inahaze

Yep, it's kind of crazy and yes I am sort of venting.

Here, I've decided to end our relationship and have made arrangements to get the heck out of dodge next month. Our relationship has been at a stand still for a long time. He'll be great for a little while, but then he'll go out and do something absurdly stupid. My feelings and my daughters feelings get hurt in the process by his stupidity, the next day he says he's sorry and expects it to all just !POOF! go away. In a normal argument I would be fine with this, but when he says it I know it will happen all over again. Sure, he's sorry for the moment, but it's more because he knows it will placate me. He doesn't change the behavior that got him there in the first place.

So, like I said, our relationship has been at a stand-still for a long time. I've quit mothering him for the most part................................

• I no longer fix his lunches for work or wake up extra early because the shirt he wants isn't ironed or stay up washing the clothes he wants because they're not clean.
• I don't make arrangments for him to have a sitter at the bar.
• I told him if he drinks when he's out not to come home, told his friends too!
• I don't make sure that there's enough groceries, I make him buy them with HIS money.
• I went for years literally scraping to make sure we had plenty of food and even had to put food on my credit card.
• I don't make sure he gets up in the mornings now and I don't call if I'm not home to make sure he gets up for work.
• If he's drunk at home, I don't make sure he gets to bed at night or has a blanket.
• If he passes out outside, then so be it.

I just don't any more.

I've given him years of my life and for a long time I really, really wanted us to stay married, I wanted to give him my entire life. I used to believe that he meant he was sorry and that he'd change. He's told me he's not an alcoholic, but at best he's a problem drinker. His behaviors never change, he thoughts on things are the same, his beliefs are the same.

I no longer wish to be intimate to him, I don't want to go places with him, I don't want to be in the same room with him, I don't want to do anything with him. I've found myself wishing he were drinking when I got home so he would be asleep by 8:00, how bad of me is that? I don't care where he goes or what he does, just so long as it's not with me.

I used to not see why people didn't really like him or why he changed friends. When I really started looking at why I was unhappy with him, well...those basic principles apply to his friends as well. They don't have the same feeling as I do, they're still friendly and will talk to him on occasion, however they do not ask him over for get-togethers, their kids birthday parties and they sure don't come here.

I know all these things and still I feel badly. I feel bad knowing I'm leaving and not telling him. I think it's the knowing that I fell in love with one side of my husband. It's an awesome side! Unfortunately, it's just one side. I feel uncertain about being alone, even though I've gone over and over and over my future bills...I know I can pay everything easily. I worry about the actual move, I feel guilty for knowing I'm going to take just about everything. I feel bad about taking my kids from their school. It makes my stomach turn and my anxiety to rise.

My head tells me that it will pass, I know for a fact I'll feel much better afterwards. I think it's the actual process of seperating everything that has me flustered. I can't feel any worse than I already do, he can just give a "look" and I know there's going to be some kind of incident later. You can feel it in the air. This walking on egg shells of not knowing which day it will be, of knowing that for weeks he'll be great....only to blow it major and leave me feeling like crap for days agian.

The present is definately worse than the unlimited potential of the future.

Barbara52

I found the time between when I decided to leave and got a new place and when I actually moved out to be very stressful. I was hiding a major change from AH. But I knew to tell him would only increase the stress and wouldn't improve any thing at all. I felt bad or what AH would be feeling and facing. But I knew it was the best way for me and my son to move out.

But the day I left wnet smoothly and I felt almost immediate peace.

Hang in there. It will be over soon and you will find peace.

GiveLove

haze, I know from your history that you've left off quite a lot of things he did that were extraordinarily hurtful. Just encouraging you to revisit your own early postings here on SR and remember why you're doing this.

I don't think any of us can expect this to be easy. We have a lot invested in our relationships, and if we could just flippantly walk away without a second thought, that would be unusual.

You're also on the cusp of a breaththrough: One of my counselors used to say, "the closer we are to the gate, the louder the lions roar". You're facing freedom, and it scares you that you might be doing the wrong thing. See my suggestion above.....

I'd encourage you too to re-read this paragraph - daily if you have to - and think about a daughter or a beloved girlfriend saying something like this:

This is not a marriage. Dragging yourselves through this day by day just because of some illusion you held long ago -- that isn't fair to either one of you. Remember that everyone has a good side. (Even Adolf Hitler loved dogs and music) That doesn't mean we were put here to devote our lives to them.

This is tough stuff.....but for your own sanity you have to keep plugging on toward it. You and your kids deserve something better than this.

He will be fine. You will be fine.

