Tigeress

But what do you do when your A is never sober? When do you talk?

spedteach

Tigress,

How about when he or she wakes up first thing in the morning??? Before the first drink? Or you can write him/her a letter explaining your feelings...I've done that several times and I felt a lot better and guess what?? I never even gave him the letters, I just tore them up, but man did it feel good to get things off my mind!!

You can talk away here, everyone will listen

Hang in there!!

2many2count

Tigress...(((((((HUGS)))))))

I agree with Spedteach on this one. Try it. There has to be some moment that he isn't drinking. Writing is good and it has helped me alot too.


Thinking of you

2many2count

Tigeress

when he is SLEEPING! No, seriuosly, that is the only time he is not drinking. Letters? I'd rather talk here. At least you all listen. I am getting better with his drinking but, if he gets in trouble again he is getting out of it himself with HIS money, not mine from now on.

Dreamer2

Well gal, I was really surprised with how everything turned out that weekend. When I read that he said there was someone else, my heart did a flip-flop and I felt awful until I read on to find out the real situation.

I don't have any experience in this area, but I just want to say hurray for you realizing that you cannot talk to someone when they are drinking. It took me awhile to learn that too. I think you did good not to go off, just listen.

It sounds as if he was holding this in for a long time, but then again, you mentioned that you had talked about it before, but maybe not to that level where he says he thinks about it everyday.

And the problem with his father. Sounds like good old dad has his issues to deal w/too and your dh needs to know that he cannot control his dad's behavior.

I sure hope this is a breakthrough for you two, but I do think that your dh could still do w/some counselling. Some help w/bereavement and how to cope maybe.

At least he didn't seem to want to argue, just take a shot of courage in order to say what's on his mind. Still using alcohol as crutch, but you know that.

Well, I wondered about you that weekend, and I'm glad that you replied. Was it better than you expected in some ways?

BTW, I write letters to my dh too and end up putting them in the shredder.

Don't get too comfy now, I'm sure you know there is still work to be done, but I'm glad something came out of it all.

Big (((((Hugs)))) lady.

ODAT

Just to confuse you even more

Another opinion.

I like the 'I don't want to hear it' line because it takes responsability for your feelings. The 'what you did was unacceptable' is okay, but perhaps the 'I think that behaviour was unacceptable' is better just because it also owns the feelings, labels the behaviour and not the alcoholic...and thus has the potential to make it more hearable.

Honestly though? I think that in no other place is the serenity prayer or the third step prayer more important than at this type of encounter. Just because I figure it helps me to realize that the results are really and truly out of my hands.

I know that when I was going through the process of leaving my ex.....I left I think about 5 times at least before finally leaving for good.....I found it so very difficult to remember all the little phrases....and to keep them valid for the conversation at hand. Like sometimes he would call and be really nice....and then other times or even in the same conversation he would change and be really hurtful....so I never knew what was up or down.

He was a dry alcoholic...one who went to the program at times just 'for the fellowship' would find some new girl there and 13th step them....and still at home he would be just as or worse than one who was actually out there drinking. My sponsor had me write the third step prayer near the phone....and every time the phone would ring I had to say it just incase it was him.

I got very good at turning things over then. And I really truly believe that the times I said that prayer.....I found a strength to say things in a fashion that I couldn't have done all by myself. Sometimes I would stay very calm and other times....well I would raise my voice.....and I would call my sponser afterwards thinking I had failed and she told me that if I am truly leaving things in Gods hands and trying....then maybe I had to accept that just perhaps..on the times when I 'felt' I had lost it.....well....God was incontrol of that too....and maybe that was precisely what was needed at that given point in time.

I dunno.....I went on from there into more therapy and in there I learned the difference between talking loudly, standing up for myself and really yelling. And it turned out that whenever I talked to my ex....I would become very quiet and mechanical....and that all the control it took to do that...was still just placating his side of things. HE was the person who said I yelled....and so I believed him....and to make it worse to ME...the person who always spoke in whispers.....even speaking in an assertive voice....FELT like yelling. And then yes....there were times when I WAS yelling....and I don't really regret it either. :P

I like the ownership of feelings....approach....and the giving it over.....because really, thats all that we can do.

