Fear
 

I know fear is something that is ruling my emotions these days. I sometimes see fear as an inability to trust God/Higher power, yet I also see it as a means of protection for my soul. As negative an emotion that fear is, I do believe that it has it's place. It's giving me the confidence to believe that things will work out as God/HP has planned, fear is telling me that I must renew my faith in God/HP, and fear is reminding me that I don't have control(and that's got to be accepted and understood by me, LOL).

Unfortunately, I am still at the point in my recovery where I find myself overwhelmed with the 'what ifs' in life.

What if he loses his job because of this DUI?

What if he does circumvent the law and put the ignition interlock on a different car? Do I report him? Do I get involved and set boundaries ie. regarding driving with our son?

Can I continue to live with someone who is not in a program of recovery?

What if he can't handle jail, the ignition breathalyzer, and all the fallout from the DUI and he snaps? What will be my response? What boundary should I have set in place?

What will happen emotionally with him now that he's choosing to NOT take his antidepressant? And, do I bother to say anything?

Yep, so these are the what if's that I woke up with this AM. It's time for me to take some time for myself, right? I went to a meeting last night, but I think I need another tonight too, LOL! I keep extending some grace to myself. I'm new to this program and I haven't had a relationship with God(or any Higher Power) for quite a few years. I feel emotionally raw and vulnerable but I know that it's a good thing.

Your fears are not unfounded. Crisis is always around the corner for any alcoholic and his family. And we should not try to prevent those crises. When an alcoholic is hit full force with the negative consequences of his drinking, again and again and again, he might realize that the problems in his life are directly the result of drinking and he might hit bottom and get some serious help.

If you are hoping crisis will not occur in your AH's life, then that means he would not be experiencing negative consequences again and again, which means he is manipulating his environment (including you) to support his drinking and succeeding in that. So he continues to get sicker and sicker. Addiction is a fatal disease.

Your choice is to decide if you are willing to live, with your child, at the mercy of someone's addiction. Your AH will not keep any promises he makes about drinking, and this includes whether or not he will drive drunk with your child in the car. This is the hard fact of addiction. He cannot control his drinking, anytime, anywhere, and to think he will be able to is to live in delusion and danger.

Your focus will be to decide what safety looks like for you and your child and to put a plan into place to achieve that. And sooner than later, because it is inevitable the next crisis is around the bend. This is the reality of addiction. It involves ongoing crisis.

Your fear is telling you your life is unstable and it is. We cannot predict what events will happen in the future. But with active alcoholism, we can always predict that until the alcoholic is solidly clean and sober, more sh** is about to rain down.

So rather than look at him and wonder how he is going to x, y, and z, look at you and your child and at this one goal: safety.

I'm glad you are in meetings and here. You'll need help to accept the reality of your situation and to make some very painful decisions based on the reality of alcoholism. Your fear is a good thing. If we see a tornado out ahead, we feel fear but we also get into action to take shelter to save ourselves and our children.

His alcoholism is a tornado. Your fear is telling you to get going with a plan to take shelter.

Since he's not actively drinking, I like to think that there's some hope for a better future. Unfortunately, my fear needs to be checked daily. As far as safety goes, my AH has never been a problem in that area. If he did relapse and continued with addict behavior I would have to change my plans and ask him to move out but for now, he is doing his own thing: abstaining from alcohol without a program, drinking his NA beer, and telling me that his lawyer says he can put an ignition interlock device on a beater car, LOL! I still think he thinks I'm naive enough to believe that one!

He may be abstaining, but he is definitely still behaving like an addict. BTW, those NA beers are the perfect cover for sneaking real beer. They smell the same on his breath. Just sayin...

L

Yes, I know, but I truly don't believe he's drinking the real stuff....yet.

Can you tell I've had some experience with it? ;)

L

My AXH will do the NA beer too, at the end he always end up with the real thing. And YES alcohol is just the symptom not the real problem.