Alphawoman

Dear Haze,
I too have just made up my mind to walk away from the madness being in love with an A can bring. I wish for you the courage and perseverance it takes to "mean what you say and say what you mean"! You and your family deserves to LIVE. Life truly is beautiful and full of joy. It isn't about your A anymore it's about your life now.
God bless.

Alphawoman

MsPINKAcres

((Haze))

I spent my first nite sleeping on an inflatable mattress Thanksgiving nite at a small 1 bedroom rent apartment - that was almost 5 months ago - If you read my post in the Friends & Family of Substance Abuse - you will see my ex is really trying to make my life miserable.

BUT the truth of the matter is I'M FREE!!!

There is a post about what I didn't do last nite - I share about what life is like NOT living with active addiction; the things we don't have to go thru every nite once we are out of that constant strain.

Yes, there is still some pain and grief - we mourn the loss of what we thought that someday we may have. BUT for me - the life that my God has blessed me with today is far better that what I had ever dreamed of.

I have written the grief letters, cried my tears and vented my anger - today I am walking a new life and it is well worth it.

I am so grateful that I left - I am Happy, Joyous and FREE!!!

I pray you are able to enjoy those same feelings!!

HUGS,
Rita

LaTeeDa

One of the important lessons I learned in therapy is that I spent most of my life trying to avoid uncomfortable feelings. I mean desperately trying to avoid them, at all cost. It was uncomfortable to admit that my marriage wasn't going to work out. It was uncomfortable to admit that I wasn't going to have that fantasy I had imagined. It was uncomfortable to admit that I had put my children through the same kind of childhood hell that I went through as a child. It was uncomfortable to admit that the guy I picked to have children with and spend my life with turned out not to be the guy I wanted to spend my life with.

No doubt about it, it's difficult and uncomfortable to face these things, and many more. But, you know what? Being uncomfortable doesn't kill you. My fears were real, but they were totally exaggerated. You can live through those feelings and come out the other side. I am living proof. Not only that, but surviving the tough stuff without avoiding or denying it is so empowering! I felt like superwoman once the pain subsided. You will too.

L

inahaze

There's a lot of things I've posted about him doing, and there's a lot more that I haven't. Some things I just don't want to see in writing, they're hard enough facing in my head.

In the past couple of weeks I've started a great job, the pay isn't the best but the facility is awesome. I found a friend I haven't seen since I graduated, I've applied to the nursing program, and I've been seeing that I'm not as alone as I thought.

Since I started allowing things to come and go as they are I've had some odd dreams at night. They started a few months ago, but I never paid them much attention. When I thought about them the other night it was a WOW type thing. The dreams aren't precisely remembered when I wake up I never remember faces, places or names, but I remember feelings. I remember what it felt like to be really loved, safe and cared about. OMG it was so warm, welcoming and great and I think that this is what life could be. I've never had dreams like this before and I don't have them every night, but since I started opening myself up to a HP these dreams have began sporadically.

My marriage sux for lack of a better word and I do still get this feeling in the pit of my stomach when I really think a lot about it. I know what he's done, I know his past, I know his behaviors and I know it will not change no matter how much I want it too. Absurdly enough, I worry about hurting HIS feelings for leaving, I worry over how he'll make it and I worry about making him feel bad!?!?! That's my crazy thinking, I think that's kept me here for a long time.

These dreams though, they come back to me and make me want MORE. I want to be with someone good. I want a better job. I want to do better in school. I want that warm, fuzzy feeling of coming home to somewhere that makes me feel safe, loved, cared for and, well, wanted.

blessed4x

(((inahaze))) I get it, boy do I get it.

My STBXAH is now attending AA daily, and counseling. He told me today that he is "taking a personal inventory". He's doing all of the things that I hoped and prayed for for years. And still, I feel all of the things you described. I have no idea if the changes he is making will be permanent.....and neither does he.

I realized that together we are both too sick. I believe if we stayed together much longer it would have been fatal for one or both of us. And I don't say that to be dramatic. I could feel the life being sucked out of me, just as you describe.

Right now he is still here, and it is SO hard. We walk around avoiding each other. He touched my arm yesterday and I nearly went through the roof. I don't want to be touched by him. I don't want to see him, smell him or hear his voice. Hard to believe that 21 years of marriage could be reduced to that, isn't it?

Sad, what alcohol can steal from a family, isn't it? And no matter how hard he tries those years can never be replaced, so I figure I've (and you've) got a lot of living to do and a lot of lost time to make up. and the sooner we get started the sooner those bright days will appear.

hapapinoy

You've made the commitment. I respect your strength. I don't have it yet.