What would you have done?

Old 11-10-2008, 01:39 PM
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What would you have done?

I haven't been on in a while but have been lurking. I won't bore you with the details of why I came here in the beginning. but I will start by saying that I have had zero contact with the XABF for over a year. I am better with NC than I thought I would be. I have grown and realized a lot of things including how insidious alcoholism is, that I can't change the thoughts and behavior of others and that I can't expect an A to care about me.

Well last week I was sitting here watching tv. He was the last thing on my mind. The phone rang and I heard his voice. I listened for a second in disbelief and wasn't about to pick up. Then he started to sound shaky and his voice was cracking. I picked up and said "why are you calling after a year? and he said he was doing very badly and that he was sitting in the shed with a .22 and was thinking about suicide.

I felt like I was protected enough to hear him out so I said talk and I will listen. I was fine and did not get emotional during the time we talked. I told him that he knew what he needed to do. I said things are the way they are for you because you made them that way..he agreed but it doesn't matter because he doesn't really see

. I chose to speak to him because there was that 1% of me that feared he might do something but the other 99% thought it was just more of the same old crap.
He spewed all the same old "i love you" I said "there will always be a place in my heart for you but i don't really know where that place is. I said "If you get help someday and you are sober for a year and THEN you still think you "love" me then you can come and tell me and I might listen.
He said "but I did tell you before when I was sober" I said "NOOOO not when you are just not drunk because you haven't started drinking for the day..when you are clean and sober and have an idea of reality. He didn't get it. He said he was going to a rehab...I do not believe him. He has an alcoholic girlfriend who doesn't think either one of them has a problem. It won't work.
He told me he is going to come out of rehab looking great because he will have worked out every day. He also said he is going to be able to drink on the weekends. basically that they will TEACH him how...so yeah...his brain is gone.
I'm not mad that I talked to him because it solidified the fact that they just get worse and it helped me to see how far I have come. He started to cry at the end and I got a little sad but I said there are always going to be things that sting and that's just the way it is.

It will most likely be a year before he tries again. Right now I can assure you that he thinks I want him back...he lives in a fantasy world and his sister said she can't figure out how he twists things the way he does. I told her that's what addicts do.
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Old 11-10-2008, 02:24 PM
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I agree and I did talk to him about what it would mean if he did that. I told him there are people that care about him and want to see him get well. I didn't just tell him off or anything. I don't know where he is. I don't know where he lives anymore. I know he is hurting but I can't help him anymore than just talking to him. he did call back later and said thank you for helping me out. I didnt pick up because it was 2 am.
I Just don't like to think that he would use it as a way to get back into my life. I have talked to him a million times about getting help. He doesn't get it and even if he does he can't seem to find his way out of the situation he is in. We were together for 13 years. Of course I would want to talk to him if he needed to talk but I need to protect myself too. He cries wolf and I wonder where we are supposed to draw the line. I emailed him a few days later as I had heard nothing from him. I asked if he was ok.. Of course he wrote back that all was well. If only my issues would be resolved so fast?
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Old 11-10-2008, 04:47 PM
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moving this up
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Old 11-10-2008, 06:23 PM
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I can't even get past 10 days, I can't imagine a year going by and hearing his voice on the other line, especially hearing that he has a gun and wanted to end it. At this point, I can say I would have called the police. (although my AXBF has said he took a bottle of pills, and then laughed about it when I started getting upset, he was just playing with my mind)

I had to do it with my A brother (who is 15 yrs recovered now) he called me from a pay phone in Florida, I was in NY and he said he was ending it, he had taken a bottle of pills and he just wanted to tell me that he loves me and to thank me for being a wonderful sister and being there for him when he needed me. I hung up the phone on him, had the police trace the call and they picked him up and he was put in a mental ward for a time being. I paid for a bus ticket for him to get home, where he spent the next 3 or more years living in a cardboard box, eating out of trash cans (even in the middle of the winter) in the next town up from where I lived. He got tired of being sick and tired and laid the bottle down. I couldn't have him at my house so his choice was a cardboard box, death, or quit drinking. He thanks me today for being there for him, but for not giving in to him. We are best friends. Today he owns his own home, a few new cars, and can even enter a bar without wanting to drink. He says it is hard, and he thinks about it often, but he would never go back to it.

