Audrey1

I am quite interested to hear others' opinions on rediscovering partners and our relationships with them if they happen to quit drinking.

Bit of background. My partner proposed to me almost two years ago. I didn't give him an answer then, as I have never believed in marriage and didn't want children etc etc. It was a bit of a shock.

But the funny thing is, being with him made me rethink this, and I went from not wanting kids at all, to wanting kids with him, and only him. And even not thinking marriage was such a mind-boggling thing. BUT, there was something niggling me. Turns out it was his drinking, which I was only vaguely aware of at the time as I was not living with him then.

The nasty reality of his drinking became clear when we moved in together, and the pressure to say yes also increased and increased. When I finally realised he had a problem, I told him that although I had wanted to say yes, that there was no way I would agree to marry or have children with him while he drank like he did. In his usual blinkered way, he took this to mean I had agreed to marry him if he cut down on his drinking. Which he did. For an eyeblink.

The more he drank and told people we were engaged, the angrier I got. And now that he has quit, I am still angry, because I can't instantly agree to marriage and children so early on in his sobriety. It pains me to tell him this, as I can see how much it hurts him (he even has names picked out for our kids), but it won't change my mind. I have waited for him to choose sobriety. Why can't he wait for me to be comfortable with the idea of putting a commitment to him (that should already be clear, I might add) on paper? It also pains me that the one person I ever wanted to have children with is the exact same person who is delaying me from doing so by the sheer fact that he is an addict. In actual fact, I know he will make a truly wonderful father. But only if he's sober.

Hmmm... I'm sure this was not just a deluge of infuriating thoughts. I'm certain I had a question or two... Oh yes. I wanted to know if people who quit drinking ever have any concept of the gravity of their behaviour while drunk? Of the havoc they wreaked on their relationships? I can see why they might not, due to the simple fact that they black out, and what they don't black out they forcefully erase so they don't have to deal with it.

But does anyone out there have any experience with their recovering partners truly realising what they've done, and accepting that life can't just move on smoothly as a result of them quitting? That you, as a sober couple, need to really get to know each other almost all over again? I spoke to my partner about this the other night, but turned it around and asked him if he was ever worried he would start to see me in an unattractive light now that he was sober, and didn't have his beer goggles on. He just laughed and said it wasn't possible. How can he be sure? He's only known me sober for about six weeks.

Obviously I loved him despite the drinking while he was a drunk, and I love him while he's sober, but how similar are those two people? And how similar am I to the woman I was when he was drunk? Confusing.

LadyinBC

One thing about being an alcoholic is that we want what we want now. Instant gratification. At least that's what it was like for me when I drank.

When we are in our addiction we are selfish and it is all about us. This is something we have to work on when we sober up. We have to realize it is not all about us and that we aren't victims of our drinking we choose it. I also think in someways we want family members or spouses to "forget" what we did and move on. Well is just isn't that easy and I understand that.

When my daughter and I went to counselling she told him all the crappy things I did and how she felt about my drinking. Of course I felt embarrassed, ashamed etc. However she wasn't telling him anything we didn't talk about.

Later that night I was thinking about our session and said to myself that I made it all about me again feeling crappy about what I did instead of how crappy she felt. I hope this make sense.

Joe Nerv

An important question here is whether or not he's just abstinent, or sober? If he simply put the drink down, and isn't planning on changing anything within himself, then there's an excellent chance that he'll pick up again. And if not, there's an equal chance that he's just become a dry drunk and become a miserable alcohol free person. And probably resentful towards you, if he's doing it to keep you and and his future children around.

If he does plan to do more than just put the drink down, then my suggestion is that he starts attending AA meetings (if he isn't already), and that you have a go at alanon. People who commit themselves to the AA program have IMO no option other than to grow and change, if they want to stay sober. Alanon helps for their partners to grow along the same lines. Also gives them a much better understanding of the recovering/recovered alcoholic. I have a great relationship with my wife, but it's even greater when she's going reguarly to alanon. Can't put my finger on exactly why, but we just seem like a much better oiled machine when she is. IMO, AA and Alanon is best insurance a couple can have for continued success if one of the people is putting down a drink.

Good luck.

LexieCat

I second what Joe said. I've been through early sobriety with two alcoholic partners--one stayed sober and the other did not. I've also recovered from my own drinking (four and a half years sober), though I wasn't in a relationship at the time.

