I must react to the decisons she makes in a way that is good for me.

I've got to keep my crap together.

Red

Barbara52

You got that right to a point. There is nothing you can do to control her behvaior or choices. But, you can move beyond reacting to her actions to acting for yourself regardless of her actions.

Reacting is part of the madness of living with an alcoholic. Acting is a healthier way of looking at your needs and wants and making sure they are met.

CatsPajamas

In the past I have found it really helpful to line up 2 or 3 recovery friends whom I could call when I was thinking about calling HIM. They could usually help me figure out what I was feeling and why... and then I didn't want to call him anymore.

Just for today you don't need to call.