I say if he calls again in that state of mind. Call the police and give him the attention he needs. MEDICAL HELP. Because if my AXBF calls me and says he took a bottle of pills, I KNOW where he is at, and the 'joke' will be on him and maybe he will get the attention he needs too!.
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Old 11-10-2008, 06:39 PM
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Now I feel like I did the wrong thing. I just feel like he always played head games and I am kind of numb to it at this point. I don't know because I was never faced with this before. I really hope he doesn't do that again. i don't even feel like I want to be the one he comes to when he feels that way. He isn't even in my life anymore and it was his choice.
Thanks for your replies.
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Old 11-10-2008, 06:46 PM
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I don't think you did the wrong thing, I think you did what you felt was best at the time. There is no right or wrong in life. Just choices eh?
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Old 11-10-2008, 06:54 PM
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Originally Posted by loner1968 View Post
Now I feel like I did the wrong thing.
The only advice I have to offer, for what it's worth, is that you can't change the past, but you can the future. Maybe you could have a plan in place for when this happens again, because whether it be next week or next year, it likely will.
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Old 11-10-2008, 07:16 PM
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what kind of a plan?
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Old 11-10-2008, 07:27 PM
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How will you respond, or will you at all? I guess what I was getting at was that maybe you should prepare yourself for what to say (if you choose to answer at all), so that afterward you aren't second guessing if you did the right thing. I was not in ANY way implying that what you did was the wrong thing. Actually it sounds to me like you handled it beautifully....you showed you cared without getting all caught up in ongoing drama. I was just thinking that it's always better to be prepared.

I'm sure that after an entire year it completely took you off guard.
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Old 11-10-2008, 07:58 PM
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thank you. I didn't think you were implying that I did the wrong thing. It just doesn't make any sense. why call me? He treated me rotten. He would mess with my head and build me up just to knock me down and I let it happen. I don't want to be involved with him but I don't want anything bad to happen to him like suicide. I think he may still be in there somewhere even if he is buried under all the lies and denial...I just don't feel like I want to hang around and find out. I guess I feel bitter about how alone I have felt while he slid down into oblivion and how now I am the person he calls.
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Old 11-10-2008, 08:29 PM
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Originally Posted by loner1968 View Post
I guess I feel bitter about how alone I have felt while he slid down into oblivion and how now I am the person he calls.
My therapist tells me xAH will also contact me. That used to worry me, it doesn't anymore. She explains it this way: when he runs out of people to turn to, he will return to someone who was always there for him. I get that.

What are you doing to work on the bitterness? Are you fully engaged in life? Besides all the working on self stuff, something that has always made a difference in my life is volunteering. When I am doing for others it is extremely difficult to feel bitter. Through volunteering I see the goodness in people and the joy in living.

((( )))
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Old 11-11-2008, 01:25 AM
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Loner, I don't think you did anything wrong! In reading your post, I was really impressed at how detached and strong you stayed. Talking to him seemed to have confirmed to you that you were right to leave - that this is the better route for YOU!


When my AH gets in touch (and he just can't seem to resist no matter how much I ignore it - a bit like picking at a scab) it depresses the heck out of me. Old habits die hard I guess. I'm trying to learn new ones! Maybe I too will get to the point you are now at.

My AH also threatened suicide at various times. The first time he told me he had been having suicidal thoughts, I believed it. He wasn't threatening suicide but telling me how he had felt before finally going to the doctors. I felt truly awful for him and was very upset because he hadn't spoke to me about how he was feeling before. He saw my reaction though and decided to threaten suicide every so often - whenever I wasn't doing what he wanted me to. I fell for this at first but slowly came to the realisation that he was only threatening it so I would dance to his tune. If I had called someone for him, he would have loved the attention! There again, I was living with him at the time so the situation was different. In my opinion, if he really wanted to kill himself, nothing I do or say would stop him (bit like the three C's here) he would just go and do it without telling me. Voicing threats of suicide was just a ploy to 'make' me act the way he wanted me to and get him sympathy and attention. I couldn't 'make' him get help for his suicidal thoughts any more than I could stop him drinking. He's a grown up, all I can do is point out where he can get help - just like you did - and let him make his own choices.
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Old 11-11-2008, 06:30 AM
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You did what you felt was best at the time.

Perhaps next time it's best you don't answer the phone when he calls?
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Old 11-11-2008, 01:24 PM
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yeah i've decided not answer if there is a next time.He needs to find some help and I have already made all the suggestions I can.
thanks everyone
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