SashaMB

Hi Everyone,

I've been in my own apartment for a little over 2 weeks now, and I am feeling more normal. I feel like I might be done with the hermit/crying phase, and I am starting to really enjoy my own quiet space. I am still trying to figure out what's next with respect to AH, but I don't know the answer yet. I have not ruled out reconciliation, but I don't feel like I have enough information to make that decision for a while.

Last weekend, I saw AH and we were able to talk about several issues besides alcohol, which was nice. When it came to talking about AH's recovery, he told me that he has been going to AA meetings (not sure how many, or how often) and that he thinks the program has good information. I asked him if he was going to do the steps, and he said that they (AA) recommended that he just go to meetings and get 90 days sober before he starts working the steps. AH also go rid of all the alcohol in the house. I then asked if he was going to get a sponsor at some point, and he said that he didn't think that he wanted or needed to do that, but that I could be his sponsor. I told him that I could not be his sponsor.

I think it's good that he's gone to some meetings, as before I left, there is NO WAY that he would have gone to a meeting. Before I moved out, every time I broached the subject, AH flat out refused to acknowledge a problem, and said unequivocally that he would not quit drinking. When I left, I told AH that I believed he needed to not only quit drinking, but get into a recovery program. Even as I told him I was leaving, he said he didn't think AA would work for him. But he is going now.

AH was sad, and acknowledging he was abusing alcohol, and wanting me to come back home, which are all things I wanted to hear. But, when telling me about his AA meetings, he mentioned that several of the men at the meetings talked about how their wives were really helping them get through it. The clear implication being that I am not being supportive.

Later in the conversation, when it was clear that AH was not going to get me to agree to move back home yet, AH then starts saying that he doesn't understand why I left. I explain it to him, and he starts saying that I should have warned him, and that I should have given him a chance. I told him exactly how I felt about his drinking, he just refused to listen or acknowledge--and he KNOWS it. He then says that I abandoned him, and that I should be there helping him with his recovery. I asked him what he wanted me to do for him, and he said that he wanted me to be home. I told him that I need to see evidence of sobriety and recovery for me to consider that, and that would take time.

Here's what bothers me about the conversation with AH. 1) He didn't have any specific plan regarding recovery, other than not drinking. 2) He is reluctant to really work the program (e.g. not wanting to get a sponsor, which is a major tool of AA). 3) He is making me feel guilty for leaving him, by telling me that I "abandoned" him and am not being supporting like the other wives. 4) He tells me what I want to hear only until he realizes that it is not getting him his desired result (me coming home). 5) He is not really taking responsibility for his actions, in that he doesn't acknowledge any understanding that I left because of HIS drinking. 6) He had not acknowledged that sobriety and recovery are long term changes that must be proven over time.

I believe that AH is genuinely distressed, and genuinely wants to fix the problem. Am I right in thinking that the guilt-tripping is a bit manipulative? I think he wants me to give him a checklist of exactly what to do and what to say so that he can do it and be done with this. But I can't do it for him, and I can't tell him exactly what his recovery has to look like. However, if I can't tell him exactly what it should look like, how can I say that what he's doing isn't enough for me to be convinced that things will be different? I know that what I have seen thus far is not enough, but I need help articulating WHY it's not enough.

Thanks for letting me get this out, and I appreciate any feedback. You guys are the best!

Sasha

Tally

It really does sound to me that he's doing the bare minimum that he thinks he needs to do in order for him to get you to come home.

The blaming when he can't get his own way is showing me that all the stuff you want to hear is just manipulation and when that doesn't work he switches tactic. I wonder if they would do it if they knew they could be read so easily.

The 5 points you made that concern you are all on the money, trust your gut.

Still Waters

Meh.

My XAH cried abandonment too. It's all BS. King Baby BS at that.

He's not doing what he needs to do to become a sane and healthy husband, yet you are the problem, you abandoned him.

Pfft.

groybin

Sasha,

I left my XABF several months ago, after practically living on/off with him for the past year. The best, but hardest thing I ever did for my well being was to move away, just like you did.

We had a history of breakups/makeups with conversations similar to the one you wrote about. For me, it was just talk.

I saw him last month, he told me that he was 2 weeks sober, working his program, etc, etc. He also told me that he was demoted from his job, trying to reconcile with his ex-wife one more time, giving her "one more chance".

His sobriety ends with problems at home, he says. Back to square one.
Time apart had made me see that he is STILL the same person....nothing has changed.

But I have changed! I am no longer willing to come to his aid, to rescue him.
It is hard, I miss him a lot....