Just putting down the drink does not change much. Though AA is a tried and true way to do the internal work necessary for happy, long-term sobriety, I know sober alcoholics who have done much of the same internal work outside of the AA program. I also agree that it's ideal when both partners are "on the same page"--I think if I had stayed more involved with AlAnon during my first husband's recovery I would have been a better partner to him, and maybe it would have prevented my own self-destructive drinking pattern that developed later on. Who knows?

I do think you are right to go slow and see how things pan out. It's still very early for both of you. Regardless of whether he is willing to go to AA, though, AlAnon would be very beneficial to you. It's excellent for clearing your head of the chaos that goes along with an alcoholic relationship, whether the person is sober or not.

FireSprite

I'll answer from my perspective, based on my experience ~thus far~ with RAH's sobriety:

I definitely agree with other posters that there is a difference between sobriety & abstinence... a very big, important difference. I hope this helps!

FireSprite

And to answer the questions in your title - Yes, we definitely were strangers by the time he started recovery. I no longer knew this person I was living with & married to any more than he knew himself.

chuwantmybuffet

To be honest with you, he's not going to quit drinking for you, he's not going to quit for his mother, his father, brother or anyone but himself. Thats the gods honest truth, its something he needs to find within himself, a deep issue that forces him to drink. Im sorry to be so frank but i've been in his shoes and screwed relationships up because of my drinking and heroin use. Maybe you guys should take a short break then he'll realize what his personal issues are and come back to you clean and sober. Eventually alcohol will bring him too his knees and he will lose everything and everyone. Im not saying dump him, take a break. You need to be the one who encourages him to see his inner self and not lose everything because he doesn't have to.
Best of luck.


-Steve

chuwantmybuffet

and another thing, take all of the advice in here and use it to your advantage. Thats what were here for. All the people above me are great people and have experienced whacked out things beyond your wildest imagination. Some of us have been homeless, been using daily for years straight, our tolerances are so high we use just to feel normal, and we've lost our self respect. But the good thing is we turn it around and live to tell the day.

PohsFriend

It really is like starting over with a new person because the recovering addict is learning to deal with life and every emotion without the shield of their drug of choice.

My wife has had to relearn everything as a sober person after about five years where alcohol 'helped' her to be confident and outgoing. Everything was new, from falling asleep without help to talking together even making love.

I think I've probably been to about 20 AA open speaker meetings - where an alcoholic shares their story from the beginning and includes relapses and arrests as everything that happened to them. This thread made me realize something and that is that other than obliquely referencing losing their family or spouse I have yet to hear a single recovering alcoholic really make mention of what they put their loved ones through. The AA mantra seems to be to send the family to alanon for support because the recovering alcoholic cant handle the things they drank to avoid, te consequences of their drinking, the daily battle to stay sober and the awful guilt that would accompany really seeing what they did to others. There are amends in the steps but that's still really about helping the alcoholic let go of guilt than it is about helping te person they make amends to heal.

I'm not saying that's wrong, in fact I've kinda decided for myself that I don't need it. I bed her sober right now and in the future and if that means we never talk about what it was like when she was circling the drain then so be it.

I'd advise that you go slow on committing to more right now. When something inside says 'caution' you should trust that voice. He needs time to get well and decide he wants this when he is well enough to do fine on his own. You need to see real change and a consistent pattern of change over time that lasts before that voice is likely to give you te go ahead.

What's the rush?

LexieCat

Weeellll, I'm not doubting your experience in the least, but what happened at even 20 speaker's meetings doesn't mean that the issue is not addressed. I've been to many, many speaker's meetings where the harm to others is talked about. Also, meetings are not simply "confessionals" where people share about all the stuff they have done. There is an element of that, mostly so newcomers can identify. The real sharing about harm and amends is done with a sponsor, not in meetings. And a formal amends is supposed to be all about making good for the harm you have done, not just to make yourself feel better. Obviously, in some cases no amends can sufficiently rectify the harm, and in some cases the offer of amends is rejected. In those cases, yes, we have to let go and know we have done what we could, which is all we can do. The "feeling better" is supposed to be a BYPRODUCT of making the amends, not its purpose. The purpose is, in fact, to set right, to the extent that we can, the harm that was done.

I don't think AA has a "mantra" about sending the family to Al-Anon, either. In fact, AA is separate from Al-Anon and does not "officially" recommend it (although obviously individual AAs do). If the focus is on ourselves in AA it's for the same reason we do it in Al-Anon. It's because, ultimately, the only person we can change is ourselves.

Florence

Yes, it was like finding out I married someone entirely different than I thought. And also realizing that a lot of what I liked about his personality at the beginning of our relationship was a long hypo-manic phase (he's Bipolar II). Which, well, it causes you to ask a lot of questions about yourself. All the good times, big laughs, and crazy sex, was probably a lot to do with the mania.

