Quick question
 

My ah's family is unaware of everything that is going on. He is not too close to them, but does talk to his mother weekly. He is going back to MD to visit them in a few weeks and I was thinking of telling my mother in law, but then realized that my motives might not be right. Have you told the family(theirs) or do you just not bother? His family lives 2500 miles away so we aren't very close. He has a tenuous, at best, relationship with both his older brother and sister.

I wouldn't say anything to them. There is nothing they can do and there is no point in causing them concern over something they can't control.

If it were me...I would leave anything that has to do with his family up to him to deal with.

Well, stbx's family are the ones who've bailed him out of jail, and basicallt become his new enablers. And before the first dui i did tell mil about the drinking, and she blamed me. So not a positive experience in my case.

Thanks. Gotcha. I was thinking along those lines. His brother and sister don't think highly of him nor does he think highly of them. His whole family is good at backstabbing and throwing each other under the bus.

It's never accomplished anything for me. Just feeling more panic and anxiety when I experience their reaction. I'd say check your motivations for telling them. Are you wanting to tell them for you, or for him? What do you seek to accomplish by telling them? To control the outcomes? To show them you are not crazy? Because you know in your heart he is going to bash and badmouth you to them when he gets there and you want to tell your side first, or show them how good of a person you actually are before he fills their heads full of lies about you? Because those are the things that go through my mind when I've talked to X's parents and family.

Toxic. Just toxic.

I went to my former in-laws last February/March right after XAH started physically abusing me. At first they were supportive, his sister even said, "You have to divorce him Shannon. He's just not going to change."

Fast-forward a year... blood is thicker than water... and everything I told them has been used against me in one fashion or another.

As a good friend tells me, "Shannon, keep your counsel!" He's an attorney and what he means is... "Keep your mouth shut and don't make it harder for yourself!!!"

So Liza... Keep your counsel! It make seem sneaky and wrong at first... but believe me, it has to be that way when exiting an abusive situation.

An even better reason not to say anything. Leave them to their dysfunction.

this is one of the areas where i definitely messed up. i'm pretty close to my xabf's parents, especially his mother. after he went into the hospital for detox, she and i became closer and we actually began discussing his alcoholism. prior to his inpatient treatment, we had never talked about his drinking, although i now know she was not blind to it, and was actually waiting for something to happen. as an acoa, she knows the drill, and we had MANY conversations about what i was getting out of the relationship, and whether i really wanted to bring kids into it. she would ask for updates, and i would give them to her.

one of the last things that my xabf said to me was that i had ratted him out to his parents. at the time, i didn't see it that way. i wasn't trying to "tattle" on him so that his parents would step in; in fact, there were many occasions where his mom expressed a desire to confront him, and i told her it wasn't necessary, for he was doing what he needed to do to figure out his life. while i thought i was trying to maintain an honest relationship with someone for whom i have a great deal of respect, and who might have been my mother-in-law, my xabf felt like i was betraying him. (side note: he knew that his mother and i talked, so i wasn't being dishonest with him...)

stepping back, i can see how unfair (to him) it was for me to update her. when asked direct questions, i should have just politely told her she needed to speak with him. then the ball would have been in HIS court to decide what was best for her to know.

hindsight's a b*tch!

Think about it though, Shawty. If he was doing what he should be doing about his alcoholism, the situation would not even have existed. It's just not normal or healthy to have to try to figure out and worry about what you should and should not discuss during the course of conversation with family. It's the nature of this disease: SECRETS. You are not free to share yourself, your thoughts, or your feelings with someone in your life because you have to maintain appearances, be careful what you say, guard against saying the wrong thing, protect the alcoholic and protect the alcoholism. It's just SICK. I don't think you ratted anyone out. I don't think you were being unfair to anyone. You SHOULD have done EXACTLY what you did, that is, you handled as well as you could someone else's sickness that surrounded you and permeated your life.

Liz, the question I would ask myself is how does this help my recovery? When I put my recovery first then figuring what to do became a whole lot easier.

Your friend,

a) whatever you decide in this situation, won't be "wrong" it's not a moral question, and you are not responsible for his, or his parent's feelings. but it will turn out well, or not, for you.
b) I don't know about you, but I rarely have ONE motive for doing anything: just because one of my motives for doing something is less than saintly, does not mean that it is not the best thing for me to do for my own recovery, in a situaiton where I am unclear, sometimes waiting helps. sometimes it makes things worse. but in the end, if you blurt out that he is an alcoholic and you don't know what to do,how other people recieve that may be painful to them, and may not help you, but it won't be a wrong thing to do.
c) I have never had good outcomes from confiding in ex Ah's parents, nor from NOT confiding in them, I have been blamed for telling them, not telling them enough, and hiding things from them. My place is in the wrong, and my actions have no bearing on that, so you may as well do what you can live with.

good luck (())

When I realized my AH was alcoholic, I told him I would not tell others (like start a conversation about it), but also I would not lie for him or cover up for him.

When he was hospitalized after trying to detox at home I ended up telling his family at that time because I could think of no other way to explain his hospitalization (he was in for 2 weeks, I told on day 3 or 4) without lying or covering up.

Personally, if felt good to have the others know. I felt released from "The BIG Secret" which felt codie, even if I didn't know what that was at the time.

Some were surprised, some had a vague inkling - like puzzle pieces fitting together now, but no one had figured it out on their own. Some were supportive, some treat us like we have dropped to second class citizens.

Just my experience.