Emzlee

Hi, I never had thought about that... we have done a lot of talking to try work out 'why' it happened and he believes that it may have been because he was lonely (in a new big city) and stressed (angry with his new job, and trying to get the right pay).

Thanks again Ago, you are so right! I will definitely have to keep that in my mind when dealing with him

LaTeeDa

Well, by definition, the fact that you are giving him a second chance means you are accepting the behavior--even if only once. Now, I'm not saying that nobody deserves a second chance, all I'm saying is that it is surprisingly easy to slide down that slippery slope to third, fourth, fifth chances before you even realize what's happened.

Actions speak much louder than words. If he says a lot of remorseful stuff, but then continues on with the same old actions, which are you going to believe?

The same goes for you. If you say you will not put up with his crap, but then you continue putting up with it, which is he going to believe?

L

destructor

Totally right. However if this person cares about you enough your boundries can help him realize he needs to change for himself. For example, the last time I drank I totalled my car and got arrested. This comes after many other incidences and problems of all different natures and severities throughout my life, however it was immediately following an incident between me and my lady where she said "if you drink again I'm leaving." When she knew I was drinking was when I really took it over the edge. I thought I took her seriously at that time when in all reality did exactly what they said earlier in the post, I told her a small very selective portion of the truth and continued on with her back on my side, and me comfortably walking around my web of lies. Then when I crashed my car, she showed up at the police station, told me it was over and left me there in the middle of the night. I had no where to go in a foreign country, I lost the love of my life, my place to stay, and my car all in a flash. After a couple days I was lucky enough to have a freind let me stay with him. Still I had to walk 3-4 hours each way everyday in the snow, or hitchhike to get from the train station to work, but I didn't care, those things happen I thought, just gotta press on. Hey, I still got a job. When I messed up my life my brain always went straight to "what next" rather than "why". I went to an AA meeting after about 2 weeks when I realized I had actually lost her. I had been to AA court mandated in the past and got 24 hour coins, but never got sober and this time it was different. On the outside my feet burned, I was exhausted and dirty, and on the inside I could almost taste disgust from the heavy rot I felt eating away inside my chest. When the meeting came to an end I felt a chill at the core of my body when I accepted the 24 hour chip that day. I repressed tears, because at that moment I experienced an emotion so strong that I'll never forget it. I realized that I had allowed myself to become a slave. Losing her despite all the other things I had lost in the past, an awesome career numerous other relationships, my other arrests, was what brought on that realization. She was what made me truly recognize within myself that I am an alcoholic. Later that night I text messaged her because she wouldn't answer the phone or the door, and told her that I never expected to gain her trust back and that whether she would reconsider or not that I would always love her and I was going to change for myself whether it meant with her or without her. She thought it was total bull but eventually decided to talk to me. I didnt apologize. I told her the cold hard truth. Honestly I thought when she heard the truth there would be no salvage of our relationship but that was ok because she deserved to know who I was for real. I had been having an affair with alcohol right in front of her face for a long time without her ever noticing, I am a very good liar. Im not proud of it, I explained to her how I used to minipulate her to believe I wasnt a good liar to lie more effectively. I told her about as many times as I could remember where I had managed to get totally smashed right next to her without her even thinking I was drinking. I was brutally honest. I told her about the planning, about the other people I minipulated, about the precise timing of things, how I found gaps and pockets of time in my day that went unnoticed by her, my bosses, my family. Desguising drinks as other drinks, about every sick trick I had. This changed our relationship big time. For the better actually. We are still together and happy, and the peace I feel just for finally being honest and living without that task of lieing continuously is an unmeasurable freedom and I wont risk that for anything. I love my woman more than anything in this world but even she isnt as important as my own sobriety and I didnt change for her she helped me change for me by sticking to the boundries she set. Be tough. Tough love is real love.

destructor

Sorry for being so long winded, the whole boundries thing just really hit home, thanks Ago.

Rainbowsend

Mmmmm interesting, when have you ever used condoms before hitting the hay????? He put the condom on before getting into bed????? Doesn't ring true, have you ever been with a guy that has put a condom on before getting a bit comfortable?. Get yourself checked out, mine spent some time with Thai hookers without condoms and swore he'd never compromised my health. The only thing I now believe about active A's is that they lie to suit their pupose.

Startingover2

I had a conversation with another member from SI just the other day about this topic. Maybe he will chime in too because he had some really good insight.

My exah cheated on me when I was pregnant. Not ok. It could have put mine and our baby's health at risk. He blamed it all on the drinking. Guess what? He can't stay faithful sober or drunk.

I think most of us who have been to hell and back with our A's can attest that we saw huge red flags and chose to ignore them or look the other way. I personally saw it and thought it would all change with marriage as he would be blissfully happy! WRONG! He drank more and more after marriage.

Hope you make the right decision.

Emzlee

Hi, I was just wondering if this is the case... how am I meant to get him to open up about this stuff. Or is this a case where I live with it or leave him because of it?

Thanks

LaTeeDa

That is, of course, your choice. I think what many of us are telling you is that we saw signs early on in our relationship, but made the choice to continue anyway. Twenty years later and two children, I sometimes wish I had made different choices. Read through some of the stories here. You'll see what I mean.

