How can I fix something if I don't even understand what the problem is?
 

So my RAH who is currently living in an apartment just came by to pick up the kids. We are still not having real conversations yet. We talked for about 10 minutes and while it still ended with me in tears, I feel it was somewhat productive but I still don't quite understand. He said that he is broken and needs to fix himself. He said I am broken and need to fix myself. He knows what is wrong with him-he is an alcoholic. He is going to meetings and has a therapist. My problem is I am a codependent. I cannot afford a therapist. My insurance does not cover it. He has a tangible recovery-he is not drinking. I cannot see anything tangible for myself. He says I am self centered and only concerned with ME. When I say I don't understand, he says yeah, that's the problem, you don't even see what you are doing. He said our relationship is toxic. He said walking into our house is the same as walking into a bar....it makes him want to go drink. When I ask for a better explanation, he says I need to figure it out for myself. How do I do that? He said that he has his own problems and he cannot take on my problems...that is the problem with "us". This post is kind of all over the place because I can't even think clearly right now. I am going to al-anon...but he isn't actively drinking or living with me and I kind of feel like I had dealt with the "alcoholic" stuff for the past 5 years so I'm not sure what it is I'm supposed to fix about myself. How do I figure that out?

If he is active in AA, tell him next time he says stuff like that to "stay on his own side of the street" and "stop taking your inventory". If he is truly working his own AA program, he'll know what this means.

Secondly, he is still very early sober. He's all over the place, and obviously still blaming you and the marriage as the triggers for his drinking. It takes a while for alcoholics to stop blaming people, places, and things for their addictions.

Lastly, keep going to Al-Anon. Find a sponsor. Read all the literature. Consider working the steps yourself. You don't need a therapist to "fix you". And its not up to him to determine if you are broken or not. Al-Anon is a great, inexpensive place to do some personal introspection.

This reminds me of the game I inadvertently played for those first 6 months with my ex that I now refer to as blamestorming...he really struggled with accepting his own shortcomings so he make a point to regularly try to focus on what he thought mine were. He even made stuff up, which at the time was maddening! It finally dawned on me that this is his ego trying to salvage its pride, and to ignore this instead of react to it all. When I stopped reacting, my life got way better! But it means you have to stop opening the door on these conversations to begin with. You've got to step back and have loads of patience here. It's not easy, but it is doable.

He's probably right that your relationship is toxic right now. But I can assure you it takes two to create and foster that toxicity. And it takes two to learn some new ways of interacting to change those bad habits. You are not entirely to "blame". Don't accept what isn't yours.

Now go enjoy your day without the kids. Do something nice for you, even if its something small, like a bubble bath and a good book. Enjoy the little moments of peace in your home.
~T

To add to that...when I questioned him further, he said (to me)- you don't like yourself right now, you need to figure that out. I don't like myself right now, I'm working on figuring that out. To which I replied...I do like myself. He said...no you don't.

Ok, I'm pretty sure I like myself. I don't have a great self esteem, but I think I'm smart, nice, funny, a good friend, a good mother. This is despite the fact that he told me I was NOT all of the things for the past several years while he was actively drinking. I took everything he said with a grain of salt after awhile and didn't let it affect me.
Do I like how I treated him while he was drinking? No, of course not. Do I like a lot of the things I have said and done? No. I can't change the past. I want to change the future. I want to be the best me I can be. Mother, wife, friend, member of society, etc. Isn't the way to do that...just wake up everyday and be my best? What is it that I'm supposed to figure out? It's very frustrating.

Hon, our posts crossed, but what you write above^^^^^^^^^^ is a person projecting their crap onto you. He doesn't like himself. If you need validation of that, spend some time in the newcomers to recovery forum. It's full of people trying to stay sober and learning to like themselves again.

Keep liking yourself! Obviously you are doing something right! Hang onto those things, as they are proof that your husband is quacking at you.

You have to consider the source. Your husband is not the best judge of anything right now. IF he is working his program, he will eventually see things more clearly--but they will be things about himself, not about you.

Keep up your Al-Anon. As TG said, you each have your own side of the street to keep clean.

Next time he says something like that, try smiling and saying, "We're both works in progress." That's it. You don't need to defend or explain anything. You don't need to take what he says as true. You don't need to argue the point with him.

And it's true, IF you both continue with recovery, you will both grow and change for the better. You will both be happier people, individually if not together.

I love this, thanks Lexie. I am much happier now having had the experiences I've had. They really sucked while in the midst of it all, but on the other side, I can look back and be grateful for the lessons learned.

It's great you want to be the best person you can be. Stay strong. Not sure how old your kids are, but I'd minimize the time you have to interact with him. Have your kids answer the phone when he calls. Stay in another room when he comes to pick them up. Don't deal with him. Anyone who puts you down to prop himself up is toxic, someone to be avoided. Hopefully in time he will become a better man, recognize his weakness, his past bad behavior, and you can renegotiate a mature adult relationship. But in the interim, don't give him the power to make you feel bad.

I guess I have a different take on this. Take what you want and leave the rest. It seems to me that you RAH is telling you that he can't live with your co-dependency. Same as you telling him you can't live with his drinking.

