SoloMio

I posted recently about AH's decision to go to detox. Fortunately, he actually went, and unfortunately, it was bad timing: a week before Christmas. As might be expected, he didn't make it through Christmas without drinking.. a lot. New Year's was sober however.

His sponsor called him up yesterday, and in drill sergeant fashion scooped him up and got him to AA. Actually, this approach is good for AH, who was an active Marine from 1970-1972, and who enlisted because he was afraid of where his addictions were going to take him.

But he is still drinking and the drinking behavior is not fun. I'm not going to detail a list, but my fuse is getting shorter and shorter. I seem to feel very, very impatient for no apparent reason. I'm jumpy and agitated. I'm not sure why.

Last fall I set a personal boundary--he relapsed from 5 years of sobriety 10 years ago, and I'm not doing the 11th. In some ways we get along so well, and in other ways he belittles my simplest choice. I don't know if I can have the life I want, at my age (62) with such lack of support and respect.

I'm sure some of you are rolling your eyes at this point, because I've been here for a long time and haven't quite exhibited behavior anyone would call self-respecting, bold, or assertive. But today I feel the same way I have in other periods of my life, when intense impatience and irritation have presaged a turning point and change in my life.

I recently went to a family reunion and my dear aunt told me, "Sometimes you don't make the choice. Sometimes it's given to you."

If he is serious about sobriety (which I am far from convinced of), I'm willing to hang in. But if not, at this point, I'm looking what's in that outstretched hand that's offering me something else.

Katiekate

Hi Solo, I spent a lot of time trying to make decisions about my x based on a future behavior by him, I finally learned that the past and present behaviors were the only ones I could count on in my present moment and I had to make a decision based on what was right in front of me.

With that said, I was not married to nor did I live with my x, that realization was huge for me in moving forward with my life however.

Hang in Katie

PS no eye rolling happened while reading your post xo

NYCDoglvr

Alanon helped me a great bit, helped get my priorities straight and deal with my own issues. I recommend it.

lillamy

I can see many reasons. You've invested a lot of hope, love, and energy in a relationship with a person who seems pretty well stuck in addiction.

I'm a tad younger than you are (but not all that much), and I've found that in the years after, oh, say, 45, I've simply lost patience. With a lot of things. I don't feel like life's over, but I also don't have that feeling that life's this unending summer stretching out ahead of me, and so I simply don't have patience for things and people that I feel influence me in a negative way.

Don't get me wrong -- we can't always get away from them. I have a kid who's probably already taken 20 years off my life, but I can't sell her to a circus (even though there are days I want to). I hate my job with a redhot passion (it's really quite a bit like working with a bunch of actively drinking alcoholics) but I need to make a living so I can't quit until I have something else.

But the switch that happened in my thinking somewhere between 45 and 50 was that... I was just fed up with DOING for other people and ignoring how it affected me. So now, even if I can't get out of a situation immediately, I can tell myself "this sucks and I'm GONNA get out of it asap" without feeling guilty.

I guess what I'm telling you is -- I think you have a lot of reasons for feeling the way you do, and even if YOU don't see the reasons, you can still give yourself grace enough to assume that your feelings are valid. That is -- rather than question your feelings, just assume you have a right to have them, and go from there.

Stung

I'm 29 and I feel impatient with my own AH who is working a program and is actually becoming a much better husband and father.

I go to al-anon to work on my impatience. I go to counseling to work on feeling jumpy. I come here to realize that whether my AH is going to work a program or take sobriety seriously is something that really is one day at a time. He can't tell me whether he's going to drink tomorrow or not. And I can't decide if one more relapse is going to be enough to finally put me over the edge because I think that you just know if/when it actually happens.

I do know that being separated and having space from him is buying the both of us a lot more patience and acceptance of one another. I do not know how people live with alcoholics who are new to recovery or are struggling with quitting for good. I especially do not know how people live with active alcoholics.

Maybe a little space is what you need too?