Why is leaving so hard for me?
 

Are all alcoholics psychopaths? I watched HOUSE the other day and they defined a psychopath as someone who understands emotions but can't feel them.

He doesn't what he says to me anymore. He doesn't DO anything anymore except drink and play video games! He won't help me with ANYTYHING! I'm so overwhelmed, and I know if I leave he will want me back. Why do I always come back?

Everytime I leave I worry about him. How is he going to get the bills paid, is he alive...etc...so I come back to take care of him for some reason. Well that reason used to be love, but now I'm not even sure...

I'm so stuck. I can't go home until I'm 100% sure I'm leaving because my parents are so fed up, which is understandable. I really believed he would get better, but he hasn't.

How do I leave?

"what he wants pales in comparison to what you TRULY want out of life. i just don't think this is it........ "

So much in that one sentence. Well said Anvil.

Yep, that was mine. I watched him *do nothing* for 5 years. Well, that's not true; he finished a whole bunch of useless videogames. Makes a great epitath don't you think?

"Here rests C, 1976-2010, Loved his beer and his PS3"

Because as much as he is addicted to his alcohol, you are addicted to him. He is your fix, your drug of choice, so you can feel good/useful/needed. You'll probably need to figure out a strategy to wean yourself out of the habit of "saving" him (i.e. go no contact, if at all possible).

You leave when you are ready, when you've had enough, and when it's plainly obvious to you that staying with him is far worse than leaving him. The *how* will slowly fall into place once the decision is made. Until then, we're here for you :)

I had to be tricked into leaving. I rented a home for us, after our house was foreclosed. We signed the lease, I organized a moving party, rented the truck. Then busted him texting his affair partner. The cat started vomiting on the bed at 3am. I threw him out and realized AH's text message was going off while he was passed out drunk on the couch. It was yoda saying, "message from the darkside there is."

I looked. It was her. He had humilated me so many times. I kept taking him back.
I woke him up and said, "don't you want to know what Melissa said?"

He said to me, "you know we still have to move into that house together."

I said, "No we don't. I'm moving there with the kids and you will stay here."

Still, as the time grew near for me to move, I tried to stay. I dragged him to counceling with the hopes of him finally getting it, but when I got in that room with him I screamed at him. Wept horribly. The therapist was horrified that i had stayed with him through all of it. She recommended we stop talking to each other effective immediatly.

Still, I tried to not move. Tried to stay there, in that house with him. where he brought his girlfriend. Where he drank away the mortgage. Where I had crawled, weeping and begging God to make things better. Make him love me.

I told my friends I didn't have to move on the deadline. They laughed and came over and started packing me.

The night before I was suppose to move, with the truck in the driveway, I was still trying to convince both him and me that I didn't have to leave.

He got drunk, woke me up like he had been doing for six months to tell me he was divorcing me.

After begging, pleading, demanding, spying, snooping, threatening and reaching the end of my rope every single day for a year and a half, the thing that suddenly snapped me out of Not Being Able To Leave was 4 sentences I had read earlier that day on a "how to leave your passive aggressive husband" website. I hadn't yet found this wonderful place.

I am leaving you now
This is my choice
I am free of you and your toxic behavoirs
All is for my greater good.

AFter he told me he was divorcing me, and took off his ring for like the 5th time, I laid in bed and repeated those sentences until I fell asleep. I had never done that. i always, always followed him crying.

The next morning, I woke up at 5am, put on my tennis shoes and starting putting stuff in that truck. Laughing. I woke up in my own house for months like that. Laughing. I felt like I had escaped.

God, I love this story...

I am like transform. I had to be beaten to an emotional pulp before I left. He then said he was leaving me. I now have to fight him for child support after I supported him and our son for 5 years.

He will not change, and if he does it will be short lived. Alcoholism is PROGRESSIVE. do not let that go out the other ear. I wasted several years waiting and trying and taking it. I wish to God I could change that now. I am now 41. I met him when I was 32.

I kept thinking that he would get it. He still doesn't and he now lives in a haze of alcoholic delusion. It is sad, but I am finally ready to look after me first...don't even get me started on what I have put my son through, when I could have just walked away.

hope this helps. Im sorry.

I managed , with the help of AH family to get him out of the house 2 years ago. They had to help , because he just stayed drunk to not be able to move out. (read - manipulation) I said that he could come back if he had a year of sobriety.Never happened. He went the classic route of finding himself another lady resquer(met her in rehab) one month after the separation - after 20 years of marriage I was replaced in 4 weeks time. Now I am still trying to settle the divorce and he wants me back. NOOOO!

I stayed too long , and mainly beause he was sober for seven years in the middle of our marriage. I am still anxious and depressed and ANGRY , but time and my HP will the pain.

Look after your health , it WILL suffer if you stay with an active alcoholic. :headbange

Transform - my family also had to pack his stuff - I could not see for 2 reasons - tears/ and disbelief that he chose to drink after I said "choose now :booze or me and kids".

WOW hey! What a choice. :c021:

Oh yeah, I forgot that one.

As soon as I moved out, all of my: hives, joint point, depression and headaches disappeared. I was stunned.

I can only speak for myself, but leaving was hard for me for many reasons. Probably one of the biggest was that I saw myself as a failure. I was convinced that I should be enough for him to stop his self-destruction. When he wouldn't or couldn't, I just knew that it was because I wasn't good enough, beautiful enough, or smart enough. I was a failure.

I needed help to change my thinking. Help to separate myself from him. Therapy changed my life. It taught me that I am good and worthy, and being unable to change another person does not mean I'm not.

Just my experience.

L

I was addicted to the addicted person. He was my "habit." In order to save my life, I had to break that habit with all the seriousness of a person addicted to crack.

Going to Al-Anon meetings helped. Counseling REALLY helped me see what I was doing, and why. Reading and posting here helped. A strange little book called "How to Break Your Addiction to a Person" really helped.

Many of us were addicts (addicted to a person). You seem to be like that too.

Do you want to be an addicted person?
What will you do to break your addiction?
It can be hard, but it's so worth it.

We're here to help whenever you need it.....please keep posting....

:ghug3
GL