Where to start
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: Wales
Posts: 16
Where to start
Hi just joined tonight and don't know. Where to start. I am a bright woman with 2 fabulous teenagers who has been married to an a for 20+ yrs. he was not an a when we met but got into awful rages when he drank. Then he started to drink most evenings after work. When he learnt to drive he promised this would stop but of course it did not. When he smashed up a line of parked cars after drinking and driving he would never drink again. I cold go on and on but I think you get the gist. He is now a full blown a who is so emotionally damaged that he is continually damaging us. We have split up so many times over recent years but I always forgive him and believe his promises. He is such a nice guy. Things are now the worst hey have ever been he is on Antabuse programme and help from mental Heath professionals but believes that the problems are ours and not his. Even when he leaves our home he terrorises me most days and we are all terrified of him although apart from a bit of pushing he has never hit us but he is so angry most of the time. I honestly don't believe now this is ever going to change but am unable to find the strength to do what is best for us. Our jobs are together too in a joint business. I know what most people will say but am jus wrecked emotionally.
Member
Join Date: Oct 2012
Posts: 1,423
Welcome to SR
There's a lot of support here for you so glad you have joined us.
I am so sorry you & your family are going through this.
Please do not feel that any of this is your fault or you are to blame in any way. It is the horrible truth of the disease.
Alcoholics need someone to blame & it is usually those closest that get it.
Others will be along to offer you good advice.
There's a lot of support here for you so glad you have joined us.
I am so sorry you & your family are going through this.
Please do not feel that any of this is your fault or you are to blame in any way. It is the horrible truth of the disease.
Alcoholics need someone to blame & it is usually those closest that get it.
Others will be along to offer you good advice.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: new moon road
Posts: 1,545
My heart goes out to you, and welcome to the forum.
The double personality of the alcoholic holds many wives hostage for sometimes decades to a marriage that is deteriorating beyond belief, and we all here understand what you have been living. It is the rollercoaster of addiction. The alcoholic creates a terrible crisis and inflicts emotional pain on those closest to him. The family is done with him, angry to the core, and the wife is absolutely determined to leave him for good.
Then, the alcoholic dries out a bit, the grandiosity and abusiveness turns into shame and remorse and promises to change. The pendulum swings in the loved ones, and now they are as filled with pity as they were filled with rage the day before. And nothing is changed. Promises are made by the alcoholic which he cannot possibly keep.
The life stays quiet for a time. Then it all begins again.
Mrshat, if you are unwilling to divorce your husband, then the very best you can do is get your teenage children into long-term counseling. Not to do so would be a neglect of your fundamental responsibility to provide for their basic health. Their mental health has been devastated by living with an alcoholic father. They can get well, they can, but not without professional help. They need to spend many months, perhaps years, in counseling with a professional who works with children of alcoholics.
For yourself, it is not surprising that you feel you have not the strength to leave him. Many wives never do leave. They stay to the end, and it is always an ugly end, if the alcoholism is not arrested through abstinence and recovery. But the mental exhaustion, the isolation, the self-doubt and self-criticism of the wife is often so overwhelming that she thinks she can do nothing more than hold on and pray for a miracle.
But miracles are rare events, and life teaches us that it is much better to accept that we have a joint responsibility with our Higher Power to make our own way out of the wilderness. We can pray for help. But we also have to place one foot in front of the other and walk our way out.
Here in the States we always recommend attendance at Al-Anon meetings. If you have no access to that, then stay right here with SR, read every day, gain strength and support from others who have walked the path to a better life, and you will find that something in you is starting to find ground, something in you is starting to strengthen. If you can get to counseling, that would be best of all for you, but if money is tight, then the children need it more. They have no life experience and they need rescue right now from the abuse.
On the opening page, you can click on each "Sticky" and read about the tragic realities of life with alcoholism, and about the best ways to cope with it. You will have to find your own answers. And you will, when you begin a true commitment to getting well. Posting here is a sure sign that there is some greater wisdom in you that is crying out for change. This may be your crossroads. And today may be the day you decide that your future will not be a rollercoaster repeat of the past.
