wicked

hello puckettcg,

i am a recovering alcoholic, and the oldest daughter of a man that died from cirrhosis of the liver. i have to wonder what you are accepting on behalf of your children by allowing him to stay in your home. and, that is what you appear to be doing. allowing him to stay there.
it was 40 years ago when my mother finally left my father. he lived in the basement. lol
i was 11 years old. i started drinking at 16, continued to drink until i was 36, and have two marriages behind me (where i tried to "fix" my childhood) to men who either didnt like women or were chemically dependent.
granted, i had no support network, and the word alcoholic was never brought up. but i have to wonder if you have any idea what it is like to live (as a child) with the misery of an alcoholic parent. no friends were ever invited to house, i did not know if "he" would be friendly and charming or evil and sarcastic.
i mean, do your kids bring friends over? what do they say? oh yeah, there's my alcoholic dad, he just stays here. i cannot imagine what it is like for them.
well, i have heard what you are willing to accept, but please remember when you are accomodating a drunk, your kids are watching and learning.
please, take what you need and leave the rest. maybe read some of the adult children of alcoholics thread, great stuff in there.
thank you
beth

dollydo

Well, when I got divorced my original attorney said "You'll probably have to pay alimony". I said over my dead body, and, switched attornies, to make a long story short, I did not pay any alimony. He didn't work because he was a lazy turd, not beacuse he couldn't, he was not incapacitated in any way. He had moved out because I wouldn't support him, he showed me! At the divorce hearing the judge raked him over the coals, and, told him to get a job.

So, why isn't your husband working?

You have spoiled him rotten, he'll never leave and it appears that you like it that way.

I can't imagine your just accepting that you will support him for the rest of his life, where is your fight? What are you thinking? What is your payoff?

I don't get any of it.

Buffalo66

I think you are taking steps, and I also think its great that you did not answer that phone on your vacation. I think you are on the right track!!

puckettcg

I never said he was happy, you guys did. He's actually pretty miserable. I am his whole world - that's not my ego talking, anyone who knows him will tell you that. When I came home from the beach, the house was basically trashed. Not because of him, more from the kids and not really having time to clean up before we left. When I came home from work last night, he'd washed and put away the dishes, mopped the floor (half-*ssed, but better than it was), he'd washed and folded all the clothes from the beach. He even put the hamburger helper away that I made for the kids last night. He's like a kid who knows he's made his Mom made so he's trying to make up for it. I'll pay someone to clean the house - I need a husband and a partner not a maid.

Me ignoring him is killing him, but yet he makes no effort to even try to be a part of the family except when he's figured out how to get beer or liquor, and then he's suddenly happy guy who can't figure out why no one wants to have anything to do with me. The more I ignore him, the more emotionally needy he gets. He's so self-centered that he can't even recognize that I have emotional needs too, and he's been sucking all the energy out of our relationship. I've tried to encourage him to make friends or get an interest outside of me - and for a while he was playing golf, but now his golfing buddies don't want anything to do with him. He has no friends, his parents don't want anything to do with him, and now he's lost his family - the kids ignore him too.

I've tried being the supportive wife, I've tried being the angry wife, I've tried being the pretend its not happening wife, I've tried negotiation, I've tried to convince him to go to 30 day treatment facility, and now I've basically written him off because at the end of the day you guys are right, until he resolves to care about himself and do something about it, there is nothing I can do or not do that will make him change. So, now I don't talk to him any more than I have to, I'm doing my own thing with the kids and excluding him, I've asked him to leave, I've told him he has to get a job, any job. He wants me to help him get a job, and I'm not doing that. I'd be happier if he would get angry with me, show he has some "balls" as someone put it. When he was working, he was very good at his job and got a lot of satisfaction from his job - but when he went back, they fired him because he kept showing up late or not at all, and got assinine with a supervisor. Of course he was drinking.

So I still buy him his cigarettes - why are you guys so hung up on that anyway? He probably will eventually leave, and he'll probably die. Last time he left for three weeks ended up in the hospital with a BAC of 4.0 (not exaggerating) and overdose of sleeping pills. He got scared and called the ambulance when I ignored his calls. They locked him up for a week in the psych ward - next time he'll probably not bother calling the ambulance just to avoid being locked up again. The whole time he was gone he kept showing up randomly at the house and upsetting/terrifying the kids because he was so out of it.

Yes, he's sad and pathetic, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it. Even when he worked, I made more than 4x his income, so no, I can't envision a scenario where I won't be paying alimony although I'll likely get the better end of the "equitable" distribution as my lawyer put it because the courts do look at contributions. I'm sure a judge will tell him he has to get a job and limit how much I'd have to pay - he might not even ask for it.

One thing is clear though, I'm not leaving my house.

Jazzman

Well I guess I should have clarified, obviously he's happy enough to stay when clearly he must not feel very welcome. When I split up with my first wife of 13 years (not alcohol related) I kept the marital home for the benefit of the kids so they had a familiar place/friends/routine. My first wife would have let that hose go into foreclosure for sure and I wasn't going to let that happen so I completely understand. I also completely understand living in limbo for the immediate future because I've lived that too. It just plain sucks and you're in this state where your heart sinks as you see his car in the driveway as you come home. I know that feeling too.

I use to buy Mels cigarettes and boy I would resent the crap out of that. Towards the end she contributed nothing to maintain the brady bunch mansion except for doing her kids laundry. When I told her it's over and get out that was the end of everything I did for her, everything. If I kept buying her cigarettes and booze it would have been a lot longer before she moved out.

As long as he has a roof over his head, cigarettes, food in the fridge and can steal the occasional check/money form you for alcohol, why would he leave? Maybe if you just wait a judge will kick him out and save you that difficult task? It's gonna suck just as bad if it's in a month or a year, a judge does it or you do it. I say rip off that band-aid now and get it over with.