ITZMESSEDUP

Ok, where to start? 5 years ago I moved from Philadelphia to WV. After living here for a year (and feeling lonely and out of place) I met my wife. The first time I met her she was drunk. She only had wine and beer in her fridge. She addmitted to me that she has a 20 year drinking history. Her father is also an alcoholic. Anyway, We hit it off and I let her know that I didn't drink. I helped detox her and she pretty much stopped drinking except for binges every 3-6 months back in her home state of Tenn. She would be gone 3-4 days and always come home.

I have to add that I was smoking pot daily (with her) and addicted to pain meds. (which she took too, but I never let her get addicted to them) Around June 12th her best friend and drinking buddy back in TN committed suicide (he was dying from brain cancer) he did this right after she went to visit him and they got drunk together. She came back home and started a terrible fight with me, and said she was leaving because I was addicted to pain meds. I go into a detox on June 17th and rehab afterwards. The day before I left the rehab she tells me she would be home (she was in her hometown in TN) I fly back home and she is not at the house. She changes her cell# and deletes me off FB. After sometime we started talking and making trips on weekends to see each other. Everything went great. She came home with clothes and packed her drawers up on September 14th. Swore to me she would be back in one week. Well, she didn't come home. She admitted to me she was drinking everyday. She told me she was so "disconnected from her feelings she doesn't feel anything" "and she was a messed up chick" we haven't talked on the phone for 10 weeks. And hardly communicate through emails at all. I have to add she suffers from depression, and her dog that was 15 years also died about 4 months ago (she never had kids so the dog was her kid) she also has an eating disorder. She says to me "it's too late to save us" I don't know why she doesn't file for a divorce if that's how she feels? her father is a family attorney and she could easily have it done. I cannot tell you how many times she said to me "I was just about to come home" before the past 10 weeks anyway. It really has me messed up. I love the woman and cared enough about our future to stop taking all the pain meds (there were numerous different ones and I took many) I know you have to do it for yourself, but she was the catalyst. beleive me if it wasn't for myself I would have relapsed long ago. I do wonder what it was all for at times? She tells me she has a 20 year drinking history, has been drinking the past 5 months...but is in denial that the alcohol has anything to do with what's going on now? It really hurts that I gave my addictions up, while she indulges in hers. I know I should focus on myself, i do go to AA and NA meetings and I try to do that. But, knowing she is in bars and not at home really tears me up. She says she loves me with all her heart, and misses me more than I would ever know..but adds..I know I KNOW that coming back there is not the best thing for me. I live in a small town (not much of a bar scene) she lives in a major city in TN with all the nightlife a person could want. man does it hurt..how can she say she loves me with all her heart and misses me so much but doesn't come home? Alcohol is that important? It's really a messed up situation. would a person choose alcohol over a loved one and their marriage? My addiction was just as bad as hers. I stopped. Oh, she also told me she couldn't deal with her feelings so she "escapes" can't say I haven't thought of "escaping myself" but I play that tape all the way through and I know the end is just misery, detox and rehab (if I'm lucky enough) sorry for going off, but I really am lost and still don't know many people in this Mountain town. the situation has been eating at me like you wouldn't beleive. Opinions welcomed.

Learn2Live

Hi itzmessedup to Sober Recovery (SR). I am glad you got clean, I am glad you are working a program, and I am glad you have found SR. I hope that soon your Recovery becomes more about you than someone else, in your mind. I believe that even when someone gets clean "for someone else" they are still benefitting themselves. I hope that you can keep focusing on being good to yourself, despite the troubles you are having with your spouse.

Please keep posting and reading here. Some more folks with helpful perspectives will be along here soon.

TatliGuzelim

Welcome to SR and congratulations on your sobriety! Please don't let anyone or anything get in the way of that.

My opinion? When you say, "it really hurts that I gave my addictions up, while she indulges in hers," I'm concerned that you're unable to separate your recovery from hers. Perhaps her role in your life was to catalyze change positive change. Outside of the loss of your loved one, I'd guess that your life and health have improved, and will continue to do so with time.

I'm sorry you're hurting. I was once told, "given the choice between you and alcohol, I'd choose alcohol." I clung to denial thinking, "he doesn't mean it" when in fact he did. If I had listened to him then, I would have saved myself many years of grief.

ITZMESSEDUP

Outside of the loss of your loved one, I'd guess that your life and health have improved, and will continue to do so with time.

((It was her loved one, I never met him))


I'm concerned that you're unable to separate your recovery from hers. Perhaps her role in your life was to catalyze change positive change.

((I never thought of it quite like this)) Well, I have thanked her for setting me on the path to recovery...but this is in a different perspective!! Thank-You.

ITZMESSEDUP

I also think alot of it has to do with focusing so much on her it keeps me from looking at myself. I have seen tremendous improvement since leaving the rehab.
My emotions are not all over the place like they were 5 months ago. (people in NA and AA have made comments to this effect)

This is what she said to me in her last email about 4 days ago--At least when you were using I felt like I knew who you were, ever since you came back from the rehab I thought to myself, I don't even know this person. How can we build on that? (we have been married 3 years) She acts like she didn't smoke daily and take pills herself-besides the alcohol. Makes no sense to me..I'm the same..just not addicted and nodding out and burning stuff (have to laugh at that) BTW- I threw everything with a burn in it away 5 months ago...I read posts about giving and giving and giving...she didn't cook, didn't clean, hardly worked..I have a beautiful house, paid all the bills (I beleive a man should) bought the food, gave her compliments daily, tons of affection....even in my addiction...I don't know what else I could have done...first she wanted out because of my addiction...now she says we couldn't possibly get back together because I'm clean...I just don't get it..I am making myself laugh for the first time in awhile...I have to admit I'm obsessing over this situation in spite of trying not to.

