MrsDarcy

Hi Everyone, I’ve been a lurker here for a long time and I’m feeling ready to jump into the mix here and so here’s a quick introduction and a question.
Grew up with an alcoholic father; currently married to an alcoholic for 26 years. Lots of alcoholics/addicts/abusers within my extended family and circle of friends and acquaintances. I could write a book here about all that, but suffice it to say that I can relate to a lot of what is posted here and I’m sure I will be sharing much more with all of you in the future.
About 4-5 years ago, my best friend started seeing a counselor because she was ready to do something about her failing marriage to her non-drinking, but seriously narcissistic husband. Through talking to her about what she was learning about enabling and codependency, I began to realize that I had a lot to learn about those topics too and that enabling/codependency can be quite subtle and much more complex than I ever realized. (I’m thrilled to report my friend is out of the marriage and In a much happier place now!)
This leads me to my question—I’m looking for other perspectives here. My husband is a primarily a binge drinker and is pretty mellow when he’s drunk. I haven’t really seen volatility/violence/anger out of him (which is why I’ve put up with this for so long—if he were an angry drunk, I’d have run long ago). Since he doesn’t scare me or get in my face about stuff, it makes detachment a little easier for me than it might be otherwise but I’m beginning to suspect this is a form of enablement for him. He likes to keep people at a distance (even me-maybe especially me), so my distance gives him lots of space for drinking and keeping himself isolated—which is how he likes it. Now I know that detachment is for me, and I’m not going to stop doing what’s best for me even if it appears that his disease somehow benefits from it too, but it does add a weird twist to the situation. It’s as if my detached, but continued presence in his life, is all the enablement he requires. Does that make sense? Has anyone else here felt this way, or am I overthinking this?

honeypig

This is very similar to my situation, except that I have decided that I am NOT willing to live w/an active A, even a detached, nonviolent A. He has lied to me many, many, many times regarding his sobriety, he has manipulated our finances to conceal how much he spends on booze, and he has become very distant from me emotionally. I see little of the man I believed I knew when I married him almost 20 years ago.

Does he beat me or frighten me? No. Is this the life I want? No again. So even tho we could theoretically go on like this forever, we are not going to. He is currently working in AA, a few weeks sober, and the cooler heads at Alanon have convinced me to wait a year before I make any decisions. Like they say, more will be revealed.

I don't know if this is what you wanted to know or not, but I hope it helps.

NYCDoglvr

Absolutely! Alcoholics are self centered, self-involved, in the extreme. By being detached you don't challenge his total self-absorption and enable him to go on living the zonked-out alcoholic life. The real issue, however, is this what YOU want for yourself. It doesn't sound like you have the drama and abuse that is usually part of living with an alcoholic, so perhaps it's easier to continue than make a change.

dandylion

Dear MrsDarcy, Here is my perspective: Trying to mend an unhappy marriage with detachment, alone, is like trying to build a house with only a hammer.

Disclaimer--The view expressed here is mine, alone.

very sincerely, dandylion

SolTraveler

Oh wow - just had an "AHA" moment. My ABF does the same thing, and he is also a binge drinker. He and I can be very tight and I always sense how he is feeling, but he tends to hold me at arm's length. Is this why???

Hmmm. Thanks for giving me something to think about.

I know what you mean about detachment - I have often wondered the same things about my ABF. The more space I give him, the more he likes it. It is weird. I know others would say that I should just let him go then, but it isn't easy. We have been together (on and off) since we were kids. I guess I am just not ready.

Loopydays

Thank you for this post, it resonates so much-
Your story sounds so like mine- alcoholic father, 25 year marriage to an emotionally distant alcoholic-
Until now I never realised that my detachment could have been enabling- my RAH drank every evening etc, he was also mellow- so mellow that I became the crazy one as he acted as if his home life was non existent, physically present but no lights on.
I grew up with an alcoholic father, who although never violent, could be verbally abusive when crossed about his drinking, so I learnt from an early age never to- this I carried into my marriage.
Until last year, when something snapped, I no longer could carry on in this way- and asked him to go to rehab- he did and has been sober since. I often wonder whether my Rah would have found sobriety sooner if I had come to that decision years ago? He admitted in rehab that he never addressed his alcoholism because I never asked him too.( I know that that was quacking and placing responsibility on my shoulders, but there may have been a grain of salt in it) That I will never know and have learnt to let it go..
Did my detachment enable him? Looking now, most likely- he had a house to live in, three children, meals cooked, financially enabled- no questions asked- just a silent movie constantly.....
Were we happy? No- did we have a fulfilling marriage? No
A year later of both recoveries, AA and Al Anon, life is much better, happier - not perfect, but an ongoing journey. My journey through Al Anon has been enlightening- one of my major realisations was that I profited by my husband isolating himself- I never needed to consult him about projects or life in general, I could make blanket decisions, I could justify myself at every turn because he was drinking, to a point it suited me that he drank. But alcoholism is progressive, and his physical,mental and financial state worsened to the degree that life had to change.
I am rambling, thank you again for this share

