Just got home and was worried about you the whole trip. I know it's rough and sometimes seems like the mountain is much to high or the hole is much to deep. I've spent a lot of time in Juvenile Probation as a DV specialist and I have seen how incidents start like yours and end so very tragically. All I worry about is your children's and your safety

Your children need their childhood and they can't be allowed to live under an ahcoholic and abusive parent. It will affect them for a lifetime.

I don't have anything else to say; I just was so devastated as I got halfway into your story. Domestic Violence and Child Abuse issues are so close to me because I worked with it when it got to the point of people being in the hospital, morgue, or jail. And I've seen the continuation through generatiions because children believed the behaviour was their normal and continued it. Not always, the cycle can be broken.

At any rate, it's late for me and I have said my piece and I hope it helps you. As I read in one of the stickeys.....don't say the same thing more than once otherwise people will think you're trying to tell them what to do....and I never want to do that.

I pray for you and your children. Good night my friend.

TCB...

My heart breaks to read this. I was where you are... Just a year ago. Dealing with an angry abusive alcoholic. I struggled with trying to control and fix the situation. The problems and abuse were mounting faster and faster on me, and then the light turned on...

It was time to save me and the kids. I had to do what was best for us... And it was quitting, it was surviving. It got to a point where I was willing (and did) give it all up. Hell, I would have gnawed off my own arm to get out of the hell we were in.

It was scary and sad... And I had all sorts do doubts... But the help of those professional strangers saved us. They were people who could see what I couldn't. I was so close to the problem... Too emotionally attached. I had to trust them and have faith... And at that point it was easy because life was so bad, I had nothing to lose and everything to gain!

I'm so happy to say that I've been out on my own with the kids for 5 months now. It's not perfect... There are still sad times, but our house is a place of peace and comfort. The kids are blossoming. My XAH is still drinking. Still raging. Still blaming. He hasn't changed... But our life has because I did it!!!

I took back my power. I set the stage for what I really wanted for my life and then I went for it one step at a time. I'm a single mom now... And damn, it's a lot of work, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Please... Reach out for help.

TCB, last year I visited Graceland, you know, home of Elvis? Everywhere in the house, in his planes, his cars, everywhere is a lightening bolt and the letters TCB.

For Elvis, TCB stood for "Taking Care of Business." Is that what you are going to do? Isn't it time to get you and your kids out?

i now find he didnt stop at 10pm!!!!!! :gaah

The summer between Freshman and Sophomore year of college was a very stressful time for me, because I had a full year of college away from home and was starting to realize the dysfunction and emotional abuse that occurred there. I started spending more time away at a neighbor's house under the guise of helping her with her medical problems (she is house-ridden with a bad back), and she was my sanity. She even gave me her house key in case I needed refuge when she was away at a doctor's appointment, as long as I promised to stay away from the knife drawer. (Did I mention I was suicidal that summer, too?)

She reported my mother to CPS. They couldn't do anything because she had been warned and coached everyone so I was the only one who told the truth (and I was over 18), but the fact that she actually reported my mother and supported me was a lifesaver and changed my life... My father never stood up for me but merely backed up my mother.
I firmly believe I would have committed suicide at some point that summer if it hadn't been for this neighbor standing up for me. She changed my life.

Even so, I ended up in an abusive relationship with an alcoholic because the control and abusiveness was familiar and I felt that was all I deserved.
Children learn by example, and right now they are learning to replicate one of the sides of your relationship with your husband - whether as abused or abuser remains to be seen.

I wish my father had stood up for us growing up, even once. It would have made a major change in my life, and I had to work through a lot of anger towards him during my recovery because even though my mother was the verbally/emotionally abusive one, he was the one who was in a position to do something about it, and he didn't.

He taught me instead to accept it, that I deserved it.
And I'm going to spend the rest of my life working towards teaching myself to believe differently.

Today I confided a lot of information to my father-in-law...AH's dad. He knows about the drinking but not sure if this was such a great idea...I told him I have no control over what he does and that hes "not nice" to the kids. I just couldn't stand it! He comes over here and wants me to take a ride with him to pay for a summer day camp for the kids....ok my daughter got sent home from school yesterday with lice ahhh never had any experience with this b4... my son was checked and doesnt have it so I guess she picked it up from a few other confirmed cases in her classroom. I went to the store and got the kit and started shampooing her hair....AH has been sooo helpful he has hand picked hundreds of "nits" eggs that would hatch last night and worked onit all day today. I've washed the bedding yesterday and again today, vacuumed the furniture, and washing n spraying everything. We've had to come together on this process for now it looks like. Its always something. He even gave her a nice haircut and was so gentle and sweet with her. The school checked her at noon yesterday, 8:30 this a.m. she was denied and checked again at 1 pm and allowed to come back for the last two hours of the school year. Today was the last day and she wanted to go so bad! OF course he drank all day and was major drunk by 10 pm . Anyway F.i.l. asked if he should confront...I said IDK...not right now... didnt tell him how scared I would feel...like Im ratting out my husband to his own dad...anyway school is out and hopefully we can focus on ourelves ya know?

I did choose my username after Elvis's famous TCB and the lightning bolt logos he wore. I thought that would be perfect and So far that's what I'm trying to do...Takin care of business is what I do all day everyday. I'm so busy taking care of 3 kids 8, 6 and 2 .

Gosh maybe it was good practice to tell my f.i.l. lol. If I can tell him...I should be able to tell a DV person /counselor. But Im scared that I told him things again he never gets it. I asked him to read up on some info and that its a disease. I told him I cant help him. I only make it worse enabling and even told him that my upbbrinhing trained ME to be passive and repressive...MY parents were never without a drink in their hand until they both went to rehab in my late teens ..Im 34 now. I earned my Associates degree 2005 in business and information technology and have kept up to date and still can pass computer tests with above average results..so why didnt the job offers come in? ? Need to get a job.

TCB (((((((hugs)))))))

I understand that you are taking care of 3 kids, but are you the best that you can be, or are you walking around on eggshells. A little afraid to tilt that cart?

What about you and what you deserve, what about your children and what they deserve?

I'm saying that I did the same thing, I waited till my children were in college before I had the strength.

I'm now divorced, my children hardly speak to me. Why? I don't know, maybe because I didn't protect them. Maybe because they became their father. IDK?

I was ready to leave about 10 years before I actually did leave, but I stayed, and I stayed. I had cancer, and all of a sudden he turned into Mr Nice Guy. I wanted to believe it, I was in a weakened state. I found out later that he was Mr. Nice only so that he could keep up his front. I still stayed. I stayed until I thought I was crazy. I actually, I think did go insane. I left 2 years after my youngest went to college. What I did during those 2 years that no one but him was out of the household, I can't even think about it.

I originally joined here in the newcomers section. I am an alcoholic. Even after I left him 12/2008, I still numbed myself with beer.

Thoughts running thru my head all the time. How did I get here, is there anything that I could have done differently, better, or whatever? It didn't matter. I came to find that I did not cause it, I can't control it, I can't cure it. I tried to make things right for so many years. It didn't work.

The only thing that you can work on is to give yourself a better life, give your children a better life.

Don't attempt to talk to your AH about anything, it will do no good, it will always end up being your fault. Alcoholics take no responsibility, they take hostages.