Wondering

I have recently had to come to grips with my wifes drinking problem. It is not something that happened overnight, nor can I place all of the blame on her for how things are turning out. I am lost, confused, angry, sad, disappointed, frustrated, and really exhausted.

I have been married 4 years, lived with my wife for 6 years, and have known her for 12 years. I have 2 boys (2.5, 9 mo) with her, and an 8 year old daughter from her previous marriage. On the surface, it now looks like we live the dream life. In fact, it is the dream I have had since I was a little kid.

I grew up poor. No running water, electricity, my mother was a hippie so lots of pot smoking and hitchhiking around the country and Mexico. Never knew my dad. My mom found a step dad when I was 8 (before that was just a long string of losers). He wasn't perfect, I hated him, but he did stick with us through the years. Lots of emotional and verbal abuse, but I tend to think that is something that just happens when you live on the edge of society. My life may have been hard, but my wifes was much worse. Foster care, Mother strung out on whatever drug she could get her hands on, treatment centers, physical abuse, you name it and she probably experienced it as a child.

However, she is a wonderful loving and caring person. I have gone through the best of times and the worst of times with her. Right now I am so mad, because I thought the worst was over. I have been able to get us out of the apartments and into a beautiful house with all of the money we need to not only live comfortably, but be able to put money away for retirement.

When she divorced her exhusband (Here I must admit that I was a partial cause) her ex was understandably bitter. He used his parents money to make her (and my) life miserable, taking their daughter and only allowing "supervised" visits. This was when she was 1.5 years old. well, to make a long story short, we are in the process of getting custody of her. That is an extra stress on my wife.

I work a lot, but I do get to work from home. So at lunch time I can go eat with the family. I spend lots of time doing things around the house, and run numerous errands. I know I am not perfect, but I sure like to think I help out more then other dads. I have recently gotten a promotion at my job increasing my work time and stress, my grandfather (a great influence in my life) passed away 2 weeks ago, and I have finally come to accept that my wife is an alcoholic.

When my wife is not drinking, there is no one that can make you feel more loved or happy in the whole world. She seems to understand me better then I know myself. The house is spotless, the kids have a routine and life is great. Heck, even when she is drinking that happens for the most part. I never knew she was drinking at 5 am and throughout the day.

But lately, that constant drinking has turned more into binge drinking, and the binges are happening all to frequently. I never realized how often she had a reason to go to the store, and that was only to buy another flask of rum. about a bottle a day, maybe two.

She is bipolar, so she has medication for that, and when the two mix, its worse. The alternative is to not take her medication, and that is by far worse if she doesn't care.

She hates it. Its not like she wants to drink, but she cannot. She has attended a few AA meetings and wants to continue, but the relapses are probably never going to stop.

I have always wanted her to be a stay at home mom, so she has not had a job in 5 years. I say that, because how can I help stop her from drinking without being a control freak. I don't want to be the bad guy. Is it acceptable to take her license, her cash card away? Take her off of my account so she doesn't have easy access to money (It's not like she would then start finding ways to pocket money in other ways).

Worse yet, something like that would probably drive her further away from me. I am scared. I don't want a divorce. I don't want to be alone raising my children. If that happens, there is no way she is going to be able to have her daughter. I want us to be a family, but putting her in a treatment center for 30 days of detox and whatever is not an option now.

How can I encourage her to get better? I get mad and that only makes things worse. I cannot do both the house work and my job because I am reaching the point of exhaustion.

The more I read on alcoholics, the sadder I become. This is a horrible disease that ruins families for years. I have read some posts of people saying they were married to an alcoholic for 15+ years. Hope is definitely a reason, I know I hope things get better, but do they ?

How can I weight the damage that she inflicts on me and the children versus living a single parent family. What is good for me and for the children. (Her exhusband is an alcoholic too, and much worse, so I really don't want her daughter to go back there). I am holding on until the custody papers get signed, then I am going to try and talk my wife into a treatment center.

I guess I just needed to vent. I know I need to read more, and attend an AL-anon meeting. the time just seems to slip away.

I guess my question really is, How can I help her get better without screwing up my children and myself's life?

I know its a long road to recovery, if she ever makes it, but I don't know if its worth to hang in here.

smoke gets in my eyes

Hi Wondering.

Welcome to the recovery forums! The problem is... you can't help her get better. She gets better on her own, or not. I understand why you want to stall the treatment center until you have custody of her daughter. I take it you feel the daughter is better off in your home because you are there. Otherwise it's one drunk or the other. But I wonder if you're going to have to look back a few years from now and wonder why you enabled her in this way. Why should she have her daughter? Is she (not counting you) a better parent than her ex husband? Better than whoever else would have custody if it's shown he's unfit as well? She doesn't have to stop drinking to keep her daughter. You're taking care of that. The longer we stand between a substance abuser and the consequences of their actions, the longer they use without consequence. They tend to stop when it hurts more to continue than it does to be without. But I also understand that the safety of this child may be more on your mind and that's a tough place to be. Enable your wife or put the child in uncertain circumstances. I don't envy you.

