Margareta

Hello everybody,


I been thinking about the things some of you replied to my first post and even though is less than a week I already feel less emotional load, thank you!

Ok so basically I told you that my A husband and I reached this agreement in which he drinks every 10 days after the last of many arguments in which we were about to separate. I don´t like this agreement but I don´t want to separate from him without giving it at least one more try.

Now from your experience what do you think is the next step? To make him know that I am not happy with our agreement (and probably start again an argument and separate) or just start living my live and take care of myself while he is drinking (because he doesn´t want to stop drinking) and see how everything goes?

Thank you very much,

Freedom1990

I guess my question to you is what do you want for your life? Alcoholism is a progressive disease, and one you can't control. It will only get worse, not better.

Are you willing to settle for a marriage where the drinking is going to get worse as time goes on?

prodigal

I can certainly understand that you would not like this agreement; however, I doubt he likes it either. If he is only to drink every 10 days, how much can he drink on that day? Two or three drinks? Until he is drunk?

He said he does not want to stop drinking. As freedom mentioned, it is a progressive disease. I wouldn't put any faith in his only picking up every 10 days.

If you are not happy with the original agreement, I think the most important question you have to ask yourself is what will make you happy? You have no control over how much he drinks, when he drinks, or where he drinks. At this point, he appears to have no desire to quit.

I learned I couldn't hinge my hapiness on whether or not my spouse drank. I owned my hapiness; he owned his addiction. And my hapiness did not figure into the equation when it came to his drinking.

Have you considered counseling and/or Al-Anon for yourself?

Margareta

Hello Freedom and Prodigal and thank you for your answer.

I don´t want to be in a relationship like this, but maybe I am afraid to leave my A husband now because I love him and I guess is also because he has been the provider in our relationship so I guess I feel I owe him a lot in that respect.

Yes when he drinks, he drinks 2 liters of alcohol and gets very drunk, but he says that he has improved because before he used to drink a lot more...well I think that he has decreased the amount he drinks. But that isn´t enough to make me happy.

I have been trying not to enable him in the sense that now I don´t throw part of his drink when he is very drunk or I don´t talk to him when he is drunk (which he likes very much). When drunk he used to wake me up when he came to bed and that´s something that I don´t tolerate anymore. I mean I have started to put some limits.

I guess I just want to get to the point in which I have the courage to leave if he doesn´t stop drinking. I can´t imagine myself in the same situation in ten years. But right now I am not ready to leave, I think that probably I will have to folow a process and I have to grow stronger in order to do it.

Now he says that because he is a more calmed drunk guy and he drinks less I should give him some credit for that and be more patient.

I am looking for the nearest Al Anon group for me and I am sure it will help but I am happy to have discovered this website because it´s a big help for me It´s very important to me to hear your opinions. Thanks again

Amazonqueen522

I used to drink every 4 to 5 days in between my last binge, but you can trust and believe that when I would drink I would drink anyone out of house and home and would make up for all the days that I was sober. It doesn't matter if you drink everyday or every other day the results are the same. I hope you find the answers your looking for, I know that if I wanted to keep my family, friends and those things that matter to me I had to stop drinking completely.

Thanks for letting me share my experiences, strength and hopes......

timetogo

I used to say that I would give him "one more chance" and that I certainly "would not be in the same relationship in 10 years". In my situation, it has been progressing sooooo slowly that I lost track of that 10 years. I'm certainly not getting any younger (43) and am no longer going to wait and hope for another 10 years.

You have to decide what will make you happy and what your needs are. I found I was sooo caught up in what he needed to keep him sober (agreements, negotiating, finding him help) that I forgot what I NEED from a partner. It was really hard for me to think about that -- I hadn't paid attention to what I needed for so long.

I hope you find an alanon meeting -- just meeting new people when you are in a new place will help so much. Keep coming back here -- we're all here together

GiveLove

This sounds like a good plan. Ten years can blow by like nothing - and if anything you will be MORE dependent and MORE afraid to leave then. Grow stronger in every way that you can. I'd suggest not just Al-Anon, but also some counseling, assertiveness training, maybe a little coaching to find out what you'd love to do with the rest of your life. My life came alive when I realized that I had a purpose here - and it wasn't spending every day stressing over whether my A was going to decide to keep drinking or not.

LaTeeDa

My husband used to pull this crap on me, too. It was like "hey, I went from being 20% of what a partner should be, to 35% of what a partner should be--give me some credit!" It took a while for me to get to the point where I realized I deserved someone who was 100% of a partner, 100% of the time. I decided that I would rather have no partner at all then one who threw me a bone once in a while just to keep me around.

L