daddyshelper

This is my first post, so I beg that you please be patient. I am twenty one years old. I have a gorgeous baby girl with my first son on the way. I know what it feels like to be afraid to look inside my own cabinets, to be ready to leave at the drop of a hat, to be afraid of the fights my daughter is bound to hear. I've asked myself so many times...At what point do my vows no longer matter? How will I know when my children are in danger? If I get hurt, it is no one's fault but my own for staying around. But my children? I cannot protect them forever. Every day, I pray that the love of my life and father of my children is not lost. I pray that he will see the hurt and pain he has inflicted. I hope that he can and will change. I guess what I'm looking for in response to this post is hope that change can happen. I welcome any advice or stories. I need the strength to decide which road to take from here.

Pelican

Welcome to the SR family!

I hope you will stick around and make yourself at home. Pull out the keyboard and type, type, type. I also recommend reading in the stickies (older, permanent posts at the top of the forum).

Here is one of my favorite stickies. I followed these steps while living with active alcoholism. They really helped me get grounded in what I needed to do to take care of myself and children:

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...l-problem.html

Is there hope that change can happen?
Why yes, there is hope.

However, I learned something valuable about hope here at SR. Hope is not a plan.

I also learned that I was powerless over alcohol and our life had become unmanageable. (Step One from Alanon meetings)

I wanted to love my alcoholic into sobriety. I wanted to change him with my words. I wanted him to love our family and value our relationship as much as I did.

I wanted.....a fantasy.
My reality was this: my husband had replaced his affection for me, our children, our homelife with a new priority - alcohol.

I wish there was a magic wand that families could wave over their addict to cure the addiction. I wish we could love them into recovery.

Have you considered this option for yourself:

What if you remove yourself and children from the alcoholism (legally or not), and give the alcoholic time to work out their addiction. This will allow you time, peace and energy to focus on your needs and the needs of your precious children. It doesn't have to be permanent.

Keep posting, we care about you!

lillamy

The fact that you're asking these questions tell me that in your mind, you are already there. And if you think you are, you are.

Willybluedog

Welcome to you, so glad you are here.

Please go over to the ACOA forum and read our stories, see the pain growing up with an alcoholic caused us, just because an alcoholic is not physically abusive does not mean that they are not violent, all alcoholics that live with children, especially young children, cause a world of hurt.

I hope you will get out of there, if he wants to change, then let him change, he can do that on his own, he is a big boy, he is responsible for his own recovery, just as you are responsible for your own recovery.

I hope you will go to a counselor, and/or al-anon to get help with your recovery.

Best of luck to you,

Big hugs,

Bill

Thumper

I think that point was reached somewhere in here.... "I know what it feels like to be afraid to look inside my own cabinets, to be ready to leave at the drop of a hat, to be afraid of the fights my daughter is bound to hear."

Vows are made to unite a man and woman in a partnership, a loving union. What you have just described is not a partnership and it is not a union. The vows keep so many in dangerous situations but vows go both ways and they were never ever made to keep one in a dangerous and/or frightening situation.

Prayers for those we love and those that are lost are always appropriate but I truly and honestly believe that hope lies with in ourselves, for ourselves. Hope in someone else is is staying still, in one spot, doing nothing. Hope in oneself is all about learning, and moving towards something good and wholesome and right. There is hope for you and your children of course!. You'll find it like a bright sun there inside yourself. If you can, turn your eyes and your thoughts away from your AH and focus them on yourself. What is it that your heart is telling you? Can you do what is needed to begin to hear, listen to and honor that voice inside yourself?

That was very hard for me to do but I felt lost and even crazy until I started to place that hope in myself. It helped for me to start looking very honestly at reality. I began watching his actions rather then listening to his words. I believed what I saw and experienced, not words that were so cheap and easy. I began looking at my day to day life and accepting that THIS was my reality. Not the fantasy in my head, not the way I knew it 'could' be, and not the way it used to be. Today is my reality.

I made very small movements towards listening to and honoring the voice inside. One step at a time. I let go of the future, which was also really hard. I had a picture of my family in my head and I nearly killed myself trying to force that to happen and it just was not reality. I had to let go of that picture and of trying to predict and force the future. One step at a time and hope returned because I knew that I could always take one more step. *I* could do that not matter what he did.

I'm not sure that made much sense to you but I urge you to stick around and post. SR was such a help to me when I first found it. The stickies at the top are also really great.

Itsastart

my heart goes out to you, and with a baby on the way it must be so hard. I am new here too. when I had my son, it gave me the strength to leave a bad relationship he was very mentally abusive and controlling, but in holding my son in my arms I found the strength to want more out of life to be happy again for my child, and while now I am in another relationship is not doing so well I am so glad I found the strength I needed to make a change in my life not just for me but for my child to see his mom happy . I look forward to this site and the help I need and any help I can give.

Cyranoak

...or your own is at stake.

Take care, read and post here often, and be safe.

Cyranoak

nodaybut2day

Has your partner shown you that the vows matter to him? Has he been a good partner and father?

Also, children learn from watching us...what is your daughter going to learn about human relationships, by watching you and your partner?

I too hoped for change, thought that I could convince my XAH with my words that he needed help, that he had hurt me, and that things needed to change...but the fact of the matter is the ONLY person I can control is myself. Once I realized he would never change because he didn't feel there was anything wrong with him, I started to figure out what *I* wanted and where I was going...My path lead me away from him.

I hope you keep reading and posting lots. SR is a good place to be.

blwninthewind

He has broken those vows.

He did it when he knowingly continues to drink and not seek treatement.

you need to go now...
it WILL get worse without treatment.

read some of the stories here....feel the pain...know that plenty of us have cried ourselves to sleep and more have been afraid to sleep at all no knowing what our alcoholics will do. You can't protect your kids if you can't protect yourself.
and you can't.

I've been living it for a LONG time.... my biggest regret is that I ALLOWED my children to witness all kinds of crazy chaotic behavior...and my crazy chaotic reactions (hence I recommend Alanon to help you cope). Your kids deserve to feel their home is their safety net from the world...not a living hell which it will surely become if you stay.