Alegra

H just polished off a liter and half of wine - he's a bit tipsy. Wanted to have a discussion about our R. And, yup, I bit it. I ate it. I swallowed it. Before I knew it, I was being blamed for all. I finally just told him that I was sick of being married to someone with a drinking problem. This isn't how I imagined my life. I didn't want to continue in this manner. I walked to living room. He left.

He quietly put on his jeans and left. No doors slamming. No yelling. No screaming. He just left. I didn't even know he did it. He's walking around town somewhere. No cell. No money. No keys to the house.

I am this close to getting up and going to find him. Blech. It's taking all of my being to not go drive around town. blech blech blech.

I shouldn't go, right? He'll be fine, right? Consequences. Right???

Live

Stay right here at this keyboard!

He is an adult! Don't bite on this one....we break the cycle one step at a time.
This is a great opportunity for you to behave as if you meant exactly what you said.

hugs

Alegra

Thank you so much, Live!! This is hard. So hard. But I don't want to be treated this way. I don't. It's not fair. We all have pain in life. Life is tough. It just is. Drowning the sorrows in alcohol just brings more sorrows. I can't take it.

And then I think: but he's the one drinking. He's the one doing this to HIS body. He's not doing it to me. Why can't I take it? Why is his drinking so much of problem for me?
If he want's to get sick from it - so be it.
vomit in the sink - not my problem, I didn't put it there.
Strolling around town drunk off your ass - they're your feet, not mine.
Why is this so damn hard???
In my head I know what I want.
Why do I cave?
Why do I feel like he's not going to be okay?
Why do I think that I need to rush right out there and drag his ass home???

He's 40. FOR-TY. A forty year old can stand a drunken stuper, right? Gosh, i sound so neurotic. This is crazy. I feel crazy.

One step at a time...

DMC

Yes, one step at a time. One minute if need be.

Goodness, but I know how you're feeling. It gets much easier with distance and time, but man it's hard when you're in the middle of it.

Hugs
D

Alegra

Thanks, D! Seriously, if I wasn't in the middle of this, I'd say, "who cares? the man is 40 and making his own decisions. He'll live."

Being in the middle of it is hard. really hard.

Paintbaby

But you're in this marriage too, so yes, his choices are affecting your quality of life. I know--I have just separated from my AH of one year, because of his alcoholism.

Marriage isn't a true partnership with an alcoholic. They will always put drinking before you, or anything else. Alcohol is their only love. I got sick of the lies. I got sick of feeling like I was a caretaker and nursemaid to a grown man. I got sick of the financial abuse, and the fact that he hid money from me in order to drink. And I really, REALLY got tired of the fact that he blamed everything and everyone else for his problems, but never took personal responsibility for anything. Everything was an excuse to drink.

I realized that this is not the life I was meant to live. I realized I deserved much better. And I realized that for my life to get better, he had to go. Life with an active alcoholic is a recipe for misery.

Let him take the consequences for his choices. And they are CHOICES. Enabling them and picking them back up when they fall keeps them from consequences--whether it's getting blisters from walking home, sleeping in a puddle of their own vomit and p*ss, or spending a night in the drunk tank.

Alegra

more drama.
H came back.
Got angry at me.
Told me he's sick of me always being angry with him.
(which I'm not, but whatever).
stomped around the house.
put on PJs
got a glass of water
stomp stomp stomp
yell yell yell
put on his jeans
and left.
again.

i think it's time for bed. i need off of this ride.

Live

try reading the stickies, for example clasic reading, at the top of this forum.
I'll bet it helps a bunch! And while you are reading them, just slow down that scared breathing to help relax both your body and your mind.

You are going to be okay.

Alegra

thanks, paintbaby. so true! thanks for the reminders and the help.

i just feel like throwing my own temper tantrum. not fair! not fair! not fair!
NOT FAIR! sucks sucks sucks.

I just feel like telling him to man up already. enough is enough!

Live

oops, we posted at the same time.

I have to echo what you said earlier...BLECH..

If it helps, you have a right to be angry...if he is gone sounds like a perfect time to me to go ahead and yell to get it out if it helps.

Alegra

lol, Live! Blech is right!
off to read some stickies!

Live

Paintbaby

Isn't it amazing? They get angry at US for getting angry at them---but NEVER examine the choices and behaviour they actively choose that make us feel angry, frusterated and scared IN THE FIRST PLACE! Zero personal accountability, zero sense of responsibility. Absoutely crazy-making.