Please feel free to come here and vent anytime. And I hope you will find the time to check out those meetings. You may want to look at our "book club" post. You can find it in the "Forum Powerposts" at the top of this forum. It's just a list of reading that some of our members have found helpful.

I'm glad you found us.

hugs,
Smoke

brightlight

I did not have the bad life as a child and was never around alcohol. My husband drinks. He did a lot of drinking when he was young and when we were first married. It never mattered much to me till our daughter was born and then I think because I was raised without drugs or alcohol I wanted my daughter to have the life I had so the drinking bothered me. Later he quit drinking and did not drink for about 7 years and now we have a son. I work at home on the computer and I homeschool. He has a great job and we should have only good things to look forward to, but he started drinking two years ago. You describe that your life is good except that she drinks. She takes care of the kids and the house, but does she do anything wrong? I was wondering because I have been so mad at my husband for messing up our life and even thinking what it would be like if I left him and would it be better. Better than what, I started asking myself. My children missing their dad. Me missing him. Living on one income. He is not mean to us when he drinks. It does cost money for him to drink, but he works and if I was on one income then it would be worse. I really started wondering why I wanted him to stop drinking. Partly it was I was trying to control his every move and make him do everything I wanted, but I gave that up. The other was his health, but he smokes and I never left him for smoking, so why would I for drinking? His dad drank and smoke and it was lung cancer that got him. He did not have any drinking illnesses. My husband does not help out as much at home as he used to, but I do what needs to be done the most. Cooking, dishes, clothes, and I spend as much time with the kids as I can doing fun things. School starts for us tomorrow and my husband has not even looked at the school work for the last few months. His job is very important to him and that is all he thinks about. When he gets off he goes to the bar and stays and usually misses supper. I quit yelling and started taking the kids places so that we would not be home when he got here and he has kind of backed off of going to the bar. He bought beer yesterday and brought it home. I am losing weight and exercising and take vitamins and I am getting more energy. He is very tired and losing weight, which he does not need to lose. I am hoping that by just letting him do his own thing that he will get tired of it and either quit like he did once before or at least cut down on the amount. Hang in there.

givingup

Is it worth it? That's a question only you can answer. I hear the despair in your message. Maybe its just the echo of the despair of my own heart that I hear. Tonight is not a good night for me either so just know that you are not alone. I have faith that there is purpose for this time of anguish.

TinyVoice

Hmmmmm...wondering about a few statements in your post. Something to think about. I think you need to focus less on her and look at yourself a bit too. Alcoholism is a tough disease but it is easy to focus only on that and not look at the big picture. Does your wife want to be a stay at home mom? Sometimes a job does wonders for esteem issues. You work at home all day? And she is there with the kids?? I would feel a bit too much togetherness and I am afraid a tad bit smothered. Hmmm... how to escape? A bottle? For me it was food. I gained a ton of weight becuase we were living my HUSBAND's life not OUR life. I don't say all of this to cause you pain or be hurtful but to help you to perhaps see EVERYTHING that MIGHT be going on in your life.

Good luck

Wondering

I have a thick skull, so please be blunt.

Is this her dream life ... It was as far as I know. She wanted to have children and be at home to raise them. She convinced me that is what she wanted. Before that we were barfly's. We used to live at all of the local hangouts, we whooped it up everynight all night. She wanted to get away from that, we got married and settled down. (hehe, don't kid yourself for a second it was that easy though, we went through some tough times financially and emotionally, but through it all we stuck together and achieved our goals).

Is this my dream life now (barring the alcohol) .. well, tough to say. Coming from nothing, I always wanted to have my house on the hill with the white picket fences and never worry about money. My house isn't on a hill, and no picket fences, but it is a gorgeous house that we both fell in love with. I do want to travel and see the world, she is afraid to fly. I love my kids now and would not trade them for anything, but I would never have experienced this without them, and my wife. I would not want it any other way, so I guess that makes this the dream.

I cannot blame her for turning to drinking. Like I said, I am not perfect. I did spend a lot of my time playing computer games online, going away on trips, etc. I tried to buy things to make up for the lost time, but that never worked. She wanted me to work at home. I can easily work in my office, and in fact I almost prefer it, but I have to admit it is so nice to wake up in the morning, walk downstairs and walk into my office for work.

but .. back to her.. the life of a stay at home mom is not easy. I would never want her job. Its monotonous and pretty unrewarding. you wake up, get the kids up, make breakfast, clean up the house, keep the kids active, make lunch, clean up the house, keep the kids active, make dinner, clean up, bath time, read them some books, then repeat. (I will miss this time when they grow up, but sometimes having little kids is quite hard). Her ability to multitask is quite amazing to keep us all going (She considers me the fourth child). She needs an outlet and a reason to get out of the house. But she chooses to stay at home, and with that, drinking. I have always encouraged her to do anything with her life. I paid for her to go to college, I buy what I can whenever she thinks about some hobby. I wish she would go visit her friends and get away, but it never seems to happen. Instead she wants me to go, or to login.



