loft08

ugh where do i start? well for 7 months now I have been involved w a guy that at age 16 lost his dad and age 21 lost his mom. Both very devistating to him. I do believe that is led him to being an alcoholic although.. that subject is very rarely approached. It is so hard to describe the hell in which i am going thru to keep this relationship going. He constantly blames me and tells me im wrong when there is an issue and when a problem arises he tells me to basically 'shut it' and that he would rather date someone that doesnt need to talk about issues but would just rather let them pass. I feel as i am a smart woman (all aside from this relationship) and i see the need of talking issues out rather than letting them build. He always disappears to drink with friends or by himself and shuts me off all the time. I know i sound stupid when i say i know he loves me. I just dont know w his current alcoholic situation and the fact he has lost all his family how damaging this can be on me b/c there are many issues that this causes that I CANT UNDERSTAND OR ADAPT TO. I nee help wrapping my head around how im being treated and how to let go.

PrettyViolets

I naively went into marriage not realizing how progressive alcoholism can really be. Looking back at our dating relationship, I realized that our dating relationship revolved extremely around social drinking--going to bars, hanging out and making dinner having wine or him having a beer, etc. It was meant to be the cool thing to do. But with an alcoholic, it can progress to something that it not cool, it actually is pretty scary.

I think Al Anon helped me a lot because I did not feel alone. And AA will help him, so he does not feel alone as well. But he has got to want to recover himself. It really took a lot for my husband to admit that he was powerless over his alcholism and that he could not do it himself. He has since been helped by AA and a recovery program. He is now a frequent poster on www.soberrecovery.com. His family and I are committed to not drinking around him. And good news, after a year of being unemployed and a DUI, he has just started a new job and his DUI is about to be resolved.

Yeah!! Happy wifey dance!!! :bounce

Take care of yourself first. Focus on your recovery. The "Getting Them Sober, Volume I" books was very helpful to me.
Getting Them Sober- Recovery Communications

cmc

Welcome to SR.
You might want to check out the sticky threads here to learn more about how others cope with the same issues you shared.
Al-Anon is a great place to start and there are many wonderful people here on this forum who will offer you support and share what works for them.
It's nice to meet you.

twistedruby

Hi and Welcome !

I'm sorry you're having to go thru that.


I'm new here myself but if I were in your shoes I'd want someone to tell me to get out of the relationship Now while I can.
Do NOT marry him.
You can't change him and he's already rude and disrespectful.
It'll hurt a lot less now than years down the road and then it'll involve possibly a divorce and maybe kids......Very Messy.

You aren't responsible for his happiness or how he chooses to deal with and react to the tragedy of losing his parents when he did.
He didn't take advantage of any grief counseling, if the funeral home or someone else offered it ?...
He needs help from counseling re: losing his parents.....but you can't Make him go.
(Unless it's His idea, counseling for the drinking won't help)

If you hang around it'll be like watching a slow train wreck....and you'll get dragged along with the whole thing.

I hesitate to say more, and may have said too much without knowing you or your BF better.
Don't know if you are living together but if you are, that complicates it a lot more...If you aren't living together now...Don't.

If you are wanting to break up with him, I'm not the person to ask exactly how to go about telling him that....other than there will never be a good time to tell him....so don't put it off for that reason.


FYI: If either of his parents were killed by a drunk driver, MADD has Free booklets that address the additional anger and grief involved....and dealing with not being able to say goodbye.
Even if their deaths are not recent......that is what MADD is there for.
I know they had free pamphlets and booklets in 2003.....

MADD re-structured in 2005 and is Not the same as it used to be.
I would hope they still give out free info. on how to cope better.

There's Lots of support here !
I hope something I've suggested has helped or made sense.

GiveLove

Loft,

Many people go through terrible life-events and do not use this as an excuse to drink themselves stupid. Don't blame his alcoholism on what happened - alcoholism is what it is, and can come out of the blue, even to someone who's had a perfect life.

If you aren't even married to this guy and he's already talking to you like you're his dog (worse, really -- I don't talk that mean to my dogs) then you need to think about whether you want to be treated two or three times worse than this, maybe more. Marriage doesn't make verbal abuse like this go away. It gives the abuser permission to do much, much more to you.

