Alcoholic Spinning
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Australia
Posts: 436
Alcoholic Spinning
So I am having a few problems working this one out in my own mind. I just want to get a feel for what the general consensus is on SR. Now before you read my long winded post, please note that I am absolutely aware that my marriage is a bit screwed up! I know that some of this could be sorted out with marriage counselling but I see no point in doing marriage counselling these days whilst my AH continues to drink so I am busy just trying to put out fires. I am still at the stage where I am desperately trying to hang on to my marriage, because the love is still there and when we are both content (more often than not) it is a mutual, loving, fulfilling relationship. I know however, that it is an absolute possibility that the marriage could eventually fail due to the craziness that has gone on between us. I quite frankly have been sicker than he is at times, but due to this site, psychotherapy and Al-anon, I am thankfully getting a lot healthier, in spirit and mind.
About 4 years ago, my AH had an email affair (with an old high school girlfriend) that lasted over a year that had gotten quite intimate. For the first time ever during our marriage (about 18yrs at that stage), I had a reason to be suspicious of him and ‘guessed’ his password for his email account. When I found out about his email affair, he stopped it dead and returned her ‘gifts’. We went to marriage counselling and It was agreed that I could ‘check’ on his email account whenever I felt the need, to build up trust again. I did this for the first few months, then less and less but haven’t done so for about 3 years now.
A bit of background – my husband of 22 yrs. has been an alcoholic for most of our married life, but I have only just discovered this term (alcoholic) and a reason for his negative behaviours about a year ago when someone suggested that I try Al-anon.
Just recently, during a bad patch, I found out that my AH has been logging on and reading my emails and SR account postings. I had no reason to suspect him of doing this, so it never entered my mind to protect my password from him. I have since changed my SR account and have new passwords. (A word of warning for others to do this too). He thinks that because I checked his email account that he now has the right to check mine. I am not too sure about this because I don’t consider myself as doing something that is untrustworthy i.e. discussing my marital problems of living with an alcoholic with my mum and best friend and anonymously here on SR.
Over the years, my AH has brought up many things he seems to get his ‘teeth’ into (when they find something to say to you that they know upsets you) whenever we have a disagreement about something. Typical alcoholic behaviour for changing the subject and making it about someone else! My AH does this over and over again! For example – whenever I asked him to cut down his drinking because of the money he was spending, I was told that I was spending money on having my hair done. I stopped this by producing an excel spread sheet which showed that he spent four times as much on beer as I did on hair in a year, so he didn’t mention it again but then he would start complaining about not getting enough sex and I stopped this by saying (and him acknowledging) that I initiated sex far more than him and he was lazy in that arena. He has tried other ‘change the subject’ tactics such as when we are discussing our daughters not wanting to contact him, that ‘I have brainwashed our daughters against him’, they are 19 and 22yrs, both moved out of home (the youngest because her dad verbally abused her) and don’t like some of his behaviours and of course he’s made it about them and not about his drinking.
Anyway, you get the picture. With the help of SR and Al-anon, I am learning not to get into these types of discussions but it’s not consistently happening at the moment and the Christmas period was a bit volatile.
His latest thing to get his ‘teeth’ into appears to be that he doesn’t trust me because of all the ‘awful’ things that I have said about him on SR and to my mum and best friend by email. He is angry because he considers himself to be a good husband most of the time (which he is) but seems upset because of what they must think of him. He is also angry that I have changed my passwords and sees this as something I have done to hide things from him and is demanding to read my emails so that he can check what I have been saying about him. He has also discovered recently that I have blocked him from my Facebook, so this hasn’t helped lol!
The emails he read that I sent to my friend, were around a time that my AH and I weren’t getting along too well and I was sleeping in the spare room. My daughter suspected her dad of internet cheating again and I checked the internet history on the computer and discovered he had been visiting porn sites. Around this time I caught him smoking too, so of course these were not likely to be positive emails. My friend is always telling me to leave him and that life is too short but I tell my friend that I love him and it’s his behaviour that upsets me sometimes. The emails (he read) that I wrote to my mum were about me thinking of leaving him again. My mum was worried about me for financial reasons because my AH is due to come into some inheritance soon and she thought that I would miss out on it. I told her that I had done some research and that the money wasn’t legally mine anyway, unless AH bought marital property with the money, but that didn’t matter and that my happiness is what mattered.
My AH has completely misread, or misinterpreted this (read what he wanted to read) so that he can now accuse me, when he wants to, of only staying with him for the money. I have stayed with him through all his alcoholic bull***t for 22 years but now it’s about the money.
I have tried to tell him that I shouldn’t have had my privacy broken this way that it is on par with reading my diary and SR is completely anonymous and not one person knows who I am. I am refusing to let him read my emails now that I have changed the password, not because I have written anything bad about him but because I think it’s none of his business what I choose to write.
