LaTeeDa

From where I sit, it looks like you are still allowing him to control your life and your choices. You want him to sober up so he will LET you go. You want to avoid the WAR he has promised. HE is still calling the shots. You are defeated and letting him. I know how hard it is to summon the strength to take your power back. I know how utterly exhausting it is and how high the mountain seems that you need to climb. But, I also know that inside you is strength. It is buried deep under all that despair and hopelessness, but it is in there. Taking back your power will energize you. It will carry you through things you never thought you could manage. Whatever that means to you.

Please consider taking control of your own life. It will be the best thing you have ever done for yourself.

((()))

L

prodigal

Although you may have plans to get him sober, does he have serious plans to get him sober? On the one hand, I hear you saying that threatening to leave him will get him into a meeting. On the other hand, he's threatening a "war" if you leave.

So what can you ultimately control in this scenario? You can stop being a doormat enabler. You can work your own program of recovery.

And "war" or not, you can walk away from him. You want him to let you go. It doesn't sound as if he's willing to accommodate that request. If by "war" he means he's going to bombard you with text messages, emails, and voicemails, get a restraining order.

I share GiveLove's sentiments here about somebody who would abuse an innocent animal in any way - even head games.

sodetermined

I felt like I had the upper hand a lot, too. Especially after he screwed up and I took him back. That was in illusion of mine, he was controlling me the whole time and I was letting him. He was controlling me by saying all the right things, he was letting me think I was in control. It's such a game.

Startingover2

Bottom line is they say what they need to say at the time to get you to do what they want. Is he serious? I highly doubt it. Rehab should be for HIM, not for you.

I too have been cheated on during one of the most vunerable times of my life...my pregnancy. It still hurts like hell, but kicking him out gave me one little piece of control over my life. I will no longer be his doormat. I am just now getting to the point where I sit back and look at the crap he did and put me through. Nobody that has half of a conscience would do those things to someone they profess to love. It makes me sick and so does he.

Pajarito

How do you really know? From where I sit- what you describe is a man who is very sneaky. He has probably done scores of things you don't know about.


That's a plan for failure. YOU cannot make him quit drinking. He's an adult- he will do what he likes. He has for years. What exactly are you getting out of the relationship?

It's not a war. It's peaceful once you remove yourself from the chaos and start living life for you. I'm not going to tell you how to do that, but I will tell you that there have been plenty of times when I thought there was no way I could continue doing what I've been doing. If you read my past threads, you will find I am working 2 jobs, doing freelance, going to grad school, and taking care of our dd. I'm also the only one dealing with selling our house, because STBXAH walked away from everything. I can tell you that there are times when I'm working on the house that I am gritting my teeth in anger because it's a lot of work, and I am TIRED. But, if I choose to look at it differently, I can decide I am doing what I am doing with the goal of getting the house sold and finding my own place- free of his bs, affordable and made just the way I want it to be. Freedom. . . you can have that too if you decide to.

Peace ((()))

dazednconfuzed

YES - Prodigal ...I finally understand when and why I started to get so sick. This was my bottom (or it should have been). When he threatened to take the dog out back and shoot her, I was so sick I wanted to leave, right then and there, but he'd just convinced me to buy a house in the country and I was already feeling so vulnerable and stuck. I didn't think I had anywhere to go.

I compromised myself then - and after that there was no bottom anymore. If I could accept this - I could already accept anything - because there was nothing worse he could have done (in my eyes). That opened the door for me to be able to take whatever abuse came my way. I just kept stuffing it down, along with everything else that came along and things just went from bad to worse.

Yes - so true LaTeeDa. I know it's in there somewhere, because I used to have it. I just need to find it again, and learn to believe that it's still worth it to bother. Often, I feel so defeated, it doesn't seem like much is possible anymore.

And thanks for pointing this out to me SoConfused. I don't have the upper hand at all. He's just giving me this moment to believe I do, while he gets ready to swoop in and grab it as if to say 'haha - did you ever think I'd let you have that kind of control'? - 'I'm the boss here'!

dazednconfuzed

No - I cannot make him quit drinking. There are two things that can and they don't have anything to do with me. Number one is that he had a heart attack 5 months ago and number two is that his adult children are furious with him that he's still drinking after that, and he can feel them giving up on him. When he talks to them now - all they say is 'you're drunk' and I can hear him arguing - 'no I'm not - I'm just tired'. Those are the reasons that I believe make him realize that this is 'his' bottom. He just needs me until he gets 'through it'. They hate him being with me, because he's convinced them that it's all my fault (for enabling him) and I can't wait to get out the door.

cem001

Wow, that hurts. I wonder if it's that way for my RAH? Course it's not been confirmed from him that he cheated, so as far as he knows I have no clue.

GiveLove

If there's one thing I've learned out here, it's that we can't "get them sober", dazed. THEY have to "get them sober," and it sounds like he has no intention whatsoever of doing that. You will be pushing that boulder up the hill for the next fifty years of your life, saying "...as soon as he's sober I can finally be happy...."

You think family being mad at him is his "bottom" ? My sister was a film executive who lived in Malibu, and her bottom wasn't reached when she lost her career, lost her terrific gentle husband, lost her home, lost her driver's license, went to jail (twice), or began living on the streets in Ventura panhandling and stealing people's cell phones to make Christmas phone calls. It came when she died, in a coma, of renal failure. You can't predict what's going to cause someone to hit bottom, and sadly for many, bottom is death.

Sorry for the horror stories, but......if you're going to BET that this is his bottom, you should definitely be putting a time limit on it because you can be waiting a long, long, long, long time.

I'm glad you're beginning to make the connection that your unhappiness might be causing a large part of your physical pain, and not the other way around. That was my own experience, and I've been sickness-free and pain-free for over ten years now.

You assume that in order to set boundaries, you have to do this huge thing of selling the house, divorcing, etc. That might make the best fiscal book-sense, sure, but all over the country, there are people who have had that choice taken away from them by this economy and are being forced to walk away from an investment. That's not the end of their life. They dust themselves off and start over. I was one of them a couple of decades ago.

Not an ideal situation, sure, but I've known battered women who have up and walked away from their homes and who are now making six figures, while their abusive husbands are still living in a one-room apartment somewhere, feeling sorry for themselves and writing whiny country & western songs about how "she done me wrong."

Do you have a local support team of Al-Anon, doctors, friends, and a good lawyer? A friend who can help you think "outside the box" and show you where you might be falling into black-and-white thinking (esp. when your mind is clouded by pain) Having such a "network" behind you can make you feel a lot stronger, even if you don't call on them often.

Wishing you luck with whatever you decide, dazed. You've got choices -- they just might look a little different than you're expecting.

Barbara52

Nope. None of that can make him quit drinking. No person, no event can make him quit. He either will or will not regardless of what any of you say or do. None of you are that powerful.

sodetermined

I am not trying to hijack this thread, at all, but I wondered if anyone else noticed that country music seems to glorify drinking. Chris loves country music and there are so many country songs about drinking....one entitled "The More I Drink", and the chorus is "the more I drink...the more I drink".

WTF?!

GiveLove

I'm interested in this too because I've been noticing a strange reaction to popular music in my head, and I would like to know if I'm nuts Look for a thread from me (so we don't hijack)