Sober fights about drinking

Old 09-09-2003, 07:19 PM
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Arrow Sober fights about drinking

My husband knows I come here and has known since pretty much the beginning. He really hasn't said much about it because he knows I need to vent or at least to speak my mind and express my feelings.
Last night was the first time he spoke up about it. Now, all things considered this IS an anonomous board. None of you know us any more than we know you. No one here passes any judgements and you all always offer support and encouragement. I did make an effort to explain this fact but he expressed VERY strongly that he does not want me referring to him ever again on here as my "AH" or as an alcohlic in general.

We actually started out last evening discussing other things and since we haven't spent much time together in the past few days, there was lots to catch up on. The sad thing is that the conversation took a turn for the worst and I can't really put my finger on exactly why but it did. It kind of turned into a sobor fight about drinking.
I was expressing my feelings about the fact that his friends are his friends and that I CHOOSE not to associate with them because of their lifestyle. I am not a trusting person as it is and there are a couple whom I do talk to and don't mind hanging out with...the rest...no comment. He of course is upset because he says "How can we go anywhere or do anything together, if I am going to act like I do when he drinks or is drinking around his friends?"
I explained to him that we will have to do other things if we are going to spend time together and why does it always have to include his friends and drinking period? I also said that for 10 years, my life has revolved around him, his activities, his friends and his life. I tried to help him to understand that up to this point, I basically had no life, outside of work, him and the children but that I realize now that I was losing any "self" I had and that it was making me miserable. I tried to explain that it's time for ME to find my OWN happiness, interests and life, outside of his plans.
He is less than accepting of this and even made reference to the fact that I took the kids out Sunday to meet my friend and her kids and I didn't even ASK him to go. He did however forget that the night before when he came home at 1am, after working his butt off all day for the club and also drinking all day into the evening, that he had PLANS for Sunday. Not to mention, he had told me he had a football meeting Sunday at noon. He ended up staying home and lying on the sofa watching a football game, until we came home. THEN, he got up and took our son into the city to handle left over business from the party the day before.

He rarely misses an opportunity to hang out with the guys. For years I berrated him and fussed that he was never home on the weekends and that his friends and fun always came first and that the kids and I were "spare time". I complained always that we were what he did, when he had nothing better to do. NOW, I am trying to find things for the kids and I to do so that I am not resentful of his full social calendar, I am actually keeping us occupied while he goes and does what he wants and he doesn't like that either.
I wouldn't accept that. I WON'T accept that. I am NOT going to sit around this house with these kids anymore on the weekends or otherwise, when he is out with his friends, doing stuff for the club or working at a bar or party DJing if I can help it. It's like the past 10 years, that I have faught with him about the partying, the emotional absence and the physical absence never happened. I did my calm and collected best to make it clear that he has done every single solitary thing that HE wanted since day one. Golf, softball, darts, bowling leagues and just plain old bullcrap stories that he'd be home by 9 and rolled in at 3am drunk off his butt and that FINALLY, I was going to do something with myself more than 2 or 3 times a year. I tried to explain that he doesn't have to change or do anything differently to please me but that I am the one needs to change.
I know none of it sank in last night because he continued to try to leave the room and avoid the whole thing but I kept dragging him back because I needed him to hear me for once and for all. Finally, he just fell silent and didn't say another word.

I am handing him his feedom to be who he is and he is still fighting me. I am telling him that my sadness, lonliness and misery are MINE, I created it by not living my own life and totally trying to take it all off of his shoulders but he still can't hear me.
All he kept harping on was that I DIDN'T INVITE HIM TO THE STINKING MALL but that my friend's husband was invited. He drove the car, dropped them off and went his own way in the mall and we didn't even see him again until it was time to leave.
Don't get me wrong, I UNDERSTAND why he kept harping on this issue.

He claims he invites me everywhere he goes and for the most part, he is correct but he KNOWS I'm not going to go because his lifestyle and friends are not mine. He justs insists that "At least" he invites me. My argument was that maybe, just MAYBE I need to have some time for ME with MY friends and what is so wrong with that? Obviously, AWHOLE HELL OF A LOT when it's my turn.

How can you help someone understand that you love them but you're tired of not having a life, unless it's the life they want you to have or an extension of THEIR life?
How do you help them to see that you aren't doing it to hurt them but to help yourself to feel better and not resentful of the fact that they have so much freedom and you have been tied down for years with blaming them for not acting the way you thought they should?

Oh well...I can't turn back now and I won't. I hopefully at least made that part perfectly clear.
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Old 09-09-2003, 07:25 PM
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You're rocking the boat. Rocking boats make drunks queasy.

So goes it.
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Old 09-09-2003, 10:06 PM
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:lol

That's the best response to a post I've read in a long time!
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Old 09-10-2003, 07:31 AM
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How can you help someone understand that you love them but you're tired of not having a life, unless it's the life they want you to have or an extension of THEIR life?
How do you help them to see that you aren't doing it to hurt them but to help yourself to feel better and not resentful of the fact that they have so much freedom and you have been tied down for years with blaming them for not acting the way you thought they should?
Good questions. I have been wrestling with the same issues with my AH right now.

My situation is a little different, I am reconciling with my AH who is not active right now. But the issue is the same. He wants to be with me all the time and doesn't understand that my wanting to do my own thing sometimes does not mean I don't love him, it means I am starting to love myself too. It came up again this morning.

I think they seem agry and mean, but I think it comes from them being scared. They feel safer when everything stays the same, the 'unknown' is not a welcome adventure but a scary place to them.