honeypig

Loopydays, your post reflects so much of how things were in our household (minus the kids). I appreciate all of you who have posted here b/c back in January, when I first became aware that the problems we were having were alcohol-related, I found myself asking myself (and being asked by others) "Is it really that bad? Couldn't you just go on? Are you just upset about the $$ he is wasting?" and the like.

Having read this thread, I have come to realize that emotional distance and unavailability are indeed real problems. Just b/c someone does not physically abuse you or spend ALL your $$ such that you lose your home or the like, does not mean that your marriage is necessarily "fine." And yes, it did make things easier for both of us to just do what we were doing independently rather than as a team/couple.

This has been the pattern for many, many years for us, starting soon after we got married and ever so slowly getting worse as the years passed. It's tough to not slide into our old habits of communicating/interacting in these last few sober weeks.

Again, thanks for starting and posting in this thread, folks. You have shed light on something I needed to see more clearly and I am grateful.

MrsDarcy

honeypig, thanks for responding, this does help. The lack of overt drama in my A has been something that has fed my denial. For a long time I've been reluctant to call him an alcoholic. I would say I'm not comfortable with his relationship with alcohol--for whatever that means! And this isn't the life I want either.

MrsDarcy

Loopydays, I found myself knodding my head through this entire post. I worked very hard as a kid to stay invisible to my Dad because, although we didn't see it real often, he had a lot of meanness in him and I didn't want it directed at me. And I have also carried a lot of the attitudes and behaviors I learned as a kid into my marriage. After I submitted my original post yesterday, it occured to me that the reason I've tolerated this marriage for so long is because the lack of demands he makes on my issues has allowed me to avoid confronting them. I've built myself a bubble where I get to avoid dealing with things that I need to deal with if I'm ever going to live a better life. I've chosen a husband who has never asked me to be truly emotionally connected to him. I think I thought I was protected myself from more pain but it turns out that its not working, not working at all.

Thumper

Good responses so far, they have been helpful for me. Thank you loopydays especially, for your helpful post.

I was great at detaching before we had kids/marriage/life. I was great at ignoring after that but not real emotional detachment. There was to much at stake after things got 'real' so that didn't work out to great for me but...

For me personally our little dance of detaching (or ignoring/denying/whatever it was) worked out so well because it afforded *me* that extra bit of isolation and a high wall between our relationship and my inner self. It was a strange mix of complete emotional enmeshment on one hand and complete lack of any real honest intimacy on the other. It was a horrible way to live myself and with a little space I can see it was a horrible way to be a wife too. I can't say it was dishonest because I did not have awareness but it must have been quite damaging on his end none-the-less.

Tuffgirl

MrsDarcy, first of all welcome to SR. Secondly, these sentences above rang so true for me, as well. And I found that although it was easier for me at the time (raising daughters from a first unsuccessful marriage by myself, building a career) and I could focus on my own life, it wasn't too long before I began to miss what I really wanted to have - the emotional connection to someone who was present each and every day and who challenged me to be, too. By the end of my marriage to my A, I thought I was being "detached" but really, I think I was simply checked out. Numb to it all.

Thanks for sharing this. I know I won't be the only person it resonates with.

Keep posting and keep coming back!
~T

MrsDarcy

It was easier for long time, with "easier" being a relative term, but not anymore. I have a few times over the years tried to confront his self-involvement and substance abuse (he's mostly a beer drinker but he went through a pot-smoking phase a few years ago--I think he thought that was better--it's not) and those times did not go well. He is capable of drama and quacking and all that other BS, I just generally don't have to see it unless I choose to open that door and I've learned that's a waste of my time. You are right, it is self-absorbtion that drives him but I think I've been guilty of my own brand of self-absorbtion. I have a lot of work to do and I don't expect change over night (me, I mean, not him), but I finally feel ready to do it.

This is so true, and it also gave me a little laugh cuz I have my own version of this metaphor--if the only tool you own is a hammer, you are going to try to turn every problem into a nail. Time to get some new tools!