Live

I have learned that when someone gets angry at me for being angry and then tries to talk over me, yell, throw a drama..whatever, you get the idea...
That IT IS BULLYING.
Yeah. BLECH

Alegra

ahhh crazy-making puts it mildly. i find myself actually living a lifestyle i never thought i would. how did i become this codependent person? i don't get it. i know better than this...i thought. bad habits? low self esteem? lack of will power?

i think that all just contributes to the crazy making. there are so many levels.
how did he get here?
how did i get here?
what am i doing here?
why can't i leave here?
what is it about here?

so many crazy days.

Live

Sometimes we go along just to get along.
It's easier at the time and we have been in many ways taught to do that!

I don't want to go around in life being a jerk and not caring about other people and having an attitude and getting in other people's face. And that is what I thought standing up for myself would entail.

It really doesn't but I have been a cadet in training here for quite awhile.

It gets better when we educate ourselves and start learning how to change the way we relate on auto pilot. It feels way better too!

sesh

You shouldn't be so hard on yourself. You know answers to all these questions. You got married in good faith, expecting a happy ever after with occasional bump in the road. You know marriage takes work, so you're spending years trying to work on yours. Your husband didn't just came home one day and say: from today I'm going to be an A, and everything is going to change. It happened gradualy, and by the time you bacame aware of what is going on, you have allready made so many steps back, made so many compromises, that you became part of his madness without even realzing it.
There is only one answer to the question why can't you leave: bacause you're not ready yet. And IMHO that always comes from still hoping. So you're selling your present short for the idea of better future.
I really hope this doens't sound harsh, that was not my intention, I know all too well what does it feel like to feel the way you're feeling now, to do things you're doing now.
And I found out, the reason I was doing all that, is because that was almost convenient, as crazy as that might sound, it was familiar, and I kept all that drama going, trying to make him stop, worry myself with what he does, agonize, cry and the rest, as to be honest that was much easier than stopping for one minute and taking look at myself, challenging my thoughts, my beliefs, my life paradigms, my fears. It was much easier to keep agonizing over what he does than calling myself on my own BS and asking myself that am I doing.
The simple thruth is: you're unhappy in your life bacause of your AH. What are you going to do about it?
IMO Life is really simple, it is us who make it complicated.

You're doing well, just go easy on yourself, it's a process, you'll get there when you're ready.

I wish you well.
Take care of yourself.

RollTide

sesh always says what I feel better than I could myself.

"how did i get here?
what am i doing here?
why can't i leave here?"

I was there too, last year. Your posts sound all too familiar. Finally enough was enough. Life was going to be this way and worse OR I could walk awy from the madness. I chose to walk away and have not regretted it for one minute. Now I'm working on me and I've found that ME I can change. Him I couldn't. When you've had enough pain you'll know what to do.

Learn2Live

OMG WHAT.A.BABY.
quack quack quack.

I HATE when they disturb my sleep like that. When they stomp off in a huff just to get some attention and then, AFTER AN HOUR come back to try to hook me AGAIN!!! Listen, the last alcoholic in my life, I had to set this boundary: Do not disturb me after 6PM. You want to drink? Fine, STAY AWAY from me and do not call me after 6PM. I gotta' get my 8 hours beauty rest so I can get up and go to work in the morning, early the way I like. And smoke crack? STAY AWAY FROM ME. I will break $hit over your head if you come around me on crack. He was not ALLOWED in my presence having smoked crack OR drank alcohol. It insulted me. THAT was my boundary and he followed it. He had no other choice because I set the rules for who and what I allow into my life. Do you?

Stop having conversations with him about whose fault whatever is. Just stop. Because you may as well be talking to an oak tree. Had he been drinking when you started this conversation? If yes, set yourself a boundary: I will not speak to him about ANYTHING when he has been drinking. If you need to discuss something with him of a practical nature, wait and catch him when he's sober.

If you need someone to acknowledge your feelings, if you need to feel understood, if you want to be validated, go to therapy or Al-Anon. I recommend Al-Anon because (1) it is free and (2) you can make friends there. Because I doubt very seriously that the alcoholic in your life is going to be able to relate to you in ways that make you feel acknowledged, understood, or validated. In fact, it is the alcoholic's JOB to make us feel the OPPOSITE of all that, which is what makes us go crazy.

Take care of yourself.

naive

it's like a script. your role in this play was to go find him and try to appease him. you didn't do that. he comes back, tries again. you hold your ground. he leaves again.

good riddance.

you will discover as you stop playing your role, his antics will increase. he wants you back in your role. if you don't play, he'll play harder.

try to step back and observe, as if it was happening to someone else. move into the observer.

next act: sweetness from him. apologies. promises to change.

you: merely observe.

next act: sweetness didn't work. might as well get very drunk then.

and around and around and around.

good for you for not going out after him.

one step at a day. one day at a time. one hour at a time if necessary. you can do this.