It’s this alcoholism spinning thing they do that I can’t seem to get my head around – should I be feeling ‘bad’ that he read ‘awful’ things about himself when he shouldn’t have been reading my emails in the first place? Or did he have a right to read them because I once read his emails? Or checked up on him via the internet history. I believe that you should trust your partner and checking on them is a rocky road to take, but every time I have had suspicions about my husband, they have turned out to be true.
The trouble is that I am a logical person and I usually know my rights from wrongs but I can’t work this one out. I can see that all of this trust stuff is damaging an already damaged marriage Any thoughts?
By the way, we are currently in a phase of marital bliss and getting along well, I just feel like this is bubbling away under the surface.
Also re-reading my thread and seeing the size of it!, I think it’s definitely time for some more personal therapy!
About 4 years ago, my AH had an email affair (with an old high school girlfriend) that lasted over a year that had gotten quite intimate. For the first time ever during our marriage (about 18yrs at that stage), I had a reason to be suspicious of him and ‘guessed’ his password for his email account. When I found out about his email affair, he stopped it dead and returned her ‘gifts’. We went to marriage counselling and It was agreed that I could ‘check’ on his email account whenever I felt the need, to build up trust again. I did this for the first few months, then less and less but haven’t done so for about 3 years now.
A bit of background – my husband of 22 yrs. has been an alcoholic for most of our married life, but I have only just discovered this term (alcoholic) and a reason for his negative behaviours about a year ago when someone suggested that I try Al-anon.
Just recently, during a bad patch, I found out that my AH has been logging on and reading my emails and SR account postings. I had no reason to suspect him of doing this, so it never entered my mind to protect my password from him. I have since changed my SR account and have new passwords. (A word of warning for others to do this too). He thinks that because I checked his email account that he now has the right to check mine. I am not too sure about this because I don’t consider myself as doing something that is untrustworthy i.e. discussing my marital problems of living with an alcoholic with my mum and best friend and anonymously here on SR.
Over the years, my AH has brought up many things he seems to get his ‘teeth’ into (when they find something to say to you that they know upsets you) whenever we have a disagreement about something. Typical alcoholic behaviour for changing the subject and making it about someone else! My AH does this over and over again! For example – whenever I asked him to cut down his drinking because of the money he was spending, I was told that I was spending money on having my hair done. I stopped this by producing an excel spread sheet which showed that he spent four times as much on beer as I did on hair in a year, so he didn’t mention it again but then he would start complaining about not getting enough sex and I stopped this by saying (and him acknowledging) that I initiated sex far more than him and he was lazy in that arena. He has tried other ‘change the subject’ tactics such as when we are discussing our daughters not wanting to contact him, that ‘I have brainwashed our daughters against him’, they are 19 and 22yrs, both moved out of home (the youngest because her dad verbally abused her) and don’t like some of his behaviours and of course he’s made it about them and not about his drinking.
Anyway, you get the picture. With the help of SR and Al-anon, I am learning not to get into these types of discussions but it’s not consistently happening at the moment and the Christmas period was a bit volatile.
His latest thing to get his ‘teeth’ into appears to be that he doesn’t trust me because of all the ‘awful’ things that I have said about him on SR and to my mum and best friend by email. He is angry because he considers himself to be a good husband most of the time (which he is) but seems upset because of what they must think of him. He is also angry that I have changed my passwords and sees this as something I have done to hide things from him and is demanding to read my emails so that he can check what I have been saying about him. He has also discovered recently that I have blocked him from my Facebook, so this hasn’t helped lol!
The emails he read that I sent to my friend, were around a time that my AH and I weren’t getting along too well and I was sleeping in the spare room. My daughter suspected her dad of internet cheating again and I checked the internet history on the computer and discovered he had been visiting porn sites. Around this time I caught him smoking too, so of course these were not likely to be positive emails. My friend is always telling me to leave him and that life is too short but I tell my friend that I love him and it’s his behaviour that upsets me sometimes. The emails (he read) that I wrote to my mum were about me thinking of leaving him again. My mum was worried about me for financial reasons because my AH is due to come into some inheritance soon and she thought that I would miss out on it. I told her that I had done some research and that the money wasn’t legally mine anyway, unless AH bought marital property with the money, but that didn’t matter and that my happiness is what mattered.
My AH has completely misread, or misinterpreted this (read what he wanted to read) so that he can now accuse me, when he wants to, of only staying with him for the money. I have stayed with him through all his alcoholic bull***t for 22 years but now it’s about the money.
I have tried to tell him that I shouldn’t have had my privacy broken this way that it is on par with reading my diary and SR is completely anonymous and not one person knows who I am. I am refusing to let him read my emails now that I have changed the password, not because I have written anything bad about him but because I think it’s none of his business what I choose to write.
