painterman

After weeks of living with a festering silent resentment I tried to have a talk with R this morning-to address the issues that have gotten us here. I wonder if I can ever have a logical quiet discussion with her, she immediately flew into a rage claiming all the trouble was over one insignificant issue (I wish) and then proceeding to tell me that everyone in this town, including all our friends, the doctor etc knows what a lying, manipulative creature I am.
I tried very calmly to steer her round to talking, but the rage just escalated.
My grandfather was a lunatic, my mother is a lunatic and everybody knows that I'm a lunatic.
This brought to say-perhaps the relationship is over, do you think we should look at selling the house, second rant 'how can we sell the ********house when your room is such a tip blah blah blah.
Another good start to a working Saturday, I'm an artist and we have a small gallery/framing business-I've been so distracted I haven't painted for weeks.

Thumper

I'm sorry. Life sounds fairly unmanagable at this point.

She isn't going to participate in any way to make it more magable. If it were me I'd quit talking all together. It is the same circle every time.

Only you can make your life more managable. Her work is to make her life more managable, or not which seems to be her choice right now. Your work is to make your life more managable, so focus on that. When I was in a similar position I had to seperate out the relationship from what I could do to make my life more managable. There was to much fog surrounding the relationship. The answers were there I just had to act.

I recommend talking to a lawyer so you have some facts to work with when deciding what you need to do to make things more managable. Where I live I could pretty much proceed without 'agreement' from my husband. It wasn't easy but I could actually just quit talking to him about it and do what was best for me.

wanttobehealthy

In my experience, no, you can not have anything resembling a sane, rational conversation with an alcoholic; particularly a productive one trying to find out what is not working and attempt to collaborate to problem solve.

You're sane, you have skills that are valuable in a functional relationships and you are trying to use them with someone who is not sane and who has no interest in problem solving bc to do so would mean change.

I went round and round this same issue for years. Trying over and over to have the "how can we identify what got us here, what belongs to each of us and what can we do differently to improve things?". I couldn't figure out why this was always met with such anger, irritation, hatred, blame etc... And inevitably, rather than talking about anything productive, it turned into AH twisting my words, telling me I was a harsh, judgemental b*itch, expecting too much of him and that I was crazy like my mother (she is crazy). So, your description of your reasonable, healthy attempt at a productive conversation with your wife and the direction it went in is like reading the transcript of a scene from my own futile attempts at this over the years.

I have since separated from my AH and as hard as it is at times to not try to talk with him rationally about things, I have learned that it gets me nowhere but upset and insulted. I am sure I will slip up again and be reminded of how attempts like this turn out with him (something like this... - he's the one with the bat) but I try to remember how attempting these talks with him always winds up with me hurt and I try not to do that anymore.

No matter how calm you try to talk to her, no matter how much responsibility you place on yourself, no matter what, my experience over many years tells me that it will NEVER go well. At least not until she is in treatment and learning to deal with life as an adult.

I'm sorry you're going through such a rough time with her and that it's impacting your painting. My marriage and its breakdown really impacted my performance at work over the past few years and it impacted my parenting and I regret deeply how I stuck it out and made my marriage and trying to fix it my priority even when a sane person could have seen that it wasn't going to work.

You can be the healthiest, best person in the world and if your partner doesn't want to cooperate and contribute healthily to the marriage and be a true partner, then the marriage really can't work. I'm no saint or perfect or anything even close, but I realized that there was no amount of working on myself or trying to make my marriage work that was going to make it work unless my AH also wanted this. He doesn't and it sounds like your W doens't either. Addiction comes first.

painterman

Thank you both, Thumper and wanttobehealthy for those wonderful sane words-very eloquently put. How nice it is to hear the voice of reason, speaking from experience.
You have certainly helped improve my day!

m1k3

Painterman, in my case what finally happened is the pain of staying was greater than the pain of leaving. So about 5 months ago I moved to my own apartment. It was frightening and scary and lonely and about 1000 times better than it was living with her. I am still working through issues but that's OK. I am in a much better place now and life is good. I have not formalized a separation or divorce as of yet. I am gong to take me time and let things move at their own pace.

When you are ready you will do what you need to do. Trust me, you will know when it's right. Until then don't beat yourself up over things you think you should be doing.

Your friend,

painterman

Many thanks Mike, yes I'm not sure I'm ready to split the home yet-our youngest daughter has one year more of local college before (maybe) moving away to University. I think the road will be clearer then. I think I'll just shut the door and start a new painting!-thank you for the kind words.

Freedom1990

There you go! Do what you do best!

Tuffgirl

I second Mike - did the same thing - but I understand it can be difficult for many to do.

Here's one tactic I have used in the past and find it very helpful.

STOP TALKING TO THE ALCOHOLIC!

And here's a great quote hanging on my fridge to remind me to stop talking.
"Things cannot always go as you want them to. Accept disappointment quietly, cultivate the gift of silence when speaking may aggravate the difficulty."

Oh, and one more to ask yourself - WAIT! stands for Why Am I Talking?

painterman

Thanks Tuffgirl, yep-I'll put a zip in it!

LifeRecovery

I just want to thank you guys for putting into words my experience in "discussions" with my loved one. I got a huge sense of relief from reading this thread.

LivingLife4Me

thank you so much for posting. I am married to AH and this has been the story of my life for the last 15 years. I have finally realized that there is NO point in talking to him when he is drinking. NONE. So I am finally walking.away. Or driving.away. Or going into a hall closet to.scream. But I am not talking to him.

Sue

painterman

Sue, do you mind if I scream with you!?

Tuffgirl

I think all of us here could join you in a mutual scream-fest. There is nothing more maddening than those crazy-train blamestorming rage-o-ramas.

wishin4change

oh thats the perfect way to describe it

CagedBird

This is a lesson I wish I'd learned so long ago.

How many times have I gone in circles trying to reason with my AH? It's mind-numbing.

I am also an artist, and I know how you feel. I didn't realize until recently that I had so distanced myself from... myself, that I hadn't drawn in 2 years! 2 years!

It's so nice to get some artwork done again. I find it funny that my most recent painting is probably the most awesome thing I've ever done, and it creeps out my AH. lol That makes it all the better. :P

painterman

If I were to paint something now it would probably resemble Edvard Munch's Scream or Francis Bacon's Screaming Pope.

JACKRUSSELLGIRL

It is amazing how we think we can talk rationally to them and they will get it. I too, belong to the "Trying to talk some sense into the A club"!! Oh wait, I just quit that club and joined a yoga class! Well, at least I hope I can stop trying to talk sense into him. I do get sucked in at times but those times are getting further and further apart...

To me trying to talk sense into an A kinda looks like this..

A