No lectures for a little bit please
 

In the morning I'll be better suited to deal with harshness but right now I need truth but not in your face style...

I found a half empty bottle of vodka behind the couch (from when H was here with the girls alone on Sat for a bit is my guess).

And I stupidly called him about it.

Conversation went like this:

me: If you want to kill yourself, that's fine but don't do it when the girls are with you

him: I WAS going to get a sponsor tonight and was feeling good and now you're causing me to drink-- well done.

me: If I cause you to drink then I could cause you to stop drinking and clearly I couldn't do that.

him: I've been drinking you away for years, chug chug now I don't have to deal with that f'ing b*itch...

me: crying saying please stop

him: what? the truth hurts? maybe if you'd been compassionate this all would have turned out differently. (then in condescending tone) i know you believe you loved me and were a caring wife but the way you cared about me never was what I wanted. Maybe if you'd left me alone and let me live my life I would have wanted to stay and deal with you (I guess he thinks he left me?)

me: more crying.

him: (now he's calm and talking quietly and as meanly as possible). you know you really need help. you've caused a lot of damage in this family and i hope you get help before you destroy the girls. i'm going to have to share your behavior with the court when we deal with custody-- i don't want to, but you're very ill.

me: more crying.

it went on for a while longer-- me crying, him hitting below the belt as much as possible...

I know I know-- I am a FOOL for staying on the phone, for calling at all, etc.. I know.

Right now I just hurt. It doesn't matter that it's quacking. Hearing that **** from the father of my kids and from a man I CHOSE to marry just hurts a LOT!

Thanks for listening...

Hugs to you. Reading your post is a page out of my own life. Mine can be very cruel and I know how much it hurts. These aren't the people we fell in love with. Hang in there.

(((hugs))). No lecture here, especially since I am guilty of having the same useless banter. I can't say anything you dont already know. Stay strong.

I didn't mean to sound so obnoxious with the "no lectures" mandate.... I'm just a wreck and didn't want to feel worse but if anyone wants to lay it out for me no matter how harshly, feel free. Maybe I need to hear it.

I wanted this to be as unacrimonious as possible and clearly there's no chance in hell that's going to be possible.

Everything I NEVER wanted is happening and it sucks and I can't do a damned thing to stop it (divorce, acrimonious one at that, parent who will try to split kids, kids in harms way being with a parent, parent who is sick and has no desire to get better no matter what the cost etc...)

:hug:
It was a long time before I realized that I could hang up the phone. I used to think I had to keep talking or listening to him - and he hung up on me all the time!
:hug:

Hugs! Feels like I'm looking into a mirror; have had many a conversation like this myself. You are NOT a fool. I think the desire to fix things and expect that things will be different keeps us trying over again with them. Each time we have a fleeting hope that they will finally have realized and then when they don't we only find ourselves hurting all over again. It is okay though. Do not beat yourself up about it especially when the desire to protect your daughters was also an important factor in this.

By the way, Starcat that is the story of my life! HE hung up on ME all the time and I was the one calling back incessantly only to be taken down by harsh tongue yet again.

These guys are always cruel and they always wanna blame us for their problems. My exabf blamed ME for sticking a gun in his mouth and threatening suicide. Well, let's see, a**-h*le, you were a drunk when I met you and you're a drunk now that I'm gone. So...who and what are you gonna blame your drinking on now?

This is exactly why we gotta stay far away from them. Their brains just ain't right.

That guy is an a$$hole.

You are not a fool. You love an a$$hole who blames you and points his finger at you and threatens you. When you want it to stop, you will make it stop. I had to let go of the dream before I could see who I was dealing with so that I could make it stop. Detach. (((hugs)))

WTBH,

The stove is hot... And it will burn you. And you'll stop touching it when you accept that touching it burns you and it's not healthy for you. It's your journey... And none of us can tell you how to travel it.

Just remember... You hold the key to your jail cell. YOU can set yourself free.

please remember that this is NOT the man you married...he has morphed into something very ugly and cowardly...what kind of a "man" says that crap? Probably one that is very drunk and won't remember a word of it in the morning....He does excel at passing the blame...oh YESSSSS, it's YOUR fault he he MUST drink!

sooner or later your brain stops being angry and apathy? or something sets in and you will just roll with his balony and say "whatever" to pacify him...when he can't get a rise out of you he will quit and move on to another tactic....maybe his mommy?

"something sets in and you will just roll with his balony and say "whatever" to pacify him...when he can't get a rise out of you he will quit and move on to another tactic....maybe his mommy?"

Yes. You begin to be able to see what they are really doing. It's like watching the five year old with cookie crumbs all down his shirt saying he didn't eat any cookies. But before you get to that point you've gotta detach emotionally. Otherwise you remain stuck in the hurt and the tears.