L

blessed4x

That is exactly what I would want to say.....I saw the signs, but I didn't have the information to know what was slowly creeping into our lives. For me it's 22 years and 4 kids later. Now I'm not the only one going through it, I'm dragging 4 precious kids with me. If you look at it like you will be married (hopefully) for 50 years or even more, investing one year now to do some real research on yourself and what you want from this life can save many more years of heartache. You may decide that this is the guy, or you may not, but if you put in the work up front you will be going into it with clarity.

I also think that premarital counseling with a person experienced in working with substance abuse/codependency would be a good idea. I wish I had done that 2 decades ago!

tigerfan

Hi Em,

I read your post, and so much of it rang true. Please see my original post, the title of the thread is "Looking for support."

My wife is now over 110 days sober, attending AA regularly, and working the program. Your fiance has to make the choice to want to attend AA, but you can certainly persuade him, if you feel it's necessary. The regular blackouts are certainly worrying.

After a lot of therapy, I am for the most have dealt with what happened. Do I condone it? No. Am I totally forgiving? No. Are we still married? Yes. But having said that we have a 2 year old daughter, and she at the very least deserves the second chance. Right now, I wouldn't be married to her is there was not a child involved. She knows that.

Having said all that we are working on the marriage, and are in a decent place, considering what happened 110 days ago.

As others have suggested, there may be other issues not directly connected to alcohol, that your fiance has not dealt with. For my wife is was her teenage years. He may want to see a therapist to get to the heart of those issues. You should probably see one - it is certainly helping me.

I can also suggest, as others have, of setting boundaries. One more drink - even one beer, is a marriage killer. She is aware of that.

Wishing you all the best,

Tigerfan

Emzlee

Thanks LaTeeDa, Blessed & Tigerfan... you're right, at the moment its all words! I really want to dig deep and fix any problems whether alcohol related or not. Because I would hate to still be going through this pain in years to come. I did nothing wrong so I don't deserve that.

Blessed, u mention that I should do some real research on myself... is counseling the way to go here? I am alone at the moment and feel that I over this time I have learnt much more about myself and what I want.

LaTeeDa thanks, your words really hit home. I really do love this man, I never thought that trusting someone could be so difficult. I actually have the opportunity to find out exactly what happened that night with the other woman, because I know a person who was with them at the time. Should I be trying to know everything??? I feel like not knowing is killing me.

Tigerfan, THANKYOU! I read your post "Looking for support" I am sorry that you had to walk in on that. I will definitely look into a therapist.. I have already asked him if he would consider seeing one and he agreed.

HoopNinja

You can't get him it to tell you the whole truth unless he decides to--just like destructor did. If he is in denial--he may even have convinced himself (to some degree) that his partial truth is true and may even convince himself that all the other untold stuff does not really matter. It's called lies of omission. AH is a pro at that. If I ask him if he has gotten high or drunk and he says no and he has, that is a lie. If I don't ask and he continues to do it then he is not lying, ergo what he is doing is not wrong.

Wrong thinking--you betcha. Classic example of STBXAH--in a bizarre conversation about his last episode of drinking until he blacked out, 2 nights in a row while at a very important annual event where kids age 4 to 12 were present--told me that I had called another person coming to the event, arranged for the other person to bring 12 different kinds of vodka (he forgot that he brought his own) and then told that person to force him to drink. Talk about a conspiracy theory. He actually believed this. Well, last week I confronted him about that scenario and he denied saying it. HUH? I told him that was not something I could have even come up with. So now he is in denial about ever accusing me of conspiriing to force him to drink until he blacked out. Since he is professing sobriety I told him I wanted to him to be honest with me--to take his time--and think about what he said originally and what he had just told me. That was, hmmmm, 5 days ago. He has said nothing--why, well if it does not come out of his mouth it is not another lie. We move back into the realm of lies of omission.

See how easy it is for him to lie. Also, except for all his pals who he drinks with and gets high with--no one would suspect that AH is that out of touch with reality because he is such a good liar--probably because he does not think he is lying. OK, even I am confused reading this--but this is how he thinks. It scrambes your brain.

Like others I wish I had paid attention to what I obviously knew was there. I admit that I allowed myself to believe that it would not be a problem. I grew up living like this. It is only when I got healthy that I was able to step back and shake my hands and think "EWWWW--what the he11 are you doing woman??!!" I was disgusted with myself being part of all of it."

Like others, time passed and there are now children involved. I will never regret bringing our children into our lives--however what I do regret is exposing them to his toxic life. I grew up with an alcoholic mother and it takes a long time to recover from living like that. I want my children to grow up in a normal house where lies and deception are not part of day to day life. I am doing what I can now to get out.

Freedom1990

When it came to my EXAH's infidelities, which he never fully acknowledged, I found the more I knew, the worse the pain was. It served no purpose other than to keep me entrenched in the drama/insanity/pain.

I would wring my hands, wail, and continue being the martyr. It was a very comfortable role for me, dysfunctional though it was.

I am so grateful I don't have to live that way today. I deserve so much better!