It’s this alcoholism spinning thing they do that I can’t seem to get my head around – should I be feeling ‘bad’ that he read ‘awful’ things about himself when he shouldn’t have been reading my emails in the first place? Or did he have a right to read them because I once read his emails? Or checked up on him via the internet history. I believe that you should trust your partner and checking on them is a rocky road to take, but every time I have had suspicions about my husband, they have turned out to be true.
The trouble is that I am a logical person and I usually know my rights from wrongs but I can’t work this one out. I can see that all of this trust stuff is damaging an already damaged marriage Any thoughts?
By the way, we are currently in a phase of marital bliss and getting along well, I just feel like this is bubbling away under the surface.
Also re-reading my thread and seeing the size of it!, I think it’s definitely time for some more personal therapy!
Member
Join Date: May 2006
Location: UK
Posts: 1,149
I don't know what to say about all the checking except that it doesn't sound like a relationship over-burdened by trust. Trust is a tricky thing to recover.
Yes he violated your trust; you didn't agree that he could do these things. he is equating you breaking into his email and discovering that he was having an affair, with him systematically going through your means of communication and discovering that you have a mum and a friend that you discuss problems with. They are the same thing but of a way different magnitude. You are allowed sources of support, however you can't decide that he must be happy about that.
I did it too, in desperation but I'm not proud of it, stbxAH was visiting "local" adult content meet-up websites, really though that wasn't the issue, and I barely cared when I found out. He continually broke into my email, read my diary, broke into my facebook, read my texts and call log, goes through my drawers, inspects my bedsheets, worked out who I am on here. He still does now if given half a chance, my phone and computer are password protected although he no longer lives with us.
Living with an actively drinking alcoholic throws up all manner of crazy situations and moral dilemmas that I am glad not to have to be a part of anymore.
The christmas period was a bit volatile, but you are now in a period of marital bliss with this bubbling under the surface?
I know this isn't what you were asking about, but one thing that really helped me was to keep a journal (well-hidden obviously) of my thoughts and feelings and events relating to my marriage, so that I could get the bigger picture of just what the pros and cons were of staying put. I have a tendency to forget the bad really quickly, or to think that a tiny good thing balances out lots of really bad things. Or to think that my minor indescretions (because I felt so guilty about them) meant that I didn't have a leg to stand on weighed against his huge behaviour trangressions. I had to see the whole pattern of my feelings in the relationship written down over time to get perspective on it. I also got to think about whether I wanted to be in a relationship where I had to actively hide my journal from my life-partner.
Yes he violated your trust; you didn't agree that he could do these things. he is equating you breaking into his email and discovering that he was having an affair, with him systematically going through your means of communication and discovering that you have a mum and a friend that you discuss problems with. They are the same thing but of a way different magnitude. You are allowed sources of support, however you can't decide that he must be happy about that.
I did it too, in desperation but I'm not proud of it, stbxAH was visiting "local" adult content meet-up websites, really though that wasn't the issue, and I barely cared when I found out. He continually broke into my email, read my diary, broke into my facebook, read my texts and call log, goes through my drawers, inspects my bedsheets, worked out who I am on here. He still does now if given half a chance, my phone and computer are password protected although he no longer lives with us.
Living with an actively drinking alcoholic throws up all manner of crazy situations and moral dilemmas that I am glad not to have to be a part of anymore.
The christmas period was a bit volatile, but you are now in a period of marital bliss with this bubbling under the surface?
I know this isn't what you were asking about, but one thing that really helped me was to keep a journal (well-hidden obviously) of my thoughts and feelings and events relating to my marriage, so that I could get the bigger picture of just what the pros and cons were of staying put. I have a tendency to forget the bad really quickly, or to think that a tiny good thing balances out lots of really bad things. Or to think that my minor indescretions (because I felt so guilty about them) meant that I didn't have a leg to stand on weighed against his huge behaviour trangressions. I had to see the whole pattern of my feelings in the relationship written down over time to get perspective on it. I also got to think about whether I wanted to be in a relationship where I had to actively hide my journal from my life-partner.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Australia
Posts: 436
I know this isn't what you were asking about, but one thing that really helped me was to keep a journal (well-hidden obviously) of my thoughts and feelings and events relating to my marriage, so that I could get the bigger picture of just what the pros and cons were of staying put.
During many of the early years of our marriage, I would begin to keep a diary about his negative behaviors but decided that it wasn't very healthy for me to be reminded of them, particularly when we are told to put things behind us and move on. But since learning about alcoholism a year or so ago, I have been keeping this diary with good and bad days, so that I can have a reminder of what he has done, to see if the good outdid the bad or visa versa. Just as you say, looking at the pros and cons.
Living with an actively drinking alcoholic throws up all manner of crazy situations and moral dilemmas
Currently Active Users Viewing this Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
