audreysunshine

First substantial post on SR. I found you guys through googling my current situation (OH the joy of the internet) and after reading for a few hours, I'm confident enough to share/ask for advice.

My background: Raised by a dry alcoholic and a wet alcoholic with AA values. They are my biological grandparents who adopted me from tweaker/drunk parents. Long history of substance abuse in my family. I have experience attending AA meetings with family as well as Alanon meetings. I'm a codependent and I hate it. Went to College after being clean and dry for 18 years and started experimenting with drugs and alcohol. Currently, I have a few drinks a week, and I use marijuana (pain, nausea and anxiety relief prescribed by a physician.) I am 25.

I am married to a drunk. Met him five years ago and brashly married him after knowing him for days. Was pregnant within a few months, and while he was clean and sober when I met him, he started using drugs and alcohol a few months after my pregnancy began. He developed a crack habit (makes me sick to even talk about it) and an alcohol problem, and it took him until the birth of our daughter to get clean from the cocaine. Now he just drinks. A lot. Sometimes he will go a few days without a drink, but that's infrequent. He is a long-cycling bipolar who has 6 month depression cycles and 6 week mania cycles, and the drinking compounds the emotional issues in question. He is 35. He has been unfaithful over the years, and I have had emotional affairs. We are generally unhappy, but because he is a wonderful father in most respects and is my best friend, we have stayed together for the benefit of our child. For the last six months, he has been emotionally withdrawn, angry, flat, and disconnected. I used to respond to this cycle by getting angry, aggressive, and yelling to get his attention. For the past few years, I have been becoming more flat and unaccessible to him, as to protect myself from the emotional drain of his mood swings and lifestyle changes. I'm becoming a proverbial ostrich and sticking my head in the sand.

I love my husband. I am afraid of him, don't trust him, shy of him and don't want to be intimate with him. These are not good things. All of my friends are his friends, and the ones that I had that didn't like him have been pushed out of our lives. I don't really have anyone to talk to, so I'm here. Not sure what to do. Because I'm only 25, I'm still close with a few friends from grade school, including my HS sweetheart. We never really broke off our relationship other than dating other people, and we've remained friends since we met. I'm finding myself emotionally drawn to him, and we both harbor feelings for one another. For the last six months (my husband's latest depression cycle) I've been trying to find a way to separate from my husband, and now that my husband has finally heard me, he has "quit drinking." Because I've been asking him for four and a half years to quit, I feel obligated to stay with him through his recovery. I love him, but the pain of the marriage is really deep and I don't know if I can withstand going through recovery with him. I feel so selfish and wrong for even thinking about leaving him, but I'm so miserable and so resentful and it makes for a terrible marriage. He has been sober for two weeks, and his attitude has done a 180 degree flip, so much so that his friends are all concerned for him. He is fronting a positive attitude so heavily that everyone is waiting for him to have a blow out, and I'm afraid of what it will look like. Anyway...There's my story. If you have any thoughts, let me have it.

lizatola

Others will come on with plenty of wisdom for you! Have you tried any Al Anon meetings recently? Wishing you peace and serenity tonight!

Tuffgirl

Welcome, audreysunshine. I pulled this sentence form your post and bolded the phrase above.

Why do you feel obligated? And what gives you the impression he is serious this time?

And these can be rhetorical and just food for thought, but I can assure you that you have put up with more than enough already - I can't see any further obligations if you no longer want to remain married to an addict.

lillamy

Do you realize that the first and the second sentence contradict each other?
That's not love. That's addiction.

You sound more than just unhappy, you sound miserable. And it's been said here more than once that it's better to have NO parent than to have an alcoholic parent.

I'm not going to tell you what to do, but I can tell you that the one thing I will regret for the rest of my life is that I put the well-being of my alcoholic husband over that of my children for way, way, way too long. And they are still paying the price.

Learn2Live

You say you are staying together for your child but I am here to tell you that for a child to live with an alcoholic is just teaching her alcoholism, codependency, and all the sick crap that comes with them, including people yelling. It's a horrible childhood. Please get help.

Graceland

Here's something that stood out to me:

<QUOTE> I've been trying to find a way to separate from my husband, and now that my husband has finally heard me, he has "quit drinking." Because I've been asking him for four and a half years to quit, I feel obligated to stay with him through his recovery. <QUOTE>

I don't know what type of support your husband has, whether he is going to AA or has some other means of recovery, but stopping drinking does not solve the problems. The alcoholic is the whole person. In order to really recover, he has to address the reasons why he drinks and this will take time. I've often heard that the first year is the hardest. I am also considering leaving my husband under similar conditions.

Just like you didn't cause his alcoholism and cure it, you have no obligation to stand by him as he recovers. You have to put yourself first. This is the best way to protect your child. You have no obligation here other than to yourself and to your daughter. His only obligation, at this point, is to alcohol and, hopefully, his own recovery.

It sounds like you have a good support structure in place.

FireSprite

Welcome, Audrey. You've come to a great place.

I (like the others) pulled out of your post the part that grabbed me the most. I just want to point out that being a great dad & great husband are two very different things, and that I have never, ever heard ANYone say that staying together for their kids worked out. I think it's one of those things that we tell ourselves is OK while it's happening, but in our hearts we know better. I had to come to that same realization when I was detaching from my AH. No matter what his relationship was or wasn't with our DD, it had literally nothing to do with anything between us. Knowing what you know as a codependent, you must also see where you have the ability to change that for your own child?

I hope you stick around & keep reading.