MrsDarcy

I just want to thank all of you for the responses. It's taken me a long time to get to a place where I could post here, but I finally decided to treat it like a challenge to myself. I want to learn how to be better at opening myself up to others and this seems like a good place to practice that. Every single time I visit this forum, whether it's for two minutes or two hours, I take away something I can use. Much of it is not very comfortable, scary even, but it's what I need and I hope I have something to offer others as well. Thank you.

dandylion

Dear MrsDarcy, I think your post is one that resonates with an awful lot of people, here on the board. It sounds, to me, like you have done a lot of personal growth and are taking stock of where you are and how you want to live. To me, that looks like a sure sign of healthy self esteem. By the way, I know the courage and determination it takes to navigate this kind of personal journey. to borrow another saying from AA--"It is an inside job"

While we are on the subject of emotional closeness---I am remembering a principle of human relationships (couples) that is at play, even though we are usually not fully conscious of it. I learned this in a psych course in marriage and family. I have observed that this seems to hold true--and it certainly applied to me, personally. It goes, generally, like this:

When a couple engages with each other, there is an understanding of how much emotional closeness AS WELL AS DISTANCE that they are comfortable with. Both engage in a "dance" to keep this specific amount of distance in play.***The rub comes when/if a change in one of the partners occurs, such that that partner's needs change--like, it they want more closeness or more distance. IF there is not a corresponding change in the other partner---WOW--there is H*** to pay in the relationship!!! Almost all of this occurs without much conscious awareness. This is not to say "good" or "bad" ---- this just describes that it happens.

MrsDarcy, your current situation caused me to remember this.

I thought you might find this interesting.

sincerely, dandylion

firebolt

This one hits home with me too. 1 - I don't enjoy spending time with a drunk. 2 - I can't talk to a drunk - they are not a partner to me when drunk 3 - I won't sleep next to a drunk. Needless to say, I have created distance because of his drinking. He isn't dramatic or abusive. He's been mouthy with me a couple times, but since I stay away from him when hes drinking, that's over with.

Because of this, 2 - 4 nights a week, I spend a lot of time by myself and sleep alone. Is this a life or relationship I want forever? Nope.

Even though his drinking doesn't affect me directly as much because of my detachment, it is affecting my life and my memories.

I can't reminisce about some family dinners with him - because he wasn't there - because I left him at home to his beloved drink. Our favorite things to do - long camping trips, fishing trips etc are becoming less and less fun to me because I know hes going to be drinking. I am starting to want to do those things alone or with friends - not my partner. I do not run to him in happy, sad, or scary times to share together - because he can't share feelings. He just numbs them. I'm finding myself less sexually attracted to him because we are not as emotionally connected. Plus - he lets himself go because of alcohol - less showers etc.

Is this a life or relationship I want forever? Nope.

Freaking sad - I hate this disease. Love and hugs to anyone dealing with it in ANY form.

honeypig

Yes, absolutely true. He has complained for the past several years that we "live like roommates", yet does not seem to see any need for an emotional connection for there to be a sexual one too. He works in a factory that has a fairly nasty chemical smell (kind of like cat pee) and while he does change clothes promptly when he gets home, he showers very infrequently and the smell remains on his skin. For a while, I tried to get him to clean up every once in a while but finally stopped when I realized how ridiculous it was for me to be asking a man in his mid 50s to take a freaking shower! I was also responsible for some time for making sure he got up in time to go to work, until I insisted he have and set his own alarm clock. We have not slept in the same bed for many years, as he snores loudly and I am a fairly light sleeper. (interestingly, the snoring is virtually gone over the past few weeks when he has not been drinking--just another way that alcohol comes between people!)

I feel foolish that I did not realize these things were all alcohol-related (altho honestly, I had no reason to suspect that he was drinking for most of the years). I just kept pulling further and further back as the situation got more unpleasant, knowing I was not happy but not knowing exactly why or what to do to make things better. Had he been violent or falling-down drunk, the problem would have been obvious much, much sooner, but instead we just slowly slid down, things degenerating as we went. I'm grateful that finally the truth is out, work can be done and eventually decisions can be made, however hard they may be. Scary but necessary.

dandylion

honeypig, our time on this planet is short and we deserve to find some happiness while we can.

I am wishing only the very best for you.

very sincerely, dandylion

grammyb

Thank you for this wonderful post. This was such a breakthrough moment for me. I also benefited from the emotional detachment that helped me through the years of denial..I just did what I wanted for years.
I just could not figure out why the blinders came off last year after my father passed away and my breast cancer. Why did I all of a sudden feel different ?
From this post I realized that suddenly at the age of 61, I realized life was short and that I needed and wanted more. Wow! Thank you for the eye opening post....I got more work to do but thank you so much for sharing this.