Dreamer2

Hi Taira,

There is nothing unconfusing about dealing w/an A, and you have to realize in any way, shape or form that you have no control in this matter. Whatever method it takes.

Just wondering. If I may ask, when you left your ex those 4 times, did you think he would stop drinking or whatever his substance of choice may be? Did you come back b/c of the Jeckle and Hyde personality who said he would change?

What finally did it for you the 5th time that you did not come back?

It's hard to accept, I know, but what matters right now is you.

Hugs,

ODAT

The most confusing thing about this particular ex was that to all extensive purposes he 'was NOT using'. He had been dry for quite a long time and at first he 'appeared' to be very stable.

So when I went into the relationship it was with very much of a 'good, he's clean' mentality and 'I don't have to worry" kind of thinking. We were living in a town close to where I am now and at that point in time he did not go to any meetings....just did the control thing, and was trying a couple of 'alternative' religious/spritual things that seemed to be interesting. Then we moved to Victoria and he went to the odd A.A. meeting at the Alano club. His behaviour in Victoria turned abusive almost the minute we stepped off the plane, although looking backwards I can now see where because of MY background, I had already started giving over huge chunks of myself in order to keep the relationship going much much earlier.

In Victoria he started hanging out at the Alano club and stuff and coming home and just being down right mean to me and the kids. He was trying a vegetarian diet and had banned meat from the house...cut the kids down constantly b/c they didn't like the tofu stuff that was allowed in the house and continually cut me down. A couple of weeks later he hit me the first time and I was in complete astonishment. This man WAS NOT using! I was pregnant and he had apologized and so that time I didn't leave....but waited untill a month later when he had locked me out of the apartment in another one of his episodes.

I left, took the kids to the interval home and he decided he needed to enter anger management counselling.
When he went there, I was counselled on my end that likelihood of any permanent change was exceedlingly slim although I remained hopeful that he would change. I did not live with him again although we kept trying to get back together and work out the differences for the next few years.

After leaving the interval home, I got my own place and prepared for the birth of the baby and he would alternatively cry to me about how much he needed/wanted to be with me and then cut me down and use alot of intense emotional abuse towards me. It seemed that he was one that always had to have a girl on the side and the times when he was getting 'mean' was when it looked hopeful with whoever the young thing was that he was 13th stepping at the time.

After the birth of my son, I found the doors of Alanon and it was my sponsor who brought it to my attention how his behaviour although minus the obvious using part....was typical of those going through a dry drunk. I tried talking to him, tried to see if he would ever think of trying any of the actual stuff that they did in the program but he figured it wasn't for him.....he didn't have a problem....and the steps and stuff were great for those who did, but he could control it. And to all intensive purposed he could control it.....and controlled absolutely ever other thing that went on that he could too.

My behaviour at first was not the greatest. After living in the house hold I grew up in and all of that close to the surface, I have to admit that there were times when it felt good to stand up and mock salute him says "yes sir, no sir, up yours sir".....very childish I know.....but man it did feel good. Over time I learned that there just was nothing in his behaviour that I could affect and I had learned to recognize some of the patterns--how he would sabotage every time I had something good going for myself, go through extremely abusive things and how I responded. There were times when I felt strong and then times when I felt vulnerable and it was those times when he would hit the hardest with whatever emotional tool he could. We would go through a period of things being okay, then tensions would build (usually as he was starting to date someone else on the sly) and then a violent episode would hit. The relationship would 'end' and then a few days later or even the same night I would get the phone calls coming.....and he was very good.

He didn't really apologize for HIS behaviour at all....just sort of excused it......put the blame on other things (his mother, me, the kids.......the other girl even at one point)....and then went on and on about how he missed the first few months we were together. The third time this happened I knew that the phone calls were bad for me and that was when I had to start saying the prayer. One time I was out and he called and left a 15 minute message on my answering machine....it was a gift in a way because through that I got to sit and analayse it with my sponsor and one of the womens counsellors at the abuse shelter and I slowly learned how I kept getting hooked back in with some of the things he was saying. So I learned to stop those hooks.

