PerSe

I'm trying to stay in my lane and move ahead with my own life now that I've been in my new place for almost 3 months now. I'm going to my weekly Al-anon meeting (would like to be going to more, and hope to start doing that soon), I'm reading Courage to Change and Hope for Today each day, meditating a few minutes most days, exercising most days. Getting the kids through the summer.

But I just feel trapped in this sadness that I feel for STBXAH. I know that divorcing was a good move for me and for my kids but I am so sad that it has turned out this way. I'm trying to focus on "my stuff" and not "his stuff" but I am so sad that he is in constant pain, his hands shake all the time now, and he's probably going to get a knee replacement sometime when his workload lets up enough that he can do it. He will also probably need a surgery on his upper spine at some point too for spinal stenosis.

I just found out his family photos were all apparently lost in the clearing out of our house even though I packed them up for him and told him exactly where they were back in early July - so sad because it's all the memory he has of his sister who no one has heard from in over a decade. She was living on the street last everyone knew. Nothing I can do.

It was out of my lane to do this, but I recommended via text that he start taking a multivitamin and a vitamin B supplement to help with the hand shakes. I don't know why I felt compelled to do that. It just hurts so much to see him hurting so much.

I have days where I can "stay in my lane" and be pretty alright with my life now - I'm interviewing for a job in 2 weeks, accepted a great offer on the house. But I sometimes feel so guilty for leaving him so sick. How do you get out of that?

SparkleKitty

You let time do its thing, I think. This is grief, and it's unpredictable at best. You have a lot to mourn from the life that could have been.

I think things like sending the text about the vitamins are only problematic if you can't let go of the outcome. The likelihood is that he is not going to take your advice, and that is his right--just as it is all his right to live as he chooses, and not as you would have him choose.

velma929

You're not a doctor, you can't fix this. News flash: even if you were a doctor, you couldn't fix this. My former GP had a philosophy that she would work *exactly as hard * as her patient did to achieve optimum health.

You're doing your children an enormous service. You wouldn't want them to grow up thinking this lifestyle was normal, or that you, or they, don't deserve a partner who was 'all in.'

PerSe

I think a big part of my current struggle is that we were so enmeshed for all the years we were together. We used to joke that "great minds think alike, and so do ours" and "together, we make a whole brain!" and we would so often think the same thing at the same time, realize it, then be amazed that it had happened yet again. We did everything together - I never really had close outside friends. We drank together through my late 20s and 30s until I slowed down for babies and then quit altogether almost 5 years ago now. As soon as I quit, I suddenly started feeling a steady stream of resentment from him and I tried to maintain that "closeness" that we always had, but it was never the same after I stopped drinking. I am crawling out of the enmeshment mindset now but I guess I have a long way to go.

AnvilheadII

you are assuming he considers himself IN PAIN the way you think of pain.

back in 03/2019 you posted:
He’s the one who went out drinking last night – why do I feel guilty for planning to leave him? He slept until noon today – why do I feel guilty about the kids missing him? He’s the one who, after around eight beers last night before he went out, promised to spend this day getting the boys new baseball bats and practicing with them but instead slept until noon, then decided to just work in the garage all afternoon and drink more beer, so I took the boys to get the new baseball bats – why do I feel guilty? He’s the one who, over the years, has shut me down completely every single time I have raised my concern about his drinking – so why do I feel guilty? He’s the one who leaves me and the boys several nights per week, even if he doesn’t leave the house, to drink and stays checked out emotionally afterward – so why do I feel guilty for planning to divorce him?

i posit that your "guilt" has nothing to do with what you perceive as his pain or discomfort, but that still want to find some locus of control over HIS perceived problem.

he drinks to excess - he gets the shakes. stop drinking, stop shakes. and there ain't no vitamin that can cure it.

he "lost" the box of photos that you secured and told him specifically where it was located. if it was HALF as important to HIM as it was to YOU, he'd HAVE his mementos. you are using your feelings on how you think he must feel about this.

he continues to choose to stay in his addiction. he has options. he isn't using any of them. stop seeing him as "sad" - see him as a man living his life as he sees fit.

PerSe

Thank you, AnvilheadII, for reminding me about that post. Yeah, he did all those things. Then he mixed alcohol and meds in early July while the boys were with him, blamed it all on insomnia and how I have no idea how bad that is or what it's like. Yeah, he's the one doing this stuff. I guess I feel like I have the answers to his problems and maybe if I could just say it all in just the right way, then maybe he could hear me and come out of this pit that he's in, and maybe we could feel close like we once did or maybe he could at least be happy even if it's without me. Not gonna happen. In a way, I feel guilty for being happier now. But right - he's making his choices.

I will continue on with planning my new path and appreciating people, places, ideas, and things. And I will continue on with the sadness for now and remember that it will lighten as I go.

Mango212

How do you get out of that?




How I get out of that is by prayer, meditation, self-care and new actions. Continued new actions.

Prayer: God, please give me eyes to see and ears to hear your guidance in my life.

trailmix

What if he just had the shakes? What if he didn't lose the mementos, didn't need a knee replacement or potential spinal surgery?

Would you still be feeling so guilty?

The thing I see here is that the man probably has some legitimate health issues and perhaps is in real pain. This is a person you were very close to. It's pretty hard to separate that from the drinking.

But the truth is you didn't leave him because he needs a knee replacement, you left him because he was so bad for you and your children. You did the right thing, which is not so easy sometimes.

He is not the man you married. He is someone with problems that he continues to drink over. Alcohol is not a medication - for anything. Of course he is probably in despair, he is not in a good place at all, however you don't hold the key to solving it. You lived with him for years, did anything you ever said ever stick? Is he eating better, getting exercise, going to therapy (I'm just guessing you probably discussed all these things at some point).