What he is doing, is not doing, or going to do, or not going to do is not really the problem.

You have stated it, your problem is YOUR FEAR. And none of us have a Crystal Ball to tell the future. When I reached the point you are at now, I went back to some of my early 'tools' in recovery from my addictions and pulled out a very beautiful poem that I used to read many times a day:

Over the years I have found several different 'framings' of this beautiful prayer and I have one hanging in each room of my house. It has become a constant reminder to me that my HP is ALWAYS there for me, and that when I have 'fear' I am losing 'faith.'

That and the Serenity Prayer, reminding me that I can only 'change' me took me quite far. I also, every time I got the 'WHAT IF's' going, would sit down and take a good look at me and what I COULD DO FOR ME, to keep moving forward to the future WITH or WITHOUT 'him.' How could I make myself a stronger, INDEPENDENT, individual? Well, for me, that entailed, more meetings, more private counseling and more one on one time with both my AA sponsor and my Alanon sponsor.

Back then there was no SR or I can assure you I would have been posting, lol. You are taking the 'steps' you need to take for you!!! Remember, the steps we take for our own recovery, never seem like enough to us, but ............................. we take baby steps, sometimes we take 2 forward and 1 back, but we KEEP MOVING FORWARD in our own recovery. And NO it never feels like we are moving fast enough, lmao but we are moving forward.

You ARE moving forward, even though you do not think so. Please go back and read your posts since this latest episode started. Read it like you are reading someone else's posts. You will see the 'progression' of your awareness. You will see the 'progression' of your growth. You will see the progression of your personal 'change in attitude' about this man 'you thought you knew.'

All of it positive.

Every time you feel 'fearful.' Every time you want to 'cry, rant, rave, scream, and yes even laugh' please come here and share with us. We have been where you are, and we DO UNDERSTAND.

Love and hugs,

Laurie, I have that poem tucked in to my Bible and read it regularly. I think what bothers me the most is that I am extremely dependent on him financially. Before my son was born I was a stock broker and before I met AH I was living alone and supporting myself. I never moved back home once I turned 18 and pretty much figured life out on my own.

Fast forward all these years and I have been homeschooling our 13 year old since kindergarten. I love it! Unfortunately, my job skills aren't up to par and I need to start thinking about how I can provide for myself if things with AH go down the toilet. I think that's also part of my fear; how many variables can change if our marriage doesn't survive his insanity. And, honestly, at this point he is as normal as I've ever seen him despite the NA beer drinking and the possible circumvention of his breathalyzer. He acts like my 13 year old quite frequently, though, and it's a bit irritating but if that's my biggest issue then I guess I have to be grateful.

And, here's a good one for you, too: Shortly after AH's DUI he told me that he never wants me to enter the workforce again. He said that I would probably meet someone and that I'd fall in love and that I'd leave him. Wow! Talk about insecure. I've stayed this long, you'd think that would give him some confidence. It's like he's already priming me to NOT go out into the work world. He knows that men hit on me regularly. He saw a Greek host at a restaurant pay extra special attention to me, while on his(ah's) work trip vacation to St Kitts/Nevis. All the ladies in our group made comments afterwards about how this 20 something young guy was obviously all over me and my AH just sat there and laughed. Afterwards he made all kinds of sarcastic comments about my Greek boyfriend, UGH!

He doesn't want you to work because it would give you independence, you would have your own money and he would lose some control over you. It has nothing to do with another guy, it is a red herring, he only cares about booze...IMHO he will start drinking again as soon as his legal issue is resolved..he is not in recovery...if it were me, I'd start looking for a job, even if it is part time..your son can go to a public school, make some new friends and expand his horizons.

Well then, I have some time. His legal issue won't be over for about 18 months minimum as he will probably have to have the interlock device for that long. I have been considering going back to school and I have been working with our son on getting his educational testing done and preparing him for upper level schooling. I figure I can stick it out and see how things go for at least the 18 months(barring any major issues). If our marriage improves in the meantime, then more power to us. If it doesn't, then I can continue to re-assess things and take it one day at a time.