ITZMESSEDUP

hon, she was drunk when you met....that's who she was and that's who she is.

So true, because we didn't drink together I think of her differently...in spite of knowing, KNOWING every couple-few months she would start a fight for no reason to run off to TN and go on a binge. And knowing she has a 20 year drinking history before she met me. It's hard to accept though.

Learn2Live

I have come to accept for myself that any relationship with alcoholism and/or addiction involved is a selfish, immature relationship on many levels. When I was still drinking, I was using other people. I doubt I had any relationships where I wasn't using other people. But I believe it is mutual. When it's one-to-one, you use eachother. Once I stopped drinking, all my "friends" stopped calling; they had no use for me; and when I became very sick, no one came to help. That showed me that they really were not my friends and that all the times we all said how much we loved eachother and how we were best friends, etc was just a bunch of drunken drama. I don't involve myself with drinkers and drug users any more for the simple fact that I am sober now and not using people (that I am aware of at least). I have had to accept the fact that if I involve myself with an active alcoholic or addict I will be used by that person. I don't like being used so I don't involve myself with them anymore.

ITZMESSEDUP

I am not sure what I could have possibly used her for, she didn't contribute much. There was companionship..if thats using someone? I often think to myself that it could be more "attatchment" at this point than anything else. Yeah, I googled the difference between love and attatchment...not saying I don't love her, because I do. But it has also been effected by the outcome of things that have occured.

I do agree that drug addicts and Alcoholics are selfish..I have been selfish at times. And I have already thought the samething...I wont get involved with neither WHEN I feel I am ready for a relationship...and I am nowhere close right now. Still trying to figure out how to make myself happy first. Smoking and eating pills all day took up alot of time, not sure what to do now half of the time? I am going back to school in January (at 47) and I am getting a season pass at the ski resort thats 20 minutes from my house (never been there in 5 years..lol) so I guess that's a start...there is a very small community of AA and NA meetings here..sometimes only 4-5 people in the room. Being from Philadelphia I am not used to that.

Freedom1990

I took the plunge and enrolled in college at age 50. Next spring I will graduate with two associate degrees.

I hail from a small town of 3000, and there have been times we were down to 4-5 people in AA. That's still a meeting.

brokenheartfool

You didn't really expect things to make sense with an active user, did you?
Yes, do laugh, at the irony, at the contradiction of it all. That kind of laughter is healing for you, because it reminds you that you aren't crazy even if her logic is!

She doesn't know you now? Or does that translate to: "Your sobriety scares me because I am not sober" or, "one of us sober doesn't make us work, we both have to use", or "your sobriety makes me feel guilty".

But I digress! What she's thinking doesn't matter, what she is doing matters, her actions!
She may be hurting, but for now, she's chosen the bottle instead of you to share her pain with. Ouch, but it doesn't reflect on YOU.
You can wait, or get busy living, and if she crawls back, at that point and time you have a choice, and it is YOUR choice.
Your story reminds me much of the days of wine and roses. Rent it again if it's dim in your memory?
Small meetings= more time to talk! Think of the positives!
You stay strong and sober, because that's how you're good for anybody, you, her, or anyone you know or care for. You're on the right path.
My sympathies that she is on the wrong one.

barb dwyer

Just swingin in to welcome you to SR. Welcome!

I've nothing to add to what's been said here.

Go to the meetings.
As many as possible.

trust us on that one.

Learn2Live

Perhaps that is a clue.
Keep going to meetings and working your program and maybe this question will come up again. It is great that you are posting and thinking these things through

ITZMESSEDUP

Thank you people for the comments. They really do help. I'm pretty much alone here. Me and my 19 year old son, who lost his mom to leukemia at 6. I constantly think about all this "stuff" so much it really overwhelms me at times. Just getting it off my chest is relief in itself.

I have already thought about what most of you have said. (especially her feeling guilty about my sobriety) she told me months ago she wished she didn't ask me to go into rehab. The thing is, I start to question my own "thinking"

ITZMESSEDUP

You didn't really expect things to make sense with an active user, did you?
Yes, do laugh, at the irony, at the contradiction of it all. That kind of laughter is healing for you, because it reminds you that you aren't crazy even if her logic is!

She doesn't know you now? Or does that translate to: "Your sobriety scares me because I am not sober" or, "one of us sober doesn't make us work, we both have to use", or "your sobriety makes me feel guilty".

But I digress! What she's thinking doesn't matter, what she is doing matters, her actions!
She may be hurting, but for now, she's chosen the bottle instead of you to share her pain with. Ouch, but it doesn't reflect on YOU.
You can wait, or get busy living, and if she crawls back, at that point and time you have a choice, and it is YOUR choice.
Your story reminds me much of the days of wine and roses. Rent it again if it's dim in your memory?
Small meetings= more time to talk! Think of the positives!
You stay strong and sober, because that's how you're good for anybody, you, her, or anyone you know or care for. You're on the right path.
My sympathies that she is on the wrong one.

Never seen the movie. I will rent it. I read this post about 5 times. Thank you Brokenheartfool, so much. BTW) I feel the sameway...a brokenheartedfool!

Buffalo66

It does sound to me as if you have found a degree of clarity in sobriety and it's as if she did not really aim for that. SHe just wanted to be able to dog you about what YOU were doing wrong, so she could freely do her thing. Now that you remedied your issues, she is kind of lost.

You do have to ask yourself what the heck are you getting out of this. Just give yourself permission to start even thinking about moving on.

Welcome to SR

ITZMESSEDUP

It has taken me awhile to realize that I need to stop focusing on what's wrong with her, and fix what's wrong with me. What a scarey thought!!

Thanks for the comments!