One other thing to consider, that resentment you felt from him when you quit drinking, it may not have all been about the drinking. You also had two children and you were acting responsibly. He probably just wanted to keep on drinking. Sounds like you two were on two different pages perhaps (he might have said otherwise, perhaps not even known which page he was on).

All this is to say, you can't fix this. You can feel sorry the man is in pain, that's normal, but you can't fix this. If you could, you already would have. So you didn't abandon him, you just left him to his own devices.

PerSe

[QUOTE=trailmix;7241985 You lived with him for years, did anything you ever said ever stick? Is he eating better, getting exercise, going to therapy (I'm just guessing you probably discussed all these things at some point).[/QUOTE]

I guess this is part of what eats at me - I feel that I should have said more. I always feel like I should have communicated better with him when we were together. But I somehow always felt this sense of unspoken forbidding - like I don't tell you what to do and you don't tell me what to do, if that makes any sense, and it worked fine while we were drinking together and before he got the arthritis. I now feel like I should have said a lot of things along the way that I never said because I was afraid to say them. I did say what I needed to say about the drinking a few times along the way over the last few years and I would get a hard shut down every time. It was painful to feel his disgust and rejection, and then the lingering resentment and disdain. So I mostly didn't "nag" him about things like therapy, exercise, and eating habits (not that it would have made a difference).

Anyway, thank you for your reply. Different perspectives help me to see different things.

PerSe

Thank you Mango, yes action is powerful therapy. Acting before I feel like acting. My dad always says "freedom doesn't come from doing all the things you want to do, but from doing a whole lot of things you don't want to do".

I love the prayer too. I'm keeping that for part of my daily morning time.

dandylion

PerSe….the way you put it...it sounds like you might have some "survivors guilt".....?

hopeful4

I personally would stay out of his lane to the point of not knowing all of these details. There is help for his issues out there, he needs to be in charge of his own health and wellbeing, not you.

Put that focus on you my friend, and keep it there.

FireSprite

It always helps me to spin the way I say things like this - instead of thinking of it as "guilt over leaving him so sick", how about the idea that you stepped aside to give him the dignity of making his own life choices & dealing with his own consequences? That as a full grown man he has every right to choose to deteriorate his health if that's his preference.

All you did was stop taking a front row seat to the show & move far enough away to not get splattered when he smashes watermelons all over the stage.

SK was exactly right about time being the ultimate healer here - time & space for things to reveal themselves & reset to a New Normal.

SparkleKitty

I think this is a much the elusive dream for the codependent as moderation is for the alcoholic.

Newlife2019

Alcoholism can make arthritis worse and more painful. My XAH had both knee and hip replacements. The doctor said he had "an alcoholic's hip, full of holes."

It's easier to stop pitying them for their physical pain when you know they brought it on, at least in part, by drinking.

Another thought...As the years go on and he is further debilitated by drinking, do you want to become his full-time caretaker? Do you deserve that? Alcoholism is progressive, and the health effects get very severe when the alcoholic enters the end stage. You signed on to be a partner in life not a nurse, yes?

He's the one who should feel guilty for the pain, anxiety, and trauma he brought into your and your children's lives. Give yourself a break.

Hawkeye13

Beautifully said and painfully true SK

RainingButtons

Sasha1972

That sounds like survivor guilt talking to me. From what you've said, it sounds like you both spent a lot of time drinking destructively - but you pulled yourself out of it and he didn't. Your ability to pull back from disaster has nothing to do with him - it's all your own work - but I think our minds often trick us into believing that our outcomes are linked - not "I got out and [spouse/sibling/whoever] didn't", but "I got out because spouse/sibling whoever didn't, and is now still suffering".

This can make you feel like your own freedom is somehow illegitimate, or that you got it at the expense of someone else (XAH) and so you feel guilty. It's not logical at all, but when is any of this logical?

I experienced something similar with family of origin (no addicts and no really evil people, just parents who were socially isolated and in way over their heads with my siblings' problems) and with ex. In both cases, I felt like "the one that got away". It took time and therapy for it to really sink in that I didn't do anything to imprison these people in their suffering.

You don't need to feel guilty about not telling your ex he needed to be physically active, eat better, and seek help. He's presumably a grown-up who has heard of exercise, diet and counselling - whether he wants to take his knowledge into action is up to him, not to you or anyone else. If he were a child who needed guidance and you didn't provide it, then guilt makes sense - but that is not the case here.

trailmix

This! This is a really important point, thanks for posting this Sasha.

Perse, ever since I posted in this thread yesterday it has been niggling at me. What my point was and what I said kind of went by the wayside, perhaps not enough coffee (that's what I'll blame).

Also, as Sasha mentioned, none of those thing I mentioned are/were your "job" to do, I just kind of assumed there, no reason for you to feel guilty about that at all, you were his partner, not his caretaker.

I totally get the unspoken forbidden topics thing.

PerSe

Thank you all so incredibly much for your replies. I really appreciate it and I will continue to look at and reflect upon all that has been said.

As I observe my thoughts and tendencies, I see that in some kind of way sometimes it is easier to stay in the mindset I've been in for so long even though my situation has changed significantly. It's harder to stay focused on "my stuff" and create and build my own new life. But this type of focus and thinking - what does my emotional and spiritual well-being look like now? what does the logistics of my life look like now? what does my parenting look like? where are my friendships and social connections? - I will strive to keep my general focus here because this is where I can build my life in a healthy and positive and peaceful way. And I am going to start looking for a sponsor.

Your replies have helped me so much. I am really grateful for this forum.