Barbara52

You can get out of your entanglement and still maintain that glimmer of hope. From where I sit, it takes letting his recovery truly be his while you keep your focus on your own. That does not mean you have to give up on the hope that maybe someday you 2 can rebuild your marriage. It means you let it go and wait for time and God to reveal what your path will be.

strongerwoman

see, I dont know what getting out of the entanglement looks like, with us being married but separated.

Does it mean we still say "I love you" does it mean we still have contact, still try and discuss "us", does it mean we spend time together?

Or does it mean we just basically have no contact at all besides kids and money and live our seperate lives and hope somehow time will convince me one way or the other?

Cause right now we spend time together, I've spent the night there (but with no sex stuff), we email, we talk, we still say "I love you." We still act married yet are separated. And that is what I am getting impatient about.
It feels like we should either be #1: together and 100% commited to ACTIVELY working on the problems, making it the priority in our lives. working together on all of this.
Or #2: just end it. because living apart and not really working on anything isn't getting me anywhere but more confused and frustrated, and always worried about where he is or what he is doing and with whom. and it feels like he is getting his cake and eating it too, because I'm still there in the background being strung along.

Barbara52

There are other options. For instance, if I were in your shoes, I probably would stay separated and keep contact to the minimum required because of the connections required for the children. I would take this time to concentrate on me, my issues, my growth and recovery and let him concentrate on him, his issues and recovery. For me, I wouldn't be able to make a good choice to stay married or get divorced until I understood me and what I want in marriage and life better. I couldn't work on my marriage (if that was what I wanted to do) until I had a better understanding of me. I couldn't work on my marriage until he had a good long period of recovery under his belt.

As time goes by, you will know whether you want to stay married. You will see if he is serious about recovery. You will be better able to make a reasoned rather than emotional decision about your life. I think you need to stop being in such a hurry to make major decisions when your emotions are all over the place and you haven't gotten as far as you want in your own recovery.

Now I choose to leave and end it. But I had no children with my xAH. It made the decision much easier although still difficult. I could not stay in my dead marriage and had no urge to try and revive it.

OverItNow

"It's so hard to let go of the last strings attaching us, once it was soooo great. Its just so damn sad, and a real shame."

Yes, it is hard. I feel the same. However, if I am honest with myself, in my life, I think what you said in post #6:

"what if I am alone the rest of my life?"

Is what makes what you said in post #12 so hard for me in my life. Dunno, maybe it is in your life too? With me, it's not so much the man anymore (AH), it is the fear that makes it hard.

FormerDoormat

If that's a photo of you in your avatar, StrongerWoman, I don't see a woman with a facial birth defect. I just see a perfectly normal looking, lovely woman. I'd be willing to wager that's what the rest of the world sees as well.

ToughChoices

Hi, StrongerWoman!

I can really relate to your post! Perhaps you can benefit a little from my experience, strength, and hope in this situation.

My husband and I initially separated after he finished a month-long inpatient rehab stint. I visited him in rehab and participated in family sessions - I wanted to give our marriage a shot when he got out.
We decided together that the best arrangement for AH's delicate early sobriety was for him to live apart from the family. I knew that if he "slipped" around me I would completely lose it - we would be finished. I didn't want to be finished, yet. I wanted to give him some space to work his program, maybe make a mistake or two and get back on the right path.

That's not what happened.

Though we were "separated" physically, I was still very enmeshed in him emotionally. He would come over for dinner and visits with our son. We would talk about our future. We would have sex. I would WEEP when he left to go sleep at his apartment.

It was a sad and sorry state!

My brilliant solution? Have him move back in! I mean, he wanted to be here, I wanted him here, and it was difficult for him to stay sober when he was living alone.

In retrospect, I don't really regret the decision, I just see where my thinking was flawed. My problem was that I was trying to separate from him before I was ready to separate from him.

It wasn't even a half-a**ed separation - more like a quarter-a**ed!

We went to marriage counseling and individual therapy. We read healing books together and discussed them.

But he began to drink again occasionally, and I got slowly pulled back into the craziness. It took a little while to recognize it for what it was.

Now I am ready for separation. Really. This time we're not talking "cuddling on the couch, tucking the kiddo into bed together" separation, we're talking "here's what life will be like if/when we get a divorce" separation.