I seriously don't believe he is drinking anymore. I am working on trusting him again even though I know I may get hurt again. It will all be part of my lessons learned and maybe I'll thank him one day for making me a stronger person and for teaching me that I can forgive, I can trust, and yet I also will have the strength to take care of myself in the mean time.

Trust isn't a gift. It is something someone earns, with their integrity and patterns of behavior. If it hasn't been earned, don't hand it over. IMO only of course.

I'm glad he is sober now and at least facing the right direction! Hope you guys are one of the success stories. :)

Well, in 18 months, you could get some college credits, which you want either way right?
You can take care of yourself, you have done it before. :)

What would you do if you knew you could not fail? Just you.

Beth

What I see is that your fears are largely about him.
If you drop the fears that are about him, here's what you have left:

Do I want to continue living like this, and while I figure that out, what boundaries do I set?

We're not supposed to give advice, but I will say one thing that IS advice: The first boundary you absolutely need to set is that he never drive with your son. If you are not more than 100% dead sure that he is sober, and you're not, you don't know if he's sober when he's driving your son around.

Any other boundaries you want to set to protect your sanity, your soul, and your physical safety are up to you. But you need to protect your son from riding with a drunk driver. At all costs.

lizatola,

I've been there, done that, right down to the homeschooling. Been financially dependent, wanting to believe someone who is not believable, being told that he would want to choose WHO I would move on with, if we ever broke up...UGH. It feels really yucky to type that.

Anyway, we did break up. It has been 6 years with some rocky parts of that road, and I'm now financially independent after having gone back to work. My kids are happy and doing very well in school and at home with me, though of course they have been through some tough stuff. They have had therapy and attend Alateen. I'm in an 8-months-and-counting relationship that looks mighty healthy and well-boundaried, and I'm learning to trust someone who is trustWORTHY. I've attended Alanon for 2+ years, done therapy, been here on SR and surrounded myself with a chosen family of recovery.

It's not all roses, but I wouldn't trade it for what I had. NOT EVEN CLOSE. There is much hope, help and guidance here. Keep coming back.

If you want to talk more about the transition from homeschooling and being a stay-at-home Mom into other ways of living, feel free to PM me.

posie

With his jealous and controlling tendencies, as well as his lack of drinking (crutch), if you make moves to go back to school and get on a career path, I predict you will see the proverbial sh*t hit the fan!!! He might even cross the line from 'controlling' to 'abusive', so please educate yourself about emotional and financial abuse and what that looks like. Women that are financially dependent on their abusers are VERY vulnerable to more of the same while their sense of self-worth and sanity are slowly being chipped away.

Have you ever discussed this possibility with him? What was his response? If not, I challenge you to stick your toe in the water and just see....

Yes, I've discussed it with him. Hey, I was a yoga instructor for 5 years, I had taught step aerobics for 3 years prior. I was wearing tight clothes and having men give me their number for years and he knew it. He never once said anything jealous nor did he try to stop me from teaching.

As for financial stuff: he has made it clear that he would give me everything if we split. He said he wouldn't fight me on the finances and would give me everything we have in savings. I could probably go about 2 years without having to find a full time job on that money and if I sold the house and took the equity(1/2 of it) I would have another year's worth of cash. If I get any of his 401K, then I'd have another 2 years of cash. Believe me, I've done the numbers and I'd be fine.

liz,

You may have been out of the work place, but you have been managing the home, your son's schooling, your hubby; You, my dear, are an excellent manager and your skills are not gone! They come back. I hadn't truly worked in 11 years (piddly part time jobs here and there), but getting back to where I had been was such a wonderful thing for me! Everything came back and I have a renewed energy for it! Maybe start part time?

You can get back there again!!!!!!!
Love,