not sure i'd stay even if....
 

it dawned on me that maybe if my AH quit drinking all together i might just not want to be with him anymore anyway. right now i know i dont' want to be with him. i dont want to sleep with him, go out with him, be his wife. but would i feel any different if he stopped drinking? right now i just want out and i dont' even want to think about coming back.

i have been in such denial about my wellfare. i'm not strong like i want everyone to think....even eveyone on here. i'm scared and sad and angry. i'm wasting precious moments of my life with him waiting for some big change; a change i'm almost positive will never come. but just how am i suppose to just get up and leave? i keep looking for every excuse to but i'm not coming up with one good enough. am i sick to think that maybe if he hits me i could easily call that the last straw?

also, my sister is moving away and i'm heartbroken over that. i will not have her to run to when things get rough in the house. everything is such a mess and i'm a mess too. i dont want to go to any group meetings. i am just not into that sort of thing. maybe a theropist but where do i find one? what kind do i look for.

i am so sorry to anyone on here that i may have crossed the line with. i just hated to admit that i am weak and that maybe i'm even a little bit too lazy to start the ball rolling. its all so overwhelming.....how could i let another human being totally screw up my life??? i was never like this..... i would have kicked the jerk to the curb and called it a day. maybe i'ts because i'm older and just too sick and tired up uprooting myself for someone else! maybe i just have a big problem picking the right person to share my life with.

The realization you are making is an important one. I too came to that conclusion: even IF my exAH sobered up and found recovery, he was still a crappy human being and a terrible (abusive) husband. I too put out this image of strength, but I was crumbling inside.

You're not "supposed" to do anything except what is right FOR YOU. I know it's a weird shift to start thinking about your life in terms of what's good for YOU, instead of what's good for HIM, but once you get used to it, you look back and wonder how you could have thought otherwise.

As for the guilt you're pilling on yourself, let it go. The path you have taken was *necessary* in order for you to come to this point in your life. I call my path "a necessary evil", because it allowed me to finally realize I needed to stop letting others treat me without respect and love. Had I not married the man I did and had a child with him, I would never have made that realization, taken action and changed my life. I would not be who I am today. With that reasoning in mind, I am thankful for that necessary evil.

You can do this. Your sister may be moving, but you can and will develop another support system. In the meantime, SR will be here.

thank you ..... i just wish i could use your screen name....NO DAY BUT TODAY!!!! and it should be today. every day i waste thinking about it is another day of progress for me.

You will find your time, and when that time comes it will be a relief to be out. I stayed with my AH for 15 years. I let him verbally abuse me and let him make me believe that I was ugly, useless and would NEVER make it on my own. He went to rehab, and was sober for 60 days. While the abuse subsided and we lived a "normal" life those 60 days were the clencher for me. I realized I could no longer go back to living with an A. The day he began drinking again, I packed my children and I left. It has been 4 weeks. I have never been more content! Sure I am scared and broke, but I am at peace and I have learned to LOVE MYSELF, flaws and all! Don't be too hard on youself, change is a slow process.

luckily for me there are no children involved.....for now. you see, we are an older couple and only married for 4 years. but i do have a daughter and she is about to be married and they want children right away.. i know she will never let my grandchild come stay with me as long as he is drinking. i need to think about that too

I think we all have felt this way. I know I have. I was so confused as to what to do. I wanted to leave one minute, but then I times I wanted to stay. I didn’t want to give up on my marriage, my dream, and I believed him when he said that he was sorry. I was miserable, but I projected an image of strength to others. I fought for my happiness, but it never prevailed. Even now that my AH is in recovery and working a program I do not know if I’m truly happy. I don’t really have an understanding of how I really feel. I’m almost in a robotic state. My emotions are just all jumbled up in a twist of his lies, manipulations, happiness, the “what ifs”, anger, and sadness. I am trying to identify those feeling now in myself. I think that is kind of where you are.

I’m still learning how to make the changes for me, and finding my path. I currently am reading a downloaded Nook version of the book “Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Caring for Yourself” by Melody Beattie. I am about half way into this book now, and it seems to have helped me realize what I have not been doing for myself and how much I have actually been codependent. Maybe this book would help you too.

You need to define your boundaries. Find out truly how much you will accept before you leave. If you feel like you need to leave now, than that is what you should do. Trust your intuition, and don’t base your decision on his actions.

The support groups like Al-anon are there to guide you to discovering your boundaries and emotions, as well as give you support. I too have that laziness in me to go to meetings. I prefer to do everything electronically. There are some podcasts on the Al-anon website which allow you to listen in on discussions . Those have been neat for me to hear, and I welcome you to do the same.

Remember there is peace and happiness out there waiting for us. Keep focusing on you, and keep posting. We are here with you.

This so timely for me. I keep thinking what if its not the booze, what if he's just a jerk.