If he won't even admit he has a problem, let alone do anything about it, then you are signing up for a terrible life by insisting on sticking around for this kind of treatment. Was this how you were brought up, by any chance? Did people feel free to tell you to "shut it" whenever you said something that made them uncomfortable? For many people, that kind of abuse is completely unacceptable behavior; for someone who's been brought up this way, it may seem perfectly normal.

Read around here, read the stickies at the top of the main screen for this forum. There's a lot to learn there. Al-Anon meetings can also help you know more about what you are up against with alcoholism, and how you can stay sane even in the face of it.

Good luck

You deserve much more than this.

cem001

What they are all saying is so true. I lived with an active AH for 17 years before he hit is rock bottom, and the scars will never go away. You might begin to heal, but the abuse in an unexcused behavior.

Find Al-Anon, keep posting here.

If I had Al-Anon before we were married (I was 17 when we got married, not pregnant either) I would have NOT married him.

Life was pure hell. Now in recovery, life is so much nicer, I can see the real husband, father that I knew was in there.

If I had only had some knowledge, things would be a whole lot different right now.

Barbara52

Good. You have limits that for you are firm. Don't forget that as you decide whether to continue in this relationship. As you mull this over, ask yourself if you love him as he is not as you see he could be. You cannot make him change, only he can do that.

FormerDoormat

Then why not end your nightmare? How did I end my nightmare? By opening my eyes.

sadandhopeless

My husband lost his father as well and it caused a downward spiral but until they are ready to admist they need help there is nothing you can do. You can not and must not stop living your life to live with a man that is choosing to ignore your feelings and thoughts over the bottle.

sadandhopeless

Loft08

Once your guy is ready for help he will let you know. My husband has just decided to see a therapist andhe loved her she prescribed him some medication has been helping him deal with the death of his father who was also an alcoholic - and abused his family and my husband for many years. He is still drinking. I think he needs therapy 5 times per week. But at least he is admitting he has a problem. that is the first step.

sadandhopeless

I love your screen name. It is fantastic. How did you finally open your eyes and decide on how to handle the situation. How did you finally make the choice to leave. I have told my husband the alcohlic I was leaving a thousand times but never did for fear of my family finding out he was a raging alcholic. I have not children holding me back. I would not want children in this environment. I did not grow up in an alcohlic household and drank socialy with friends - but that stopped 10 years ago when I was 23 and realized the extent of my husbands problem. I had to be the baby sitter and make sure he was still breathing every night, had to make sure he made it to work, had to make sure he went to his dr appointments, had to make sure his bills were paid, had to make sure about everything. To sum it up I was and still am his enabler. I am just alwasy scared he will die if I am not here, but he will die on this path even if i am here and I could not bear that.

FormerDoormat

This is one of the many eye opening realizations I had. I couldn't prevent him from drinking or from drinking himself to death. Eventually he did just that. Only I wasn't there to watch, thank God. I chose to end the relationship three years prior to his death. The life you've described here is hellish in my opinion, but you haven't seen anything yet. It gets worse as their disease progresses.

My nightmare ended when I opened my eyes and realized that I was living in a hell of my own making: I was choosing to stay.

suzieq1972

How do you let go? You finally realize that you can only take care of yourself and no one else. You can't fix him or his problems any more than he can fix yours.

Kindeyes

Loft
Welcome to the dance of the alcoholic and co-dependent. It's a dangerous dance. A dance that threatens lives. It's a dance that becomes more entangled and dangerous as it goes on and on. We've all been there and are in varying degrees of our own recovery.

My son is the A in my life. I have watched the women he has loved get turned inside out by his drinking and the behaviors that accompany active addiction. I have watched them save themselves by getting out of the relationship. I have watched the pain it has caused my son. I have supported the decision by these women 100% -- even though I had grown to love them too.

I knew that by staying with him and allowing him to treat them poorly, they were doing damage to themselves AND TO MY SON.

It sounds like you have already recognized your boundaries but you haven't yet begun enforcing them. Your bf has had terrible tradgedy in his life. But you aren't helping him by feeling sorry for him. He needs to deal with his grief and get on with his life but you can't make him do it. You can't make him stop drinking. You can't make him "wake up". You can't cure him. Only he can help himself and he has to want it first.

Learn all you can about alcoholism and co-dependence. There are wonderful books out there to help you. Read the stickies at the top of this forum. Concentrate on you.

gentle hugs