CalamityJane

I'm just a jumble of emotion this morning. I hate admitting that.

Last night my husband and I argued pretty heavily, but he's the one that was keeping his calm and cool through it all. I was the one having a meltdown and just spewing out all my anger and disdain for him. I'm really turning into a monster myself I think.

Anyhow, now I just feel so messed up and I can't even think straight.
I wonder why I am thinking and feeling all the things I am.
Like, why am I so confused about how I feel?
I wonder, is any of this MY problem?
Am I the screwed up one?
Am I the one blowing things out of proportion?
I feel like I hate him, and then I feel like I hate myself, and then all I feel is hate. I feel out of control, but can't put into words why.
I find it hard to defend myself.
I do my best to avoid him, but feel alone because of it.
I feel super guilty, cheated, helpless and hopeless.
I can't see how anything will work out.
I do my best to make myself happy, to detach, but then fighting off my mind and my emotions are just so trying.
I feel like a burden on my family and my friends.
I try and talk about other things with people other than my problems, but inevitably it comes back to how my marriage is a failure.
I wonder if my husband is really an alcoholic at all, or is it just me convincing myself that he is.

And then, after emotionally nose diving into the ground, feeling like a wreck, arguing, the whole nine yards, in a couple days I think i'll probably feel fine, like this never happened. I'll feel stable and secure in myself, I'll feel confident, and sure of what is happening. I will feel entirely opposite to now, and that is what drives me nuts the most. How can I be like this today, and next week I will be fine? Makes me really wonder what is wrong with ME? I know that my husbands drinking and treatment of me has affected me, but I can't even verbalize how it has.

Sometimes our issues aren't about drinking, they are about other things, like money, or respect, or future decisions that we don't agree on. We have serious problems working together as a couple, which makes me wonder why we are together at all. I can't even answer that.
I want to believe that all this can be resolved, that somehow we can still have a great marriage. I feel like if we do what I want to do, my way, it will be a mistake. I will regret things. I will be wrong. I will have screwed us up even further.

Ugh. Sorry. I really needed to get this out so I can get on with my day and just move on from this moment.

Thanks for listening.
CJ

cb12

Wow, CalamityJane. That's a lot of things to have on your mind all at once. I get into that mindset too, where I'm upset about almost everything and anything.

Unfortunately, I don't have much wisdom for you. For me, writing helps a lot. Also, remember that you don't have to take every issue on at the same time. Just one foot in front of the other, for now.

Threshold

CJ, hugs. I've felt the same way you do.

I don't know enough of your story to comment on it specifically, but just to say that rarely is it a simple case of good guy/bad guy. People come to the table with their own issues, and sometimes they are a combustible combination.

I think the questions you are asking are good ones. Letting them swirl and stew in your mind may just end up confusing you more. Is counseling an option?

If not, Al anon or some self help books might help you take a look at what your issues are, and help you address the relationship in a fair and balanced manner.

canuckch

Wow! I am speechless! I often recognize similarities in other peoples posts but yours is dead on! I would never be able to articulate it as well as you. You managed to express my feelings 100 % (plus the fight last night, how did you know?:-)

Thank you

Willybluedog

I went back and read some of your older posts, it sounds like your husband is trying to convince you it's all your fault, that is classic alcoholic behavior, blame, deny, deflect, lie, whatever it takes to get you to focus on something other than his drinking.

I went to both individual and joint counseling and found both beneficial, and also there is al-anon online so you do have that option available to you.

You say sometimes your issues are not about drinking, the problem is that drinking is like looking at the world through someone elses prescription lenses, it makes things like money and childrearing look out of focus all the time.

Please come back often and let us know how you are doing, if you cannot talk to the people around you then you can talk to us, we will listen, and we understand.

Big hugs to you, hang in there.

Bill

tabatha

It sounds like if you're interested in continuing the relationship marriage counseling would be a really good way to go. They can help you to get down to the 'real' reason your fighting. Maybe it's not even the issue with alcohol. Your post sounds like me 20 years ago. A lot going on there that needs to get out.

Eight Ball

Hi CalamityJane,

I know exactly where you are coming from.

When my AH of 23yrs was still drinking, towards the end of a really bad period in our marriage and our lives were spiralling out of control, I was the one that was becomming more and more unstable. We didnt row often, because I had a year of Al-anon under my belt, but when we did, out of pure frustration, I would scream like a banshee, bang my fist down on the granit workbench, sob in a corner and throw things in fits of rage. I hated myself for it and didnt like the person I was becomming.