Finding recovery for the first time as a young man in his early 30s, he'd been using in some form for almost twenty years, and drinking heavily daily for I don't know how long. When we got together in our early twenties, he may have been there the longest and drank the hardest, but he never seemed out of control or outside of the norm. That happened as his alcoholism progressed.

When I realized what was going on, i.e. DRINKING and not just general depression or something, he was physically addicted and had been for some time. When he quit, a few things came into focus very quickly: he'd been self-medicating for crippling anxiety and low self-esteem since he was a teenager, and he needed medical treatment for the mood swings. So, I sent my AH off to rehab and he came home was a lot more to deal with than I was prepared for. I'd had so much heartbreak and eaten a lot of bitterness and went without practical or emotional support or intimacy for so, so long.

The other thing? A lot of the behavioral stuff didn't change just because he got sober. He still liked to pass out on the couch in front of the TV, and I still laid in bed at night missing him and feeling lonely. When he did come to bed, there were no goodnight kisses or cuddling. There was still no sex. No intimacy at all. Months would go by, my initiations fell flat, it became too painful to even try to initiate sex, and I was convinced that I was some kind of troll. He would not talk about the future, our plans, our problems, our dreams, or our desires. When faced with problems, he still ran and avoided dealing with them. There's still no negotiation or cooperation -- he still sees me like a mother figure who says no and that's that, when I'm looking for him to come back to me with suggestions for meeting one another halfway. If I press any issue in a disagreement, he lashes out at me viciously and then isolates himself until I give up. I walked on eggshells. He has, to be totally honest, the coping mechanisms of a teenager. This is not an insult, it just is.

Above all, he could never really acknowledge how much his addicted behavior affected the rest of us, and when he did, it was all about him and the shame he felt, and I never felt validation from those extremely rare talks. Only recently, he opined that it would have been nice if I'd figured out his drinking problem sooner so he wouldn't have gotten so bad (no, I'm not kidding), and I realized that he's got such a long way to go that I'm just not qualified to help him or even to be his partner anymore. He is not the man I married. Hell, the man I thought I married is not the man I actually married. I think it will be a long time before the question of "who is he sober?" all washes out.

Florence

My comment above sounds really fatalistic, and I don't mean for it to be that way. It's just where we're going.

What I did realize is that a lot of the fundamental things about him that I thought were real are actually real: his sense of humor, his fundamental kindness, and his love for our kids, for example. But when we got together, I also thought I was with someone who took his work seriously, who had ambition and dreams, and was passionate about me, and those things, it turns out, weren't so real. He still lies, a lot of his stories are exaggerations, and he's always the protagonist. He's still secretive about money. He has extremely poor personal boundaries and can't assert himself in his work or in his personal life. He still disappears or disappoints on holidays (imagine my disappointment after being invited to Xmas at his parents this year to find out he didn't have a gift for me -- it was "in the mail" -- after years of disappearances on birthdays, Mother's Days, etc. And yes, we had had that conversation.). I ceased to feel special, cherished, or loved so long ago in this relationship that I should really stop expecting it, but I do, because that's what I want from a partner.

That feeling that he used me for all these years while I was trying to have a family and a life together? That didn't go away for me. The sadness and paranoia? That didn't go away. I didn't start making strides in my recovery until he was out of the house. So.

I am still heartbroken at how this all went. He was my one great love, together since we were teenagers, and all I wanted was for us to be together as adults. He got sober, but sobriety alone doesn't give him the tools to have a functional, adult relationship with me, or the desire to pursue the methods to get there. He has so many excuses for why we can't do counseling together and why he can't do it alone. So when you take away the booze and still have a terrified, insecure, avoidant, selfish, manipulative person under there? I just wouldn't be all that surprised.

PohsFriend

Lexie

Apologies for any offense, none meant....

And my reality is based on my experiences only.

Fwiw - supposing for a moment that AA focused solely on the needs of the alcoholic and not their family members I'd actually be okay with that. I know many folks want to have each hurtful episode discussed and acknowledged and I did too... Except that now I don't. I am so thankful for AA for doing what I was unable to do and that is to give my wife a chance to reclaim her life. If her alcoholism has caused me pain or hurt then the first one is on her, the rest are te result of my decision to stay and not walk away. I think they SHOULD tell her to tell me to go to an alanon meeting or seek therapy or whatever I need to do to resolve my feelings because my wife has her hands full. I hold her to account for today just as she should with me. Last year? Screw last year, it's over. This year is te only thing that matters if my hopes and dreams of next year have a chance.