Sasha, this time apart for you is time to focus on YOU! on your wants, needs, to heal and grow. Trust your instincts, take it slow, make him accountable!

ItsmeAlice

You are seeing through all of his behavior beautifully!!

I encourage you not to let his desperation to end this uncomfortable time drive you to make conclusions or push you into making any changes. It sounds like you are doing this well, so just keep right on doing it. This is where detachment is key. He has to sit in his distress. Like sitting on a hot rock. He has to stay there until he makes the realization that only he can stop the pain. He is still expecting you to save him and that's just not going to happen anymore.
You can be understanding of his pain the way you would be holding the hand of a child getting a flu shot. It hurts, but it must be done. You are not taking that shot for him and that's just the way it is. Keep telling him you care but you have to care now from a distance to be healthy.

I see what you are saying about feeling the need to give him some sort of time line. You don't want to be held to any kind of deadline to go back home, but you still want him to understand just how deep the rabbit hole goes. This is a long process at best and since he is still seeing this as a some sort of dance he has to do to get you back home and not really a desire to recover, it's clear he's just looking to get this over with.

I suspect no matter what you say, it will flame him. Telling him a year in recovery before considering reconciliation (which is a good start by the way) might just send him into a fit. Of course, that may be a way for you to see just how shallow his effort is. You know it in your heart, but to see it played out might stiffen your resolve.

I am delighted to hear you are finding peace in your new space. Serenity is a vital part of recovery and living a healthy life. Hang onto that!!

Alice

seekingcalm

Sasha, You have done a very brave and difficult thing by moving into your own place STAY PUT...

Focus on your own recovery, you have been through hell, as we all have. Make this time count, no matter how long or short. Take it one day at a time. The less you let him engage you, the more you will see what he will do on his own rather than just to win you back. I had to completely cut off my exabf so he could focus on his recovery instead of focussing on when I would come back to him.

And you know what? When I did that, I finally began to focus on myself and what I need to be healthy, and to approach my relationship with him or with anyone else in the future in a way that will be better for me.

If all he thinks about is what he has to do to win you back, this will never ever work. He has to get to the point where he does it completely for himself. And if you step away fully, he may just do that.

Sending you positive thoughts

keepinon

the phrase "dabbling in recovery" came to mind..I hear no surrender from him which is key

Bolina

You're smart, Sasha. You see exactly what is going on. At this point he is not in recovery - he is doing what he thinks is just enough to get you back.

Going to meetings is not the AA program, the 12 Steps are the program and I cannot imagine him being told to wait 3 months to start the steps. 90 meetings in 90 days is something that came out of rehabs and is an excellent suggestion, but it isn't in the Big Book, as far as I am aware. I don't think there is "telling" in AA, only suggestions, and one of those suggestions is to work the steps with a sponsor. And well done for refusing to be his sponsor. My ex tried to get me to hear his Step 5 and I found the request to be darkly manipulative. I had no place in his working of the steps unless he chose to make amends to me per Step 9. Anything else would be a total mash-up of boundaries, imo. As has been said before, you will know if and when he gets it and I think your intuition is well up to the job of figuring that out..

Your posts send chills down my spine as it is exactly what happened when I left my ex. Like they got the same script. I tied myself in knots too trying to understand and explain until I found out that he was lining up my replacement within a month of me leaving. He was particularly duplicitous and cruel about that as well, so I hope that doesn't happen to you and I shall try my best not to project my situation onto yours!

As for articulating it, hmmmm. You can't make him get it. You are allowed to be as vague as you like. "I need more time" should be enough. Of course, he might not like that answer, but then he could always take that to his sponsor.....

naive

you did great, sasha.

i'll second what bolina said in that i can not imagine the AA people saying to hold off on doing the steps for 90 days.

and he obviously doesn't understand the basics of AA if he's asking you to be his sponsor. AA is built on the idea that it is only recovering alcoholics who can help another alcoholic, as they've been there and understand from their own experience.

it all sounds like manipulation to me and i find myself wondering how many meetings he's actually attended.

many AA groups have a open meeting once a month or so, for family members to attend. if he wants your support, you could offer to attend one of those with him.

naive

Freedom1990

If he genuinely wants to fix the problem, he'd be immersing himself in his recovery like his life depended on it.

He can't make you feel guilty unless you give him permission to do so.

There is never going to be a reason why you left that he will accept because he's an alcoholic.

As for the 90 days sober before working the steps, I call BS, and that comes from an active member of AA since 1986.