I told my husband that I didn't want to be married to him a year ago. He convinced me to stay because of the practical matters. kids, money, our families. I agreed to stay and so i put on a happy face and try my best to enjoy the momments where things are good. I try to not let the bad stuff escalate, and this past year has been better. His drinking is the same, but he is less verbally abusive and seems to handle the kids better. The problem is because I don't mope around and act miserable or yell and argue with him - he keeps thinking I have changed my mind about how I feel about our marriage. I have told him - if my feelings change, I will let you know. DO NOT ASK ME because you will not like the answer. I am an optimistic, agreeable person. I can get along and have a decent time with just about anyone....that does not mean I want to be married to them. There are so many people I would rather spend time with, but the reality is, if I'm staying, its either do something fun with him or sit at home and watch him get drunk. Of course I'll spend time with him when that is my alternative.
I really don't know how to not send mixed messages and stay and not be angry every single minute.

am i sick to think that maybe if he hits me i could easily call that the last straw?

i had that kind of thinking too. If he cheated on me, then i would walk away guilt free. Until he cheated on me, and then managed to twist if around so it was my fault he needed another woman. How if I had been better, this wouldn't have happened. I began to see how maybe I wasn't as good of a wife as i thought I was and maybe it was my fault and ended up asking him to forgive me for failing him.

I also thought - if he hit me, that is certainly something I wouldn't tolerate. And then he shoved me and tried to wrestle me to the floor, and I justified it because it wasn't "hitting" and he was sorry and he was going to do things differently.

Don't wait for it to get that bad. I've lost so much respect for him, but worse, I've lost so much respect for myself.

BK - my wife left during my early attempts at recovery, and took our then 1 yr old child. We drank together, even in my early recovery when I would drink. She knew she couldn't live the life I need to live. It's not easy, but it was her choice. It happens sometimes. It just depends on the dynamics of the marriage - and the quality of faith.

sometimes people change...it could have been triggered by the alcohol, or he could have become so puffed up and full of himself he felt he no longer had to exhibit "good behavior"....he had his *wife* and she would never leave....

I think you have answered your own questions....and I agree, cut yourself some slack.....the *husband* blindesided you.

as for a therapist? the best place to start is calling your insurance carrier...certain plans only cover certain services...they will give you a list of local psychologists or social workers with a degree and the fee is minimal (often your co-pay)....cheaper than a bottle of wine, I paid $15.00 for 2X a week for the first year. if one doesn't click with you, you can try another...the first visit is like a mutual interview.

I have many times thought the same thing about feeling like I need to keep up appearances and make people think I am feeling stronger than I am. I've felt that others all around me, many in worse situations than me were able to be stronger, braver, make decisions more easily etc... And the more I worried about this, the less action I took. I could have written your post at any time in the past few yrs and I don't doubt that there will be days ahead where I will feel like this.

I think it is perfectly normal, in the circumstances we live in with an A, to feel like you describe. We feel stuck, confused, there are words spoken that don't match actions, we don't know what's real, we don't know what to trust and we get STUCK. I get it.

I also had the thought many many many times that if he'd get in trouble legally, or hit me or do something "bad enough" that would make it so much easier to leave and start making the hard decisions I had to. I can tell you this: he did hit me, he did get a lot worse and it did NOT make it easier to leave. I got more ashamed, I lied through ommission of info from family and friends about what was happening, I felt more trapped. I really understand what you're descirbing you're thinking and feeling and have been there.

And to all the above, I get this too. It IS overwhelming to look at what things have become and wonder how we let this happen. I was the woman who was NEVER going to let anyone treat me less than ideally (with a degree in Women's Studies no less- quite marketable degree btw, NOT!) and here I am, married to an abusive AH who the public thinks is a saint and I have been shamed and scared into keeping our life a secret for years. How I got here? No clue.

I don't think you're weak or lazy. I think you've been in a r/s with an A and it's too much for anyone to take. No one walks in and out of r/s with A's without being scathed (well, unless you've done it once and can see the signs I guess? I don't know...). You're taking action and steps fwd right now... You're on here, you're talking about what's going on, you're making yourself vulnerable and you're not in denial.

Don't look at the end of the journey as where you ought to be-- just take it by baby steps. What's the next smallest thing you can do that will be good for you and answer that qusetion and do it. When I stopped thinking that I had to have it ALL figured out and done and solved THISINSTANTRIGHTNOW that's when I felt that I was able to actually make fwd progress...

So, what's one small thing you can do today (call someone? workout? go to a free consultations with a lawyer, make a meal you love) that you can do to make yourself feel a bit better, to take charge of your life and feel like YOU, not he are the one in control?
Th
Thinking of you and sending you warm thoughts....

I had this same realization last night and had to admit to myself that at some level, I am afraid that he will get into recovery. There is so much hurt and betrayal that I am not sure I could ever get past it and go back to living with my AH.

I read on another thread where someone said they didn't know if they were missing what was, or what they had hoped for. That hit me. I think I am grieving/missing what I had hoped for in our marriage, that never was to begin with, alcohol or no alcohol. I am having to look very hard at that right now as I struggle to find my Self in all this mess.