blessed4x

Sure, you all are a great group of people, but really I'd rather spend my Friday night on a Chocolate Lovers forum, or how about a Backyard Water Garden forum. I take responsibility for the choices I've made that got me in this situation, and even the choices that have kept me here, but I'm getting very tired.

A couple weeks ago AH confronted me for being cold. He decided he would abstain from alcohol Monday through Thursday and only drink on weekends. As far as I know he has done that. He's been helpful, engaging in conversation, great with the kids. Then comes Friday. He is a barbaric caveman slurring his speech, passing gas on purpose, and in bed snoring by 8pm. Weekends are supposed to be a time of recharging, enjoying your family.

He can talk to me for 30 seconds and have me believing I'm the crazy one. He went for months and drank 18-30 cans of beer a day, 7 days a week. Then I stopped counting. He got better at sneaking, and added vodka to the mix. He can convince me in an instant that this is normal alcohol intake and that I'm a prude. It's fear that keeps me here. He says he will tell the kids I took their daddy away. He says he won't pay a cent of child support no matter what he has to do. I'm afraid of what people will say. At 44 years old I'm afraid my parents will be disappointed in me.

I know I'm entrenched in codependent behavior. Decisions are almost impossible for me. I can spend 30 minutes trying to decide what salad dressing to buy, get to the checkout line and change my mind again.....only to get home and discover I forgot to get the one thing I went to the store for to begin with. I don't know, maybe I am the crazy one........

denny57

You're not crazy.

Living with an alcoholic is crazymaking. I had the Jekyll and Hyde week/weekend thing for about 12 years. The last 6 were just god awful. Morning drinking by the last 2.

3 years out and I feel 15 years younger and I never forget what I went to the store for - well, almost never. :-)

I'm sorry you have to live with this. I understand the frustration.

((( )))

Spiritual Seeker

Try to find al-anon mtgs. in your area. That could be just the right beginning for change, because it sounds like that is what you crave.

it worked wonders for me.

Shivaya

You could spend some time on here, and then go to the Chocolate Lovers!


Do those "people" know about his barbaric behavior? Because if they did, they wouldl understand why you would want to leave.

As far as your parents being disappointed in you....How could a parent be disappointed for their daughter making a stand for what she believes is the right and best thing for herself and her children.

You have a God Given Right to experience happiness, joy, pleasure and love!!

I've just begun reading CoDependant No More by Melody Beattie. I joined this forum in February of 2008, and I've seen this book recommended so many times. I'm glad I finally listened to the advice and picked up this book. It is changing my life!!!


Shivaya

Seeking Wisdom

You are feeling the same things most of us have at one point or another. I also felt like I would be disappointing our families. I also spent too many years second guessing myself and half believing my AH's manipulation that I was the one with the problem ... after all, he was just having a few harmless drinks. He actually took me to 2 different marriage counselors because he felt the only thing wrong with our marriage was my bad attitude. In time the truth was revealed to all - including finding 2 bottles of vodka in file cabinet all while insisting to the counselor he really wasn't drinking.

We went through the years of open endless beer drinking...passed off as simply social drinking. Followed by years of "I only had a couple of beers" all while making endless errands coming back totally buzzed from the potent refreshments they must have been serving at the Home Depot that he said he went to. Followed by more years of " I am not drinking" while slurring his words and stashing wine and vodka at the office and in his car trunk and drinking 24/7. How anyone can live with these endless mind games and not feel like you are living in the twilight zone is beyond me.

I do know one thing, if I had access to a forum like this many years ago, I could have shaved off a lot of years off of second guessing myself. Once I started visiting this forum, the second guessing stopped and I started believing in myself and my judgment. Everything I had questioned myself on, was validated here from others that had walked in my same shoes and lived the same bizarre tormented life. It was here I realized that I was not married to a normal man with normal problems... but I was married to an addiction that twisted reality into insanity. It was like living inside some traveling carnival's House of Mirrors with distorted images and sounds that confuse and disturb.... and coming here helped me to see reality of what I was truly dealing with ... and I finally stepped outside the House of Mirrors on solid ground with the sun shining brightly overhead just as it was supposed to be .. and finally life began to make sense again.

blessed4x

LOL.....if it weren't for humor I probably would go crazy! Thanks for the support. I think he must also wonder why I tolerated it for so many years and now it's an issue. He keeps saying I "changed the rules in the middle of the game". I think I just got tired of playing.

tormented22267

I 100% agree with this! Active alcoholics have a very keen way of manipulating and making people in their lives second guess themselves. Maybe it really is me? Maybe he is right? Maybe living this crazy, insane life filled with drama, lies, hurt and infidelity is normal...

I know better now.

GrowingPains

Thank you for this thread. Sadness returned to me last night and I've had a lot of anger today. I strongly identify with pretty much everything in this thread and am reminded that I made the right decision.

"Then comes Friday. He is a barbaric caveman slurring his speech, passing gas on purpose, and in bed snoring by 8pm"

I do NOT want any more of THAT!

Freedom1990

Thank God for humor! It's kept me from going stark raving bananas many times in my life! :ghug2

I found myself getting really stressed out about 3 college tests I have to have done by tomorrow (I take all my classes online due to degenerative disc disease), and about that time, my greyhound farted under my desk! I laughed, and then I ran for the incense!

My pets are always reminding me life's too short, and to laugh!

blessed4x

At least it's your dog (and not your AH) farting!!

Bernadette

LOL!!!!!!!

YellowRed

When I started practising detachment at home (after I realised I had been enabling for years) my stbxAH also accused me of being cold. I felt heartbroken. I cared so much for him and really tried to do everything I could to help him see what he was doing to himself. Once I started to detach, I could see what he was doing to me and everyone else in the household. However, I found it really difficult to manage that detachment and apparently be living under the same roof etc - it just didn't work for me. I didn't feel like I could be myself. Some people manage it successfully for years, but it felt like a sham to me. After I moved out, I found I could really finally see how crazy and insane I had become in response to his drinking and everything which goes along with it. So cynical, so untrusting. I had also really forgotten how to take care of myself. As Denny57 says, now I feel so much younger - not something I had imagined I would. I think this is a very long-winded way of saying, have you thought about YOU and how this is affecting YOU? You don't sound like a 'cold' person to me (you wouldn't be here on SR) but you need to take care of yourself. This is something I really didn't do in the last couple of years living with my AH and it really took its toll on me, mentally and physically. Please take care of yourself - this is a very destructive disease and I'm only now really beginning to understand the effects of 'near alcoholism', i.e. on those close to the A. Hugs.:ghug3

blessed4x

Thank you.....you nailed it for me. I am not a "cold" person. I have given so much of myself to help others (which I now see as a symptom of my codependency). I think I have just shut down emotionally over the past year. I have moments recently when I can break down and cry, and I see that as progress. I feel like I have aged a decade in the last 12 months. It's good to know that it can be reversed. I don't see that detaching is going to be something I am able to do either.