If nothing changes, nothing changes.

He's just paying lip service, pretending he's in recovery.

Cyranoak

...and in my opinion, every word AH is saying is alchoholic manipulative bullsh**. Alcoholics not actively immersed in recovery are the best liars and most gifted manipulators the world has ever known. The other wives who are being more helpful than you? They are part of the problem, not the solution.

The best thing I ever did to aid my wife in recovery was... wait for it... NOT HELP. All of my "help" made things worse for me, and I believe for her as well. After her last event I left her a$$ in jail and kicked her out of the house. She's been immersed in recovery for some time now and again I'm doing nothing to help. It's been seven years since I've been this happy. Seven years of me falling for her alcoholic manipulative bullsh**. Seven years. Good God.

Good on you for seeing through this BS. As another poster said, if he was really serious he would be immersed in recovery. He's not. He's doing the minimum he thinks it will take to get you home to enable him again. Right now that's his only interest. It has nothing to do with sobriety.

I've been in your shoes. This is simply my opinion. Take what you want and leave the rest.

Cyranoak

P.s. We are still together, and recently started living together again, but with a whole new way of doing it. She pays half of everything, I don't do sh** for her, and we call each other on our BS using the tools we've gotten in AA and Al-Anon. We live a 12-Step life now and it seems to be working. Fingers crossed. One day at a time.

bookwyrm

acdirito

Your story sounds so similar to mine. I a 58 year old codependent, currently in a 40 year marriage with a dry drunk husband. For the majority of our marriage he actively drank over more than half a gallon of rum each and every night. I had moved out of the house and yet he wanted me to attend his first AA meeting with him. I consented. When he finally quit he went cold turkey. He didn't finish working all the steps in AAA, and as a result he is now a dry drunk,still possessing all the traits he had while he was an active alcoholic. After six months he convinced me to move back home. Our marriage remained concentrated around him.

My DDH demonstrates symptoms of being a dry drunk. He is blatantly self- seeking or self-serving, putting himself at the center of attention, from the "big me" who has all the answers to the "poor me" whose cup of self-pity runneth over and wants all the attention to the "what about me?". He is constantly making value judgments - usually in terms of "goodness" or "badness". He refuses to accept some are grey. He constantly has to be right. It's his way or it's the highway. He's GREAT at indecisiveness, and precludes effective action altogether. He constantly views things from an unrealistic exaggeration of the negative possibilities of the action. With the end result, more times than not- nothing gets done. He is unable to demonstrate emotions freely, naturally and without constraint, with no emotional spontaneity, no genuine spark. He is unable to look inward to examine his own thoughts, desires, and his own attitude. As my husband and my children's father he is aloof, displays indifference, don't care one way or the other, no special likes or dislikes, and withdrawn. He has become self-absorbed- with a tendency to call attention to whatever he has attained. My DDH processes narcissism which is quite simply self-love. He has become a pompous ass. My DDH has the inability to appreciate or enjoy himself - nothing ever satisfies him.

I suffered a life changing massive stroke in DEC 2009. From DEC 23rd until JAN 8th I was comatose. When I came back into reality I was filled with so much rage inside of me. I was then transferred to a rehab hospital for another two weeks before my discharge to my house. This was one of my worst decisions of my life. I should have been discharged to a skilled nursing facility. I have suffered immobility problems and can not move around very easy without my power chair. When I came home the only member of my family I could rely upon was my 35 year old son. I received more care and compassion from my three border collies than I did from my DDH. I begged him on several occasions to take time off from work to help arrange the house and patio so I could maneaver around it in my power chair. He refused! I later found out he had over four weeks of use or lose (excess time) on his timecard. He just refused to be there when I really needed him!

I have taken an inventory of my life and how I managed to get into this situation. I've had to go into therapy to try to lessen some of my anger. I now am able to see where I became my husband's crutch and never really made him to account for his responsibilites and life. He was the only person who could work the 12 steps for himself. I'm supposed to be recuperating and God knows I don't need the stress that just goes living with a dry drunk. I have only requested two things from him now: to get a physical; and to go to therapy. Once again he has refused to listen to me! He doesn't even realize that I consider our marriage as over. I'm only now waiting to arrange a place for me to move to. That is not so easy since my stroke and my doctor states I am to well to go to a skilled nursing facility.