I think for my husband it goes with his whole self-absorbed view of the world. He sees everything I want to do from only the perspective of how it effects him or makes him feel. He does not have room in his mind for how it effects me or how I feel about it. (They are the ultimate in selfish, as we all know) So I am working slowly to try to help him see that it is about me, and not him. I am not giving in, I am insisting on doing what I want, I am just trying to soften the blow by staying calm, not feeding into his panic, and showing that he can still feel secure with this new me.

I listen and try to hear the reason for his fear, and if there is any legitimacy I try to think of what I can say or do to ease his mind a bit. If he were upset about not being invited I may have smiled, said "Honey, it is so cute that you sound afraid I may not want you to be there. Do you have a crush on me?" and made a light joke like that. I would have focused on how flattering it is that he wants to always be with me, and said "That devotion may be tested if I choose to go get a mud facial or see an opera next time."

I may fail, who knows. But I am trying to just let him see that my liking other things does not make me not like being with him when we are doing something we both like.

It may help if he sees you as just doing your own thing, whether it was because he was drinking or not. Just a thought.
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Old 09-10-2003, 10:31 AM
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I'm going thru the same thing LST! I just submitted a post called struggling today.

I feel like I can never do enough for him, which is the codependency and if I stop doing the things I used to and start focusing on myself that's not good enough. They really want you to stay the way you are because it's just easier for them and safe and comfortable.

My A keeps questioning me about my love for him, which has nothing to do with what I am doing for me. He tries to lay the guilt trips, etc saying I don't care about him.

I don't know what to tell you other than keep banging away at him and telling him that it has nothing to do with your love for him. Maybe one day they will get it.
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Old 09-10-2003, 11:41 AM
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Hey LST and Kitkat, I am right there too!!!!

LST you summed up my life in a nut shell...only mine has been about 15 years!!

Keep making those plans for you and the children....you will feel better about you! I have to force myself sometimes to take a step back and look at the situation (with him) then I realize that I have fallen into old habits.....waiting around for him to decided what HE is going to do BEFORE I can make plans......WE don't have to WAIT for them......or fill up time when they are uninterested in the family....WE should make our plans when WE feel like doing it!!! If they CHOOSE to be included great if not that is fine too.

As for these boards...my husband know that I come here. He didn't in the beginning and I don't think he is very comfortible with them....he whines and complains about wishing he had friend to type to all the time....wants to know how could I possible have THAT MUCH to type about....sounds like he is jealous to me. When I am ready I will tell him there is AA for him if he wants. Right now, I am not ready for him to read what I say...this is my release and I AM going to be selfish with it!

Blessings,
Constant
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Old 09-10-2003, 11:41 AM
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They want you to stay the same becaus eit works for them. Change is threatening to them.

When my ex and I were really having problems and I wanted to work things out and go to therapy he refused hoping things would just get back to normal... He didn't want to change he might have had to deal with himself and he definitely didn't want me to change........it wouldn't have been so convinient for him.

Ngaire
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Old 09-16-2003, 10:24 PM
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Wow! Everyone who posted on this page must be living inside my body, in my house! ) I am so glad to see I am not the only one who goes through this. When I plan things with the kids and don't invite him, he is mad. When I sit home and do nothing and therefore feel resentful that he can just come and go as he pleases then he is mad. He is mad when I plan something and don't talk to him first, like oh right, maybe he is going to do something with the kids and myself when there is a drink on every corner and someone always willing to share with the life of the party. Please. But God Forbid I make my own plans. He also "asks" me if I would like to go with him to his events and parties and bars, but he knows well that I will not go. It would be one thing if I had no other responsibilities in my life and I could stay out until 3 in the a.m. on a school night. I would not do that to my kids without a very good reason and he knows that. So when he invites me, I always know it is with the knowledge that I won't go. I also feel like "spare time". He will do something with me if there is absolutely nothing else going on, but he knows when he does something with me, alcohol isn't going to be involved. I realize a lot of his behavior comes from his upbringing, not that this is a good excuse, but he has 2 very dysfunctional parents and he knows nothing different. His mom treated him the same way and I know it hurt, what I don't understand is why if it hurt so much, he wants to pass on that legacy to his children. Ah well, so it seems are the days of our lives.....Hang in there LongStrangeTrip. And everyone else, please bear with me, I am new to this, and I feel like a dam has burst. I just want to post and post and post. I feel like screaming from the trees "I AM NOT ALONE!!" It feels great to know there are others out there who know what I am talking about and why I am talking about it. So I hope I don't drive everyone nuts for the next few weeks posting like mad. This just makes me feel good to get it out. Thanks all!!
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Old 09-17-2003, 02:55 AM
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These boards are just great and I am so thankful to have them. You all seem to reveal a hidden part of my life.

I am also now learning to do things for myself, to start living my own life. It seems as though all my life I've lived through others, according to other people's plans. I never dared to OWN my life.

So now I feel a bit scared but at the same time so empowered to be making my own choices.

Yesterday it was a great day for me as I was with my Al-Anon friends from 5.30 pm on. I went to a meeting and we discussed the slogan 'Listen and Learn' and I learned so much.
The funny thing is that I got home really late and then my ex-boyfriend/A called me. It seemed like the slogan we shared about stuck in my mind and I just listened and didn't say much. I felt like I've already used all the words and really have nothing left to say. It was such a strange feeling. I felt powerless and liberated at the same time. I realised I've said so many words in the past and it never really did anything for me except drain me emotionally.

I feel now it's much better for me if I don't try to persuade people to view things from my point of view, I can just live my own life and let them live their own. It' much more relaxing for me if I succeed in doing this.

I am so greatful for Al-Anon and the friends I've met at meetings and here at this board . It's given me a life to live. I have never had so much friends as I have now. I feel supported and loved and understood, and therefore it's much easier for me to take a risk and try to be independent.

So thank you all and have a great day.

Natasha
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