Mambo Queen

Hey folks--I'm separated from AH and am planning on filing for divorce within the next few weeks. He's been given chance after chance with me and screwed up each one. Of course, now he blames that on his "mental illnesses" and not his chronic drunkenness, or maybe I should say that he blames the chronic drunkenness on his mental problems. I put that in quotes because while I do believe he has high anxiety and gets panic attacks, I don't believe that his "mental problems" are the only cause of the problem, and in fact I think they have developed BECAUSE of the drinking. Anyway, he's been a nightmare because he knows the end is soon coming--harrassing me, threatening me, threatening himself, etc. I don't really worry about him actually harming me because at this point he can't even get up the motivation to get off the couch, let alone carry out a threat. He's been talking some about wanting help, but of course any plans I come up with have something wrong with them (I don't want to go back to that hospital, there' no good there. Find me a better place, etc. etc.). So what I think I want to do at this point, to at least get him functioning to the extent that he can walk under his own volition off my couch and out of MY HOME (which he's in while me and the dd are at my parents) is have him involuntarily committed. In my state, they will hold him for 96 hours, and then after a court hearing may decide to commit him for longer than that. In my state, extreme alcohol abuse combined with the threat to hurt himself or others (both of which he's threatened) is enough. I don't even think he'll be that upset about it--I think a large part of him wants this to happen. My ONLY fear is that I don't want him to think that if he gets detoxed and gets on some meds that everything is just hunky dory between us again, because I don't want to be married now to him regardless. The best I could promise him is to be divorced from me for at least a year, and if he's remained sober and functioning and in a program for that amount of time, I'd be willing to talk reconciliation. but I HAVE TO go through with the divorce this time, because otherwise all my talk about boundaries that he can not cross will have been in vain, and I'll be right back where I started.

Any thoughts about the above, particularly the involuntary commitment idea?

Barbara52

From what I know, its not easy to do an involuntary committment but if you want to try go for it. You are going to have to show he is an immediate danger to himself or others. Long term mental illness and alcoholism doesn't count from my understanding.

hadenoughnow

MY ex told his SA counselor that he was considering suicide and that was not even enough to have him committed. It would pretty much take him actually harming himself or someone else to make it happen from what I understand. The only thing I can suggest is that if he makes actual threats to harm himself (not just the "you are never going to see me again, I won't be around tomorrow" crap) is to call the police. If he is acting crazy enough they might lock him up for 24 hrs.