She is functionaly drunk now getting the kids to bed, if I go upstairs I get stared down and yelled at. I guess another day is done with. This does help some so I guess I will keep posting my thoughts here.

I guess hope does keep me going, I just hope its not 15 years worth

sweeks

Hi wondering! I'm sorry that you're having such a hard time. I wish I had some wisdom to offer but I don't.... I just wanted to say that you are in much the same situation that my father (step father actually but he might as well be my real dad) was in a few years ago (it's gotten much worse latley *wry*). Just wanted to let you know that you're not alone and to say that smoke is right. My dad and I have been dealing with this for years and we've tried EVERYTHING we can think of to try to help and nothing has made any difference...All you can do is work on you and your recovery. ((HUGS))

ASpouse

I often ask myself of dreams, well once I achieve the dream what then? Are there new dreams?

Dreams are wonderful things and if they are achievable even better, but people change as do dreams.

Dreams and goals are two different things. I think you've accomplished one goal, do you have others?

TinyVoice

well now see....I was projecting my ex-husband's approach to married life onto you after reading your first post. And your response makes me think...nope you are nothing like he was. You obviously have given a lot of thoguht to your wife's happiness. See....it was just something to think about. Another perspective to ponder.

and your thick skull comment made me laugh.

My last relationship is with my ASO. We have been living together for a year but I recently asked him to move out. I know that he is totally addicted to alcohol and would give it up if he could do it without a great deal of work on his part. His body is so addicted. He shakes every morning. He rarely gets drunk but he drinks very very large amounts of beer every single day. I think he would truly like to quit...he jsut can't by himself right now. It is sad. It is certainly an addiction. And not an easy one to fight.

no real further advice....i kind of bombed out with any previous points I was trying to make anyway. Just a great deal of empathy on my part for your life iwth an alcoholic spouse. It's often heart breaking, frustrating and frightening.

Wondering

Another Day, Another Drink ---

At least the remorse is here today. The past few days it was not.

She called AA back, now has a sponsor and is going to todays meetings. That is good

Going to pick up her daughter, she had to have a drink beforehand because of stress or whatever ... that made me mad.. walking her around the school because she was stumbling. And of course drunks like to talk..

At least our daughter was happy with school and when she came home did her homework. She is so happy here and I am so thankful for that.

It seems like its been a long day.. getting up early, wife sleeping all day. I felt bad my boys had to watch TV all day while I worked. Glad the work part of my day is over. Now to the night routine.

Dawn10

Wondering,
I do hear alot of despair in your post. I am sad for you, sad for your children. The reality is this:She can only make the decision to stop drinking.[FONT=Arial]
There is nothing you can do FOR HER, that will push her into recovery.
I am a recovering addict. I know. My brother is a functional alcoholic and just as you describe, lives the "perfect life". My sister-in-law wants me or my Dad to "make him realize what he is doing." We can't.
My maternal grandpa was an alcoholic, never acknowledged it and what is worse his daughters, my mom and aunt, never did and to this day deny he had a problem. My paternal grandpa, realized when my Dad was in college, that he was enjoying those afternoon cocktails way too much and stopped. Never drank another drop. The point I am trying to show you is 2 people with the same problem and same choices--their choices.
I encourage you to find ALANON and seek support there. That is what you can do for yourself and your children. They are what is important.
Keep posting, there is ALWAYS someone here to listen! :shades:

Magichappens

Hey Wondering,
Dawn is right. We can't "fix" them. But we can learn how we have contributed to our own unhappiness. Al-Anon has helped me to learn how to let others be responsible for their own choices, actions, and thoughts. I am responible for mine. I needed support and love to make the changes I needed to make. I found in Al-Anon people who truly understood me, and could offer real solutions for me. I realize today that there is no solution in blaming someone else for my unhappiness. Neither is there a solution in beating myself up and taking too much responsibility. Through applying Al-Anon steps, slogans and literature to my daily living, I have been given new choices that I didn't even realize I had.

Letting go of the ideas that we are taught about the "perfect" marriage, and finding happiness in the life that we have actually been blessed with, has been a big part of my recovery. Learning to have the courage to face problems in relationships and handle them with honesty, love, but also detachment, is another big part. Building relationships with people who are living this way has helped me to know this is possible and achievable.

There is help and hope for us. There is a life that I never imagined. The first step is to reach out. Al-Anon Family Groups has meetings all over the world. To find a meeting http://www.al-anon-alateen.org/english.html and select 'How to locate a meeting'. Hugs, Magic