Whatever goes on between wife and sponsor or in closed meetings is beyond my knowledge and I can't speak to it intelligently. I do want to emphasize that I am a huge fan of AA and when I say their focus, based in what I've seen, is solely on the alcoholic I did not mean that as "whahhhhh. Nobody fixed my booboo!", rather it was more of a "thankfully, when my wife relapsed shortly after her first sponsor dropped out the veteran ladies broke protocol and got together and did not wait for my wife to figure out what to do, they had a solid sponsor contact her and offer to be her sponsor and while I was freaking out and panicking they told her to tell me to go seek my own help and let her focus on her stuff.... While that pissed me of then, they were right".

Every group is different as is every sponsor. Wife's home group is a large and active one and the ladies there could run an army unit quite nicely. Her sponsor has her and her other sponsees busy calling one another, calling her, doing service and doing accountability things with one another just as her sponsor ad her sponsors sponsor have theirs do. When wife relapsed they were there, when baby was born we had a hot meal every night for a couple weeks and meetings came to our house. If you mistook my impression as a slam, please know that written words don't convey tone well. I thank god for those girls and that group is family now. They saved my wife and son when I was helpless to do so and I will host holiday dinners, pitch in whenever a hand is needed and do anything for those folks any time. Nobody can promise me that I won't lose my wife to alcohol, those guys gave us a good chance though.

Meanwhile I know I can't help my wife do this but I can make it much harder. Recovery requires sanity, sanity is easier around a calm, healthy, happy person who is living and kind rather than bitching and moaning... That gives me something I can work on ;-)

PohsFriend

Flo - understand my friend and I know you are still stinging.
I also know that when you take away the alcohol the person is still there with all their good and bad traits and some that are reversed in the presence of alcohol.

My wife worries that back before we got together and were friends we hung out and had a lot of fun together and she's afraid I will miss that. She has flaws just like me but there are some qualities that I saw as we became friends that drew me in far more than her looks. She's kind. She's loving. She's generous. She's honest (except about that one thing... That she's warned me not to trust but to verify lol)
She's brave... Like she arrived in the US not speaking English for what was supposed to be a week and she did something unthinkable - she decided she was staying and that she would choose her own future. Big brass lady balls on my sweety. She's awesome toward DD who was badly hurt by my ex's disapproval.

...and she has some issues, but I don't believe in perfect love - real life is not a fairy tale and reality can really suck sometimes but we have slogged our way through some real crud.

She pisses me off, she's female after all.. Likewise I'm sure shed say the same about the indescribable frustration that is dealing with a knuckleheads tripod like me...

But...

It's been worth it. Once the barriers to us even considering more than friendship were removed it was over with. The raging hormones of infatuation that fade quickly just ...haven't.

I've learned that we all have similarities here but we all have unique situations. Your input gives me caution and the hard to read stories make me careful to check myself and be smart - they don't discourage me like they once did. I'll win big or lose big but I'm determined not to regret not rolling the dice or giving it all I've got. I can handle losing if I know I have it all I had.

Standard disclaimer - I'm neither illiterate nor drunk, iPhone sits my stuff like a drink Edward scissor hands wraps Christmas presents

PohsFriend

Crap - sorry I thread jacked here, had it confused with my thread, sorry Audrey :-)

PohsFriend

Dear god... Come on iPhone! I just read where I wrote that I bed my wife sober now, while true that is supposed to be NEED her sober. Roflmao

LexieCat

Believe me, no offense was taken--just wanted to clarify for others who might be reading.

Your wife's group sounds awesome. I've been on both sides of recovery (though I was only in relationships during my stint as an Al-Anon), and I think the whole deal of partners working at their own recovery, but in tandem, is terrific. Thank goodness Lois and her buddies realized how much they needed the same kind of help and support from each other that their spouses were getting from their groups.

I've been a lawyer for much of my adult life, very little offends me. :-)

LexieCat

Well, hopefully you bed her once in a while, too. All that getting sober stuff oughta have SOME reward!

What's funny is that iPhone picked "bed" over "need". Somebody at Apple has, um, some subliminal beds that are not being met.

PohsFriend

iPhone mysteriously figured out my needs. Im utterly uncomplicated.

BoxinRotz

Sober sex is so much better than drunk sex!!! When hubby says he needs to go to LOWES for wood, I tell him I want and need wood too! He knows my wood doesn't come from LOWES!

P.S. No iPhones were used in the making of this post! Just one wife who loves her sober husband!