For me that means:
No sex (kissing, hugging, etc...)
No talking about his recovery/problems.
No discussions about the future.
No comforting favors (making dinner, doing laundry, paying bills, etc..)
Just kid stuff, money stuff, and, maybe, eventually some small talk.

It's not that I don't want to do these things with him - it's that it is ABSOLUTELY destructive to my emotional well-being to give myself fully to someone who cannot/will not do the same for me.

This kind of situation puts the responsibility back where it belongs: on the addict. He wants to be sober - he can - you guys might have a shot. If not, you're already ready to go!

Take care!
-TC

strongerwoman

Yes, that is me in the avatar from college graduation this May.
However, my birth defect affects the entire side of my face that you
aren't seeing :o) And you dont see how terrible my front top teeth are either.
And you'll notice how my hair is cut and curled/styled to cover that side of my face too....

I'm really not trying to make myself sound like an ogre or something, but this pic of me isnt a "true" pic of what I look like, it was a carefully chosen pic.

Thanks for the nice words though!

lizw

Hey

Nice to hear how your going. A woman I sponsor in Al Anon left her AH husband about the same time you started looking at 'giving it another go' with your AH. So in my mind the two of your are linked together, even though one of you is leaving and one is try to get it back together....if that makes sense.

I hope you know you are not alone, while we all may be different as people/have different personalities alcoholism appears to affect all of us in similar ways, especially with the whole alcoholic relationship thing.

I won't comment on what your AH is doing or not doing, and if you keep thinking about it, it will drive you mad. You may also think it is his lack of action that is affecting you but I am sorry to say it is your own thinking. Step 1 says we are powerless over alcohol and it makes our lives unmanageable. We are powerless over other people/places and things, and it is trying to control these things that send us Al Anoners nutty. Not the people/places or things.

I saw you said you've been going to Al Anon meetings. Do you have a sponsor? Have you started to work the steps? Made a commitment to one of the groups you attend to do service? These are the things I believe you ought to be concerning yourself with. God/HP will take care of your relationship - if you let him/her/it.

It all sounds to me like you equate love with drama-IMO. Like someone else posted, when it was all passionate you took it to mean he loved you but now that it is cooling down your starting to have second thoughts. This is the kind of stuff I believe we need to look at in recovery.

Take it easy.

prodigal

Man judges by outer appearances, but God sees the heart. It's the insides that count. I see a guy at my church who was a burn victim. The surgeons did the best they could, but his face is still disfigured from scarring. And I cannot describe the loving looks he and his wife exchange.

Don't worry about your outsides; gravity and time takes its toll on all of us. (Unless you are as wealthy as Jane Fonda and have a spectacular plastic surgeon!).

Just remember: it what's inside that TRULY counts.

LaTeeDa

A couple of things came to mind while reading through this thread.

First, if I have to have a "list" of things for my partner to change in order to be in a relationship with me, that is a clear sign that he's not the right partner for me. I am done trying to change people. I've learned that I can either accept them as they are, or move on. When I finally admitted to myself that I had chosen the wrong person to share my life with, I cried for two days. But, it was also such a relief to set down the burden of "changing him into who I wanted him to be."

The other thing I see in your posts is a lot of all-or-nothing, black-or-white thinking. Either you're 100% in the marriage, or it's over for good. No one else could possibly love you and you will be alone forever. I used to think this way, too, and it kept me stuck.

I found that all that crystal ball gazing only made me crazy. I've learned that the best I can do is whatever is right--right now. So, if you are not happy being half in and half out of the relationship, it's okay to say this isn't working for me right now. I want out. Doesn't mean it will never work, it just means it isn't working right now. So do what you need to do for your own sake at this time, and deal with whatever happens in the future when it happens.

You have the future all planned out in your head. Plan A-he finds recovery and you both work on your marriage and everyone lives happily ever after. Plan B-he doesn't find recovery, you divorce him and spend the rest of your life alone.

There are an infinite number of other possibilities that might happen. But you will never know until you give up the role of "controlling the universe." I once read here that everything we codies let go of has claw marks all over it. That made me LOL. But, it's true. Letting go is tough, but it can be done. And, I can assure you, that once you let go of trying to force life to be whatever you thought it should, and let your life unfold as it is meant to, you will be amazed.

L