My life wasn't supposed to end up like this. I had planned on going into my senior years based upon the "Golden Girls". You need to ask yourself two questions: Will your AH be there for you as a caregiver? And would you be able or willing to be his caregiver? My DDH has never listened to me so I have come to the realization I couldn't be his caregiver. The patient needs to be able to listen and follow the directions of the caregiver. Something my DDH has never done in our 40 year of marriage.

Take what you like, and leave the rest!



Remember:
You didn't CAUSE it
You can't CURE it
You can't CONTROL it.

SashaMB

First of all, thank you so much for all of your thoughtful replies. Your perspectives have helped to remind me that I am not crazy or harsh or unloving simply because I am not just taking AH at his word that there is no longer a problem.

I just had a long and frustrating telephone conversation with AH. He again wants me to come home and be supportive. He told me that he's continuing to go to AA meetings. However, he also told me that several of the people in the meetings struggle with a daily desire to drink, and since he has not had any problem with not drinking, then he is not addicted. Read: he is not an alcoholic like those guys. I explained that every person who has a problem with alcohol is not going to be the same. He chose to drink every day knowing that I hated it, knowing that it caused me stress, and knowing that I did not want to be around him when he was drinking. And that choice to continue daily drinking is what caused me to leave, so he is still a person with an alcohol problem.

I again told AH that I wanted to see him not just not drinking, but in recovery. He insisted that he is in recovery, yet again said that he doesn't need a sponsor, because sponsors only exist to talk you out of a drink, and since he doesn't need help with that, he doesn't need a sponsor.

Then, AH told me that the whole situation is the result of "miscommunication." As in, he didn't know there was a problem, and he didn't know how I felt about the drinking. Yes, that's right, the miscommunication is that I unequivocally told AH (on 4 distinct occasions over 3 months) that I was concerned about his drinking, that it caused me stress and anxiety, that I thought it was hurting our marriage, and that I did not want to be around him when he was drinking. Well, apparently, he took all that to mean that I would have no problem with him just drinking in the next room and hiding the alcohol. After all, if it's not in the exact same room as me, what did I have to be unhappy about. In fact, his hiding the alcohol in the basement was him being considerate because he wasn't being "in my face" about his drinking.

I told him that it was not a miscommunication, and that I refuse to take responsibility for him "not knowing" that this was a serious problem. AH says he is mad that I left without telling him that if he didn't stop, I would leave. In other words, he is mad that I didn't make threats before moving out. Instead, I waited to see if his BEHAVIOR changed. It didn't, the drinking got worse. AH told me that he's angry that I left "without telling him." I said that I'm angry that he chose alcohol over me, which I know was not his intention, but it is what he did by his actions.

I also told AH that I DO feel badly for him, and I DO care about him, but that I'm not looking for a pity party, or a crisis-mode quick fix. Rather, I am looking for a long-term recovery. I also told him if simply not drinking was the whole solution, AA would only be 1 step, not 12. I told him that it's HIS recovery, and that he needs to come up with the plan for it, not me.

Anyway, it was a very long and frustrating conversation. He really wanted to corner me into a specific time-frame, but it doesn't sound like he has much of an interest in a genuine recovery so much as a fast plan to get me to come home. Even now with a couple of weeks sober, I can't seem to make him HEAR me, no matter what I say.

Bolina

Sasha, has he previously ignored your input on things other than his drinking?

Freedom1990

naive

hi sasha-

you're doing great. in fact, i'm quite impressed in how you've researched, understood, took input and made your move.

he's quacking. he's not in recovery, in fact, he's denying a problem at all. you clearly communicated to him for months and enforced your boundaries therein. he's still choosing to ignore that.

i wouldn't be surprised if he's still drinking. he'll go underground with it now.

stay your ground, lassie. unless you want a lifetime of heartache, broken promises and disappointment.

i am powerless over alcohol and my life has become unmanageable.

he isn't even on step one, sweetheart.

naive

SashaMB

To a lesser extent, yes. For example, he will frequently consider his parents' input, but not mine.

On the other hand, he has listened to me on some other issues. For instance, he used to follow me around the kitchen telling me how to do every little thing (use this knife, not that one; why do you keep cups in that cabinet instead of this one?; it would be more efficient if you used the microwave this way instead of that; why didn't you unplug the toaster when you were done? etc.). After telling him a million times how much I hated that, he eventually quit bugging me in the kitchen.

The alcohol, however, is the only issue that I can think of where he has just flat out claimed he didn't know about something I've said to him.

naive

hi sasha-

do you not think it's odd that he's on your bank account and you're not on his? or that only his name is on the deed to your home? is it a marriage or a protected business agreement?

fourmaggie

totally agree with this one...