Living with an alcoholic

Old 02-10-2010, 04:53 AM
  # 21 (permalink)  
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You're in the right place. maybe typing will get out some of your anger and frustration. My experience with an alcoholic began daily at 10:00 am and I found myself driving him around or going to a park while he finished off the bottle before work. This numb foggy state was acceptable to his employer. When I reexamined my part in his alcoholism I became angry at myself for being so compliant. I stopped being the liquor/employer taxi. When he went to work, without my assistance, I actually felt relieved and in a sense it dissapated my anger. I would pray, sing, walk, cook, chat with a friend. One day he admitted that he told the men at work he IS an alcoholic and they all said, Really? We couldn't tell. Once I removed myself from the sphere of his drinking, declined to attend functions with him, etc. my frustration evolved into confidence. It was the proactive steps that built the confidence. Just finding them were the root of my frustration.
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Old 02-10-2010, 09:37 AM
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Originally Posted by wifeofadrinker View Post
I had another period of feeling INFURIATED with my AH. He said he KNEW I didn't love him and I was just not able to admit it yet. That's his reasoning for why I was so hurtful to him (aka. when I told him I was concerned about his drinking).
I will tell you, if I didn't love him, I would not be suffering or here to suffer. I would move on. That's the thing. I DO love him.
I was able to tell him I was infuriated by him deciding he knows how I feel better than I do. (Yay for me!)
Today, I realize my anger is more dependence on his acknowledgment of my feelings and what I say. How dare he ignore what I say I feel and believe whatever he wants??!?
Because he is his own person and I can't control him.
My job is to acknowledge how I feel REGARDLESS of how anyone else thinks. I know how I feel whether the outside world acknowledges it or not.
So, thanks to anger today for helping me SELF define and SELF acknowledge.

Hugs,

wife
I have been reading a lot about abuse lately, and one hallmark of an abusive relationship is the "defining" of another person. I am *NOT* asserting that your H is abusive, WoaD, but it is a concept that I haven't considered.

Only we can define urselves. For someone else to do so is presumptuous and a boundary violation. He is not inside your brain, reading your feelings. It sounds like passive aggression to me - he is setting you up to leave him and he gets to say that it's because you don't love him anymore, instead of facing that you are really grappling with his addiction and making your decisions based on what you want in your life more than whether you hold strong feelings of love for him.

It is inappropriate for other people to tell us how we feel - unless of course, we ask them.
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Old 02-10-2010, 09:54 AM
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yep. the only part that gives me pause is that he often says he's fine when he's not or "its fine" when its not or responds to the question of "what's wrong" with "nothing". Whether I say it aloud or not, I armchair assess he seems mad or sad or whatever...so am I doing the same thing?
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Old 06-07-2013, 10:41 PM
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Thank you for welcoming me to the site, Findingpeace..I did just post a new thread tonight but put it in the wrong section, I think..oops. I posted in New to Recovery instead of friends and family of alcoholics. I will get the hang of things and so glad to have found SR and the wonderful, caring people on here who are in the same boat.
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Old 06-07-2013, 11:03 PM
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I have realized it is "easier" for me to get mad than sad......and I am both furious and sad...
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Old 06-09-2013, 07:44 AM
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williala, I can so relate. I get so angry about my husband's drinking and his refusal to get help. I also pour my heart out trying to explain what his drinking does to me and his daughter and all he can do is look at me like I am crazy. I feel crazy half the time, but am starting to understand that my being consumed with worrying about his drinking is what is causing me to feel this way. I am not one to give advice yet as I am in trying to get through the same crap and pull up my "big girl panties" and do what needs to done which I guess is to get out of this 17 year rollercoaster..
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Old 06-09-2013, 01:06 PM
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Originally Posted by williala View Post
I would like some advice as to what do I do with this intense anger that I feel. My husband always drank but over the last half year switched to Vodka. He goes to a doctor for his back (who gives him pain killers and muscle relaxers), he talked his family practice doctor into giving him something for his nerves and he drinks on top of it. After I left for a couple of months, I came back (due to his begging) and thought he would get better. I was wrong, he is spiraling out of control again. I went to my first Al-Anon meeting last night and it was good. I just don't know what to do with the intense anger that I feel. He has no emotion and he just doesn't care (when he always did before). He goes to work, he makes promises to come home and then he doesn't. I tell him how this makes me feel, pouring out my emotions, and I get NOTHING in return. I feel like I am the crazy one, full of emotion, pain and hurt. How do you stop the emotional roller coaster? How do you not take it personally when he just doesn't choose to be with you anymore? Any suggestions?
I'm sorry you are going through that. I'm currently at home after being "abandoned" yet again....every weekend. You know...he's "helping his friend" with something. Helping him polish off some beer, I'm sure. Yet, when he's home, he's such a drunk jerk that I am not even sure why I bother getting upset on the weekend. I'm fairly isolated and have some limiting circumstances right now, which makes it tough. But I'm trying hard to just do things for me and all that good stuff. Right now, for me that means reading up on a lot of things, trying to get my health in order as much as I can. Then, once I have a life and feel better, God I hope so anyway, I will leave one day unless by some miracle he gets his **** together.
Do things that are good for you. Fortify yourself. You will open up opportunities for yourself in the future that way.
Hugs.
Peace.
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Old 06-09-2013, 01:08 PM
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Originally Posted by stella27 View Post
The emotional roller coaster doesn't stop because he is the roller coaster, but you can decide to get off the roller coaster. You can even stand on the platform and watch him, but you'll be amazed what you can see and learn once you're not in the car with him.

I came to a point where I finally learned for once and for all that he did NOT care what I said. I was never going to convince him to see things from my standpoint. He either didn't understand or didn't care how sad I was, how lonely, how devastated, how upset I was, what his drinking was doing to him, what it was doing to me...he did not hear me and it didn't really matter WHY anymore. I just needed to stop wasting my energy on trying to convince him because it wasn't working. In fact, it just made him angry, and it justified his anger (in his mind) because I was such a drag.

So, it's a choice for you to make. You already know who he is. So what role do you choose for yourself?
Very well put post. Thanks.
Peace.
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