We went through severel incidents during this period. Each time I had the opportunity to lay charges etc and each time I chickened out. The fourth time I left him was when I had come to the realization that one of the biggest pulls to him was not him at all.......he had said something that he'd said so many times before and I had gone through the same set patterns of feelings...only this time through the grace of God I was able to sit back and kind of watch them.....and I realized that the biggest hook to this guy was that through him I was still trying to achieve that same old feeling of love and acceptance that I had always tried and failed to gain from my father. And it was as if a light went on and I knew.....very calmly.....that I had done all the work with this man that I could do.

That time I left for a long time, left Victoria, came back to Ontario and after a little while he followed me. We tried one more time over the following summer......I was still sort of hoping that because I had done so much work on myself, that maybe we could make it work......maybe I wouldn't get so annoyed and stuff......and over that vacation I realized quite alot about him and about me. I was very good at taking time outs when I found myself getting angry.....unfortunately it meant that out of every 10 minutes of being in the same room with him......I had to go and sit with my neighbour for a good hour.....because I kept getting angry. The control attempts by him were so obvious and seemed so petty to me at this point along with alot of other behaviour that just seemed outright irresponsible and babyish....that I realized that basically what had held us together for so long was our dual sicknesses. His being a dry alcoholic.....using control, anger and such to stay dry.....and me being a co-alcoholic that so needed the approval from one who could not be approving.

It is with this realization again that I come back once more to the program.....that even though I don't drink and am not alcoholic....I still came from an alcoholic family...and still am basically co-alcoholic.....and as such NEED the 12 steps and tools of alanon to keep living a sane life.

And that is regardless of who is in or not in my life.

Dreamer2

Hello. I read your post and I think I understand what role you played, not intentionaly, in this situation. You say as a child, you were constantly seeking the approval of your father and it was just not happening. What has been said if that women tend to get involved w/men that are similar to their fathers. Sounds like this is the case, and I hope that realizing this willl help you.

When you would start getting yourself together, it sounds as if your dh didn't want that to happen and needed to pull your self esteem down a few notches.

Not living together and trying to get things back together is the same situation that I am in. Since all this started w/us, I have changed and so has he, so I can't be too optimistic that things will ever be the same, even if he gets help. If it does work out, what we had in happier days is gone. It would be totally different.

You said you were counselled that there may not be too much hope that he will change. Your dh seems to think, from what you wrote, that he can conquer this by himself. He's different from other's w/this same problem. And I'm glad that you have realized your pattern of being taken back in. Like you said, whether it be with this man or anyone, you need to work on this. You have taken a major step here realizing this. Good for you!

I have to say that I am also guilty of similar thinking and need to work on myself also. Keep working on that part for you, not him, but you, and I wish you the very best. Honestly. Keep up the good work. Hugs.

ODAT

I left this particular person for the last time 6 years ago. I have since gotten engaged to someone who wasn't nearly as bad, and then broken it off with him because of a few things that he did that I didn't like.

After leaving the prior relationship for good, I adopted a zero tolerance stance for abuse. The man I was engaged to yelled at me a couple of times when out in public (McDonalds and ToysRUs) when the children were present and I saw a pattern starting to develop that I didn't like. Rather than stay and try to work it out, I left that relationship too. It was for the most part a long distance relationship and although I learned alot through it, and maybe on the other side of the pendulum....I am much happier. It is hard enough to work on my own behavior without the confusion of a man in my life and so for the most part, for the last 6 years it has just been my and my children.

I am much healthier now, although I have still a long way to go and it is all to easy to fall back into the same pattern of thinking with other people.....not a 'man' but friends and work mates and such. Hence, it really does come down (for me) to the simple owndership of the fact that I still need the program long after being away from any alcoholic that is 'in' my life.

Dreamer2

Taira, Just replied to your post, went to add Smilies, came back, my reply was gone....

Will reconstruct later ... gotta run. Sorry