You are stronger than you know. There is yet in you a person who can find her way. We hope SR will be a source of help to you.
The double personality of the alcoholic holds many wives hostage for sometimes decades to a marriage that is deteriorating beyond belief, and we all here understand what you have been living. It is the rollercoaster of addiction. The alcoholic creates a terrible crisis and inflicts emotional pain on those closest to him. The family is done with him, angry to the core, and the wife is absolutely determined to leave him for good.
Then, the alcoholic dries out a bit, the grandiosity and abusiveness turns into shame and remorse and promises to change. The pendulum swings in the loved ones, and now they are as filled with pity as they were filled with rage the day before. And nothing is changed. Promises are made by the alcoholic which he cannot possibly keep.
The life stays quiet for a time. Then it all begins again.
Mrshat, if you are unwilling to divorce your husband, then the very best you can do is get your teenage children into long-term counseling. Not to do so would be a neglect of your fundamental responsibility to provide for their basic health. Their mental health has been devastated by living with an alcoholic father. They can get well, they can, but not without professional help. They need to spend many months, perhaps years, in counseling with a professional who works with children of alcoholics.
For yourself, it is not surprising that you feel you have not the strength to leave him. Many wives never do leave. They stay to the end, and it is always an ugly end, if the alcoholism is not arrested through abstinence and recovery. But the mental exhaustion, the isolation, the self-doubt and self-criticism of the wife is often so overwhelming that she thinks she can do nothing more than hold on and pray for a miracle.
But miracles are rare events, and life teaches us that it is much better to accept that we have a joint responsibility with our Higher Power to make our own way out of the wilderness. We can pray for help. But we also have to place one foot in front of the other and walk our way out.
Here in the States we always recommend attendance at Al-Anon meetings. If you have no access to that, then stay right here with SR, read every day, gain strength and support from others who have walked the path to a better life, and you will find that something in you is starting to find ground, something in you is starting to strengthen. If you can get to counseling, that would be best of all for you, but if money is tight, then the children need it more. They have no life experience and they need rescue right now from the abuse.
On the opening page, you can click on each "Sticky" and read about the tragic realities of life with alcoholism, and about the best ways to cope with it. You will have to find your own answers. And you will, when you begin a true commitment to getting well. Posting here is a sure sign that there is some greater wisdom in you that is crying out for change. This may be your crossroads. And today may be the day you decide that your future will not be a rollercoaster repeat of the past.
You are stronger than you know. There is yet in you a person who can find her way. We hope SR will be a source of help to you.
Member
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Atlanta
Posts: 31,179
((Mrshat)) - Welcome to SR, though sorry for what has brought you here.
I hope you continue to read and post. I think you will find that many have been in similar situtions and you're not alone.
Above all, keep remembering to breathe. Most of us forget this simple thing when we are overwhelmed.
Hugs and prayers,
Amy
I hope you continue to read and post. I think you will find that many have been in similar situtions and you're not alone.
Above all, keep remembering to breathe. Most of us forget this simple thing when we are overwhelmed.
Hugs and prayers,
Amy
Member
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: USA
Posts: 62
As a wife of an A and married 36 years, you have come to the right place. I am also very new to this forum. You will find much wisdom in SR .much of that wisdom I feel from the similar experiences shared by many. You are not alone here. For me it has been very helpful to read read read. Absord some of the wisdom found here. I agree, think of your children and be kind to yourself. Hugs.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2011
Posts: 1,243
Well said by all... I will just say welcome and its one day at a time.
Take care of you and those kids... if you stay on the path you will find the answers and strength to do whatever it is you need to do.
Soak up the information about your adversary... alcoholism... more will be revealed.
Take care of you and those kids... if you stay on the path you will find the answers and strength to do whatever it is you need to do.
Soak up the information about your adversary... alcoholism... more will be revealed.
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