I am a really placid personality and very rarely get angry about anything. My AH drinking and behaviours, were all a bit too much for me, I obviously wasnt coping well and what I had been keeping bottled inside me was exploding out! My anxiety, stress levels and panic were increasing by the day and I really wasnt healthy in body, mind and soul.

My head would be spinning with 'what ifs', I would 'replay' the incidents back and felt like a complete loon.

I read something this week about how stress/anxiety/depression are not the signs of someone weak, but signs of someone who has tried to stay strong for too long. I can relate to that.

I too, wondered it it was me, if my AH was really an alcoholic. He would seem really together when I fell apart. He wasnt verbally abusive or passive aggressive anymore because when he was, I would 'call' him on this behaviour but he became more controlling.

Some of our rows were about other things, such as our daughters, money etc, but really now when I look back, these were all made worse through the drinking. Drinking made my AH unreasonable, argumentative, we could never reach a compromise about anything or discuss things like 'normal' couples. If it seemed to my AH that I was on the attack, he would attack back but make it personal. There was never a win, win situation, I felt shut down and began not to even discuss things with him.

Al-anon, SR and therapy is what saved me from this really bad period in my life. I finally learnt enough and grew enough to know that I couldnt carry on that way and was I was important and worthy of having a happy, healthy life.

I finally left, and its the best descision that I have ever made.

Never mind rose tinted glasses, my life living with an active alcoholic had me looking through bi-focals with rose and dark grey! I was either thinking the marriage was good or the marriage was bad, there was never an inbetween.

Everything that I went through with my AH makes much more sense to me now. I really was very sick. It was a horrible time and I am so glad that I found peace. My head feels normal now, I very rarely have the jumbled thoughts spinning around up there anymore. I cope much better with life and I am flourishing.

When you are caught up in the type of turmoil you are describing and that I lived through, through my own experience, I can honestly say that you need some time apart, to clear your head, to get healthy again so that you can make healthy descisions in moving forward. I strongly suggest Al-anon and personal therapy to work through your feelings, if you are not doing these things already and possibly some time apart if you can manage it.

CalamityJane

Thanks to everyone for your great encouragement.
Y'know a couple days ago I was doing so great. I had read stuff about detaching and enabling and I thought "Yeah, I've got this down! I'm way more in control of myself! Maybe things are changing." And out of nowhere (or somewhere) we got into another argument that just snowballed into disaster. I think I was at my maximum, hate-filled-self last night. Pretty sad.

I really want to join Al-anon actually. I can't go to a meeting, because we live abroad in the middle of nowhere, so there isn't any groups here to join. It would have to be online. Is there a difference between joining al-anon and coming to this family group on SR?

I've also been thinking of getting that book Co-Dependent No More (I think that is what it is called). I can order it online.

As for my story, part of me doesn't want to get into too many details... bu the short of it is that we have been married 5 years, currently living abroad working in a country without many English services. Therapy and AA are pretty hard to come by...especially in a country where drinking is part of the culture. We argue a lot about returning home to North America. My husband doesn't want to because he hates the direction North America is going politically and thinks the jobs we have here are not worth letting go of...so essentially he tells me that we can't live there, which means being away from all of our family, getting real support or counseling, or pursuing any of my own dreams, like going back to school. If it was just me, I would leave, but we have a newborn son, so this thickens the plot quite a bit.

Our families know what is going on, but no one talks openly to him about it, just to me. I sometimes feel really isolated, but I have good friends here who watch out for me. Other times I wonder if he is right about the politics and the jobs. Like I said, I"m confused a lot, afraid to make any big moves because of the repercussions it might have on our son and also...what if I am wrong? If I wasn't the one pointing a finger at the drinking, nobody would be...because no one sees it day after day like I do. He only drinks in the evening, at home. He's also mentioned he's going to quits soon and that he finds it easy to do so. So then I wonder if I"m just crying wolf over here all by my lonesome.

Anyhow. Again, thanks for the support. It often means more than I initially think it will when I'm writing on here to a bunch of strangers...i'm never disappointed with the answers though. Thank you for caring.
CJ

CalamityJane

That, and I'm Canadian too
Must be the Canadian connection

CJ

sesh

In my experience that happens when we ask too much of ourselves, when we try to keep giving even when we can't give any more, accomodate others, take all responsibility for our marriage on ourselves. We end up feeling drained and confused and tired, as we feel we have given our best and did out best and still it isn't enough.

To make it work it takes learing it is not only up to us, and no matter how hard we try it will not work unless the other person decides to work it too and tries to give us what we need.

