violet97

i am just starting here, trying to figure things out. i actually went to an al-anon meeting last night and i know i have a long way to go. i haven't given up on my husband yet. my question is, i feel like everytime i talk to him he is depressed, my life sucks, no one is on my side, i'm just going to kill myself or disappear... and the thing is we are in trouble. the marriage is shaky at best right now and we are beyond broke, so i'm stressed over all of it too. when i call him on his bs he says oh i wouldn't really kill myself i'm just depressed you don't have to rip me apart. now of course i feel guilty and i know that is the plan, i'm just trying to figure out how to deal with it.
oh and just a warning, i kinda feel like i opened a can of worms here. i have been keeping all this in for so long, now that i started talking about, i feel like it is all just tumbling out...

Bernadette

i haven't given up on my husband yet.

I had some jumbled up thinking when I first went to AlAnon that stopping enabling my brothers was "giving up" on them. I thought that taking steps to protect myself - like limiting contact, not engaging in repetitive futile conversations. not taking late night dramatic phone calls, not lending them money, etc, would all be seen as "giving up" on them.

Thank goodness I was wrong! Making the decision to focus on me and figure out solutions to my own life problems and how to protect my mental health had nothing to do with this concept of "giving up" on other people. In fact, I learned that all the crap I was doing for them, all the aggravating, crummy behavior I tolerated from them, was hurting them. If anything- by engaging in the sick dynamic we had going, I was "giving up" on them because I had become a pawn in the alcohol's game of total control over my brothers. I was aiding and abetting the disease by not taking care of myself.

It took a while for me to get my head around this concept.

AlAnon helped and so did counseling, where I decided to focus on questions like "Who am I?' and "What do I want my life to look like and how do I make that happen?"

By letting my brothers completely own their problems and their choices and consequences and by giving up the illusion of control that I had a death grip on I freed myself from unecessary guilt. And I allowed them the dignity of living their own life as men.

Here's to the open can of worms!!!

Seeking for and accepting help is a great step to improving your life! Scary for sure - but most definitely worth it! No time like the present. You're not alone.
Keep going to meetings and maybe check out the library or get a copy of Codependent No More.

peace-
b

nodaybut2day

violet...just wanted to chime in and say that I also struggle with guilt a great deal, especially when I think of leaving my husband, so I completely understand where you are coming from. Heck, I'm a Guilt Expert. I have a degree in Guiltology. Unlike you, I feel as though I *have* given up, and that makes me feel even MORE guilty. Sheeesh.

Since I can't link to another page yet, I'll just recommend that you go check out the "Classic Reading" sticky in this forum...I found a bunch of threads and articles that really spoke to me, like "Letting go of guilt".

Maybe it will help...?

violet97

well you think you need to support them and in trying to do that you wind up listening to the whole world is out to get me talk. i don't know, sometimes i feel like it would be easier to give up on him, just walk away. but for some reason, i'm not ready to yet. ITI, it sounds like we might be going through similar situations, and i'm sorry. i hate to hear of anyone else dealing with this stuff.

dothi

Wow, does that ever sound like my AF. It doesn't matter what you're doing/watching/talking about, he funnels every conversation back to how bad he feels all the time. When you call him on it, he puts it on you. "I'm just expressing how I'm feeling - can't people do that around here?" and on piles the guilt.

One thing I learned in counselling is that while your feelings aren't a choice, your actions and how you deal with those feelings are a choice. If I can choose to take life in stride, seek APPROPRIATE help when I start feeling down, and focus on the positives of progress (not perfection), then he can too. He can damn-well make better choices as to how to deal with all these bad feelings if they're really as bad as they say. He can also make the damn choice to recognize me when I say his behavior (the constant negative talk) hurts me, and he can choose to do something adult and responsible about it - like seek help.

The guilt is on you because you're caught in believing that his feelings are your responsibility. If you didn't believe this, then why wouldn't you set a boundary: I understand that you're depressed, but you need to realize that when you talk negatively to me all the time, it hurts my feelings and brings me down. If you're going to choose to continue talking like this, then I am going to walk away.

This is the choice I made with my AF, who doesn't want to face the reality of how where he is now is a result of his choices. He would rather complain about how unfortunate his life is and how helplessly he is trapped in it than make real changes with better choices. I can't make that decision for him. But what I can do is distance with love, because when I listen to his negative talk, it does hurt me.

You have every right, violet, to take care of yourself.

And before I walked away, I did everything it took to satisfy myself that he was truly making these choices - choice that did NOT depend on me, but that depended on him. Being adult is being responsible for yourself, and I cannot do that for anyone else - alcoholic or not.

Trying2Fly

Violet,

I understand the guilt factor, too. I have felt guilty for a long time about my alcoholic sister--she and I were intensely close when I was a teenager into my early twenties--when she started drinking about 15 years ago, that started to change. I felt like I had to "help" her through her pain and depression; if I didn't, she would accuse me of not loving her or of abandoning her. She used to tell me, "I'll kill myself if you hang up the phone", or "only your love and forgiveness can save me."

Through the help of Al-Anon and an excellent therapist, I have come to realize that I had become a pawn in her insidious game of alcoholism and denial. My actions--and my guilt--were in fact making her worse. I'm now learning to put "me" first and allow my sister the space to realize that her actions are her own responsibility.

You have every right to put yourself first and to do things that keep you sane and mentally well. I strongly recommend talking to a therapist if you can--it can be scary at first, but it is am amazing journey of self-discovery.

Hang in there...we are all rooting for you...

violet97

"I'm just expressing how I'm feeling - can't people do that around here?" oh don't you just love it when they say that. and "i'm just being honest, maybe from now on i should lie" you are totally right the feelings aren't a choice, but the way they express them and deal with them are. the funny thing is a lot of what i am hearing from people as to suggestions of what to do is what i had been doing. don't take care of him, just don't fight or engage in the games he plays. i did that for a while, but at some point i seemed to, i don;'t know, switch.
there is a lot of relief in hearing other people say they've been there...