This is NOT meant as a lecture, as I don't have the authority. However, I will be blunt with you as an outsider looking in.

You have reached the point with him where nothing you say, nothing you do, nothing you are or are not is going to make one teensy little bit of difference. He is emotionally abusive. End of story. No changing it. No fixing it. In fact, he could possibly recover, get into therapy every day, all day for decades and he most likely will still be selfish to the bone and emotionally abusive.

I know you still love the man you married. Honey, he's not that man anymore. Alcohol has killed that man. You are left with the pod person like in The Body Snatchers.

Look at that conversation you typed put above. He got abusive...again. He was DELIBERATELY Blaming and Threatening and Gaslighting you. It's in Black and White.

PLEASE stop engaging! For your own sanity. The next time you feel the urge, the tug to call or engage, stop and think of this scenario...

Pretend this is not you and AH. This is one of your DDs as an adult with her BF or H. Would you not want to immediately snatch the phone from her hand and shake some sense into her? What you have right now between you and AH is modeling what DD5 and DD3 may grow up to think is what love looks like. If you can't stop yourself for you, please stop yourself for them.

Hope that didn't hurt too badly. I said it with the best of intentions...for you and your girls. Big hug.

Oh Gosh.

Unmanageable at its finest, I must say. I would have been crying too! :c021:Totally normal reaction to a terrible situation. There's no way you would've known that particular conversation with those particular words would've taken place.

But, now you know. And he gave you a gift, really. He let you know how horrible a conversation with him can really be. :gaah

No sense in beating yourself up over the head with it. You live, you learn.:glasses


The power is now in your hands to develop a peace around you. It is possible as long as you recognize what is not peace and what is peace. :beachball
You can do this.

(((HUGS)))

Your not alone. I just went through the same type of convo with...my exA's mom..pointless. convo. about how I MADE him drink by kicking him out of the house. on and on and on and on....it's okay dust it off and start a fresh day tomorrow!

WTBH,

Oh girl how I understand that urge to say what you want to say, but before you touch that hot stove again ask yourself what you think you will gain from it. Of course he is going to blame you. Sure as heck isn't going to blame himself. He is mad, mad, mad and if you give him any time or space to get to you he will. Personally I would love to hear him tell a judge that he drinks because you are a bitch and that he WAS going to call his sponsor until you called him to tell him you didn't like him drinking around the kids. Share your behavior with the courts, please I'm sure any judge has heard a ton on what it is like living with a A and how that can make anyone a bit crazy. That does not make you a bad parent, just silly perhaps for not getting away from him sooner. Any judge worth their salt will see right through any attempt he makes at trying to paint you out to be a bad parent.

Make yourself a promise... "I will not touch the hot stove anymore". If you forget and touch the stove, pull away quickly to lessen the pain. You know he drinks and if you need to set a boundary of him not drinking when he is watching the kids then that is what you need to say. I think you have an attorney so I think I would run this boundary past them to see how you could legally get it to work.

I have to add... he is a real a$$! He sounds like a teenager throwing around the F word so he feels important. Grown men in control of their lives do not talk like that.

Now do something that will make you feel better. Hot shower? Bubble bath? Hugging your kids? You made a mistake... time to move on past it.

I agree. Just reading the original post brought flashbacks of the abusive ex-turd I was married to for 17 years who wasn't an alcoholic. I'm so sorry you are going through this. (((((hugs)))))))

We had that conversation. He scared me with his aggression. I was really shaken for a few days. I wrote it out like you did just to get it out of my brain.

And it was so good for me to realize that I would NEVER put myself on the receiving end of things so mean and untrue again. EVER.

He could take his lies, anger, manipulation and blaming somewhere else because *I* was going to protect myself from that moment on.

It was a real turning point.

Girl, you know you didn't cause this! What a load was lifted off of me when I finally realized I could stop trying to get to the root of the problem or quit trying to figure out what his triggers were...and I will never forget a particularly honest conversation we were having (which, of course, he couldn't handle), when he said, "I wasn't even thinking about beer tonight, but now this conversation is making me want to drink.". To which I replied, "No, you want to drink because you're an alcoholic!". Finally understanding and calling a spade a spade was so freeing, and he's never said anything like that again, because somewhere deep down inside, he knows I'm right. So don't ever forget it...he drinks because he's an alcoholic...end of story...

That conversation was repeated, for me, fairly regularly for the last 5 years. I have not had that conversation or the angst for 5 weeks. I will not ever have that conversation again. But it feels like ripping off a scab really fast.

Repeat after me: Just. Stop. Talking. That's what worked, finally, for me to not engage. I'm sorry you're hurting; I'm sorry you got pulled in. You didn't cause it, you can't cure it, and you can't control it.

- Sylvie