When we make the shift in our perspective on things, and when we decide we can only do as much, and that we're not responsible for anyone but ourselves we see things much more clearly and it becomes easier to keep our calm in any given situation.
At least that is my experience.

So, it is not you, it is only that you're asking too much of yourself IMHO.
Take care

akalacha

CJ, I don't have any ESH to share right now, but wanted to let you know my A and I are originally from the U.S. now living in a foreign country. Not much available in the way of AA, alanon, rehab, therapy, etc. Please feel free to PM me anytime you want to talk.

akalacha

PS - A great book that was very helpful for me was Getting Them Sober by Toby Rice Drews.

naive

words of wisdom from sesh. thank you!

i have felt what you expressed and for me, much of it was in not having an outlet or a receptive partner. every conversation just went in circles. it's frustrating. plus all the built up resentment...sometimes it just spilled out...

Isollae

God knows I don't have any answers calamityjane....but I do know what your talking about and remember that rollercoaster feeling. Someone else here said something to the effect that an alcoholic isn't effected by the alcohol only while they're drunk....they're more like a pickle and sober isn't really sober. Hmm...maybe I should try to find their words for it....they said it much better...lol.

At any rate, I think thats true and its hard to have rational conversations when your full of anger and resentments and they're full of whatever feelings they're dealing with along with an impaired brain. You wouldn't expect a smokers lungs to function the same as a non-smokers just because they went 24 hours without a smoke. It takes more time then that for normal function to resume completely. I'd be willing to bet that its the same for an alcoholics brain. Sober isn't really sober until they've gone long term without.

IF I could truly not care about the alcohol issues, or IF the alcohol issues didn't exsist then maybe we could have back what we had in the beginning. But I think it would be irresponsible to not care and for whatever reason, he doesn't want to stop drinking. Nor can we really be best friends because in order to do so, one of us would have to give up something we don't want to.

I'm finding my peace in just trying to be true to myself. To who I want to be and how I want to live. I LIKE the values I hold that make me want him to change.

lillamy

CJ -- what you're feeling is pretty much the textbook definition of what you're feeling when you're married to an actively drinking alcoholic. I could check those off one by one on your list. Two years later, I still remember every single one of those feelings.
AA calls that "stinking thinking": You get caught up in the alcoholic's alternate reality that he has created in order to protect and defend his drinking. I couldn't get out of that until I had spent a good amount of time in Al-Anon and could laugh at myself when I slipped back into his Twilight Zone version of reality.

Two years later, I sometimes get anxiety attacks, the pit in my stomach, the "I've done something terribly wrong" feeling for no reason at all. I hate that feeling. But then I remind myself that when I was married to AXH, I felt that way all the time. I woke up with that feeling. I went to bed with that feeling.

wanttobehealthy

Calamity Jane- I can relate eeriely well to what you describe and as someone else said already, you said it much more clearly than I would be able to.

Glad you are here. There are no easy answers/solutions (both of which I came here looking for). For me, ultimately I couldn't take being with my AH anymore. Even apart from him though there are days that are really hard and I get caught up thinking and feeling just as you describe.

xo

CalamityJane

Thanks again everyone.
I think the weirdest part of the whole 'experience' is what I described at the end of my original post. It would be one thing if I felt all those negative feelings day after day after day. I think I would be such a wreck that it would be so easy to walk away. I would instantly be able to tell the difference between living in hell and escaping it.

But it's not like that.
Every day is not hell. It's just some days. Actually, it is very cyclical (I think I can almost accurately predict the day where everything falls apart). There are moments of peace, moments that we enjoy and laugh together, and then there are huge plunges into darkness and despair. It's painfully predictable, and sometimes I find myself thinking "Maybe it won't be like that next time around..." but even as I think it, I know that I am really just fooling myself. It is always the same.

So, as I predicted...today I feel fine. Yesterday I even felt sort of great by the end of the day. My husband had cleaned up the house, sent me a couple level headed emails at work, wasn't mad at me for anything. I did notice though that he brought a few beers home, but has been talking about trying to be sober again. I don't keep track of how much he drinks now, but somewhere in the range of 4-6 cans a night. I can't say that it is all that much compared to many people on this site, but if it were the drinking alone I probably wouldn't' be here. There is something else at play...not always something I can put my finger on...but I know by looking at other married couples (even my friends who openly tell me about their challenges) that something is wrong.