He sounds pretty clear to me about what he needs to have happen for him to come back. He needs you to get a handle on how your behavior impacts him in negative ways. He doesn't seem to be mean or belligerent about this. He doesn't sound like he is blaming or blame shifting to me. He sounds more like he is setting boundaries for himself about what behavior from you he can live with.

That's part of his recovery. He sounds like he is hoping that you will do your part of the recovery. For you. So you get in a healthier place, too. So maybe he can eventually, when he sorts himself out, meet you again in a new better place.

This may seem incomprehensible because it is so different from what you expected. He would stop drinking, and that would be it. Everything would be fine. However, I think we, as partners of alcoholics, get very enmeshed in behavior that enables their alcoholism. So we have to learn exactly what that is, and then we can begin to change.

Going to Alanon, reading Melody Beattie's Co-Dependent No More, perhaps even asking your RAH, if he's still the main breadwinner, for some money toward individual counseling for you - all of that can help.

There is hope here, Justshy. Even as the waves of emotion wash over you, look for the little bits of insight that come now and then, and focus on them. Let the emotions come and go, and try to grab that insight and think about it.

ShootingStar1

I respectfully disagree here. Putting the kids in the middle of this is not at all the right solution. My RAM and my father who divorced when I was 4 never spoke to each other and hardly had any interaction while I was growing up, even when dropping me off or being in the same room together. It put me in the middle and made me feel responsible and created a problem for me in terms of feeling like I had to "heal" things. Also, created a situation in which I didn't feel comfortable talking to either of them when I was having issues with them. Not comfortable at all.
I think the better solution is to take other people's suggestions on working on you, but to have a quiet and private conversation with your husband about keeping the conversations and interactions civil and friendly when in front of the kids. No put-downs, no criticisms, no talking about the issues in your relationship. Your kidlets need to know regardless of whether you stay together or not that you as the parents always hold their well-being above each of your own.
I am not a mom yet, but having grown up with that kind of childish behavior, it is something I am determined to not do when I do have kids.

The first thing that I internalized when I started going to AlAnon and learning about alcoholism was that I didn't understand it at all. It was, therefore, pretty easy for me to accept that I was powerless over my AH's alcoholism and that his recovery was up to him. I was not equipped to help him on this path at all. I became very hands off - stopped asking him about how much he was drinking, or how often he was going to meetings, or if he was getting anything from his counseling sessions. When he shared those things with me, i did not comment except to tell him that i loved him and that i thought he was a wonderful, strong, and capable man. However, I also did not reciprocate sharing any thing of my life with him because I did not really trust him at that point (for good reason, really!)

The first thing my early recovery AH internalized was that we were both messed up and he wanted to make sure I understood that. He started challenging my (non)reactions to him, telling me that my form of detachment wasn't really loving. He even told me that I should stop listening to the advice that I had been getting (primarily from AlAnon and a family member who happens to be a psychologist specializing in alcoholism) because they were steering me wrong. Obviously! Because I wasn't doing it the way he thought I should be doing it. He told me this, of course, because he loved me and was greatly concerned for my successful recovery. He wanted us to both get better.

I agree that, particularly in early recovery, we were both works in progress, with lots of progress to go! There are a lot of new concepts to learn that seem completely counter-intuitive at first and it can be really hard and confusing to break out of the old unhealthy habits of interacting with each other. Maybe your RAH is trying to set a boundary with you by telling you how unhealthy you are, and maybe he's just completely inept at communicating that boundary because he's in early recovery and doesn't understand the concepts well enough yet. That would be giving him the benefit of the doubt. It still doesn't make his behavior toward you ok. He crossed over to your side of the street when he told you, actually insisted, that "you don't like yourself and you'd better do something about that." (That actually made me laugh. Really, how does that help?)

So, carry on with your recovery as you see fit. Keep trying to be a person you can be proud of. And, learn how to tell the difference between your side of the street and everyone else's. then, you'll recognize when someone else is trespassing and you can enforce your boundary.

Take care,
Fathom

Dear justshy---I understand how that kind of criticism hurts.

When I learned that it was "quacking" and blameshifting (to put the focus on me and make themselves feel better), I was able to ignore it and stop listening to it (or reacting to it). When they would start, I would picture them with the word "QUACKING" on their forehead and pretend that I didn't even hear what they said.

As tuffgirl said, AA will remind him, often, to keep his side of the street clean and to refrain from taking others' inventory.

It will get easier as you practice this. (it was kind of funny to see the confusion on their faces when I first started).

very sincerely, dandylion

Drives you crazy doesn't it!

Mine used to try to argue with me about what he thought I was thinking. So he would verbally attack me and then tell me "Oh and now you're sitting there thinking X Y Z" and then abuse me about how me thinking X Y Z was evidence of what a bitch I was and how it made him drink.

C R A Z Y - using what he thought I thought as a reason to drink. Yep. Sometimes I would tell him to go and look for a job as a psychic if he truly believed he was capable of reading peoples minds or possessed ESP. :willy:willy