Obviously, this emotional ping pong game is what keeps me enduring the situation, but also is the most confusing thing. It is frickin' amazing how easy it is to simply forget the pain of our argument two days ago...and that is the part that makes me feel like I'm the crazy one. I'm sure it makes my loved ones think the same thing too.

Thanks again for listening.
xo. CJ.

Eight Ball

I also played the emotional ping pong game as you have perfectly described for years and years! My AH was a 4-6 per night beer man too, with the occasional blow out or increased weekend drinking. It doesnt matter how much though, we were both really, really sick with the desease of alcholism.

My therapist would try to get me to leave and explain about the 'cycle of abuse' and the good side of the cycle before the bad side came around again and I could see the sense in it but wasnt ready to make the move. Things were good most of the time and it was this part that I didnt want to loose and kept me stuck.

I finally did leave and now I am on the other side and in recovery myself, I can see how trapped the whole 'game' made me and how sick we both were.

You sound like you have so much insight into your current situation. I could only see most of what you are describing, now that I am no longer trapped.

My AH, found recovery for himself, once I left, and has been sober for 6 months. We are slowly learning to talk again, to discuss things, to compromise, to communicate effectively and I can tell you that its really 'nice' to feel steady and stable, in a loving relationship with no highs followed by lows. 23yrs, I stayed in a roller coaster marriage, that wasnt healthy for either of us. Things have worked out for me, I have a sober husband back but more importantly, I have a healthy self who is capable of putting myself first and who knows what I need to do to stay healthy and I am so glad that I chose to change the way I was living.

nicam

Yes, alcoholism is usually just a symptom of something larger at play. I know that feeling of hating yourself and him as well. I tried for so long to change MY behavior to make him happy (maybe if I was a little blonder, a little more energetic, responsible, socially active, etc., he would be happy enough with me to make the necessary changes and get help). I ended up with no self-esteem, isolated, confused, depressed, anxious, and full of shame.

"AA calls that "stinking thinking": You get caught up in the alcoholic's alternate reality that he has created in order to protect and defend his drinking." - lillamy

He is manipulating you, altering your reality. The main goal of this behavior is to make you doubt yourself, just as you are, so HE can continue doing whatever he pleases. We all lose our sanity in these relationships, our confidence and sense of self. You are not alone and it is NOT you. I too hated the person I had become with XABF, full of rage and uncontrollable emotions. Suicidal at times... He would provoke me to these fits of anger and sobbing and then turn around and blame every problem we had on me for acting crazy. This never happened with anyone else but him. It's a classic abuse tactic and guess what? IT WORKS! They know it works, or they wouldn't keep doing it.

Having children does complicate things, and you being stuck over there is brutal. I remember teaching in Asia and not having access to any English services, that sucked even though life was happy then, before XABF and his crazy-making bull****.

You really do need some time to yourself to figure out what YOU want without the influence of his manipulation. A lot of people stay together for the sake of the kids, but I don't know if that's healthy for any parties involved. Maybe you should go home for a bit, clear your head. Can you stay with family? You don't have to make any permanent decisions, and you can always go back if you choose to. It's just impossible to see things clearly when your reality is being altered by an A.

CalamityJane

I can't say this for sure, but I think my ignorance about alcohol and what alcoholism truly is might be what has gotten me this far into accepting my circumstances. My parents drank occasionally, but nothing heavy. It was a social party thing. There was rarely ever a can of beer in our house, although we had a small liquor cabinet with some random whiskeys and gins. I can remember the shapes of the bottles because they literally sat in our cabinet for years without being emptied. Now that I think of that, I can't even believe it. A bottle of anything wouldn't last a night in my house these days.

Through high school and university I pretty much was study-driven and kept a circle of friends who were nerds just like me Some had various issues, but I can't think of anyone who might have had a drinking problem. Usually, being young women, it was problems with food that was the issue...I tell you if my husband had an eating disorder, I'd have been able to peg that one in about 5 minutes. But it took me a few years to catch on that he was alcohol dependent.

It has been both a slow realization of the reality of things, and recently, a fast education about being the wife of an alcoholic. Actually, it wasn't until my parents visited me after the birth of our son that they said to me "You know he is verbally and emotionally abusive, don't you?!" After that, it's like a light turned on about everything and I haven't been able to switch it off. I think I needed someone to verbally recognize something about what was going on to make me feel like I didn't need to keep pretending like this was only my problem, or my fault, or my anything.

Anyway, this thread has really delivered more than I could have expected in terms of responses and support. Thank you for your public and private messages. I really appreciate it and promise to keep updating things as they go along.
Thanks again.
CJ.