DocSobrietist

I think that's a great summary.

Correct. She's been nurturing resentments for a very, very long time - and she's an expert at burying them and sublimating them.

I have no idea - been wondering about this "early recovery" thing myself. I don't know what to say about "personality changes" - but I can say I've had to make some deep accommodations to things in my life, and she as well, to make this lifestyle of addiction work in both of our lives (when we were both actively using for the first 13 years) and then when I was doing it solo, things shifted some more.

That's possible. I'm definitely curious about that.

I get it. I don't expect "perfect or forgiving." I'm actually trying to keep things very simple right now. I feel like I'm in the midst of making massive changes to who I am, and how I relate to her and the rest of the world - all I ask is a basic agreement from her that it's not acceptable for her to verbally and emotionally abuse me when things get dicey, and that while if she requires space, I am happy to give it - but I'm not going to make myself miserable doing it.

There's no time the present for me to start behaving like a whole person, as opposed to a broken one, or a bad one who needs to atone for the rest of his life. I understand that there's been damage done, but our relationship isn't going to go forward if I make excuses for intolerable things because I believe I deserve intolerable behavior.

-DrS

DocSobrietist

I have no say in her boundaries - I can only speak about mine. I'm sorry, is it suppose to work some other way?

I take full responsibility for my behavior - where have I said otherwise? But that doesn't mean I should accept living in a house where I'm ignored, or tacitly accept verbal or emotional abuse regardless of what I've done in the past.

-DrS

DocSobrietist

Well, I'm really uncomfortable with the idea of agreeing to an unconditional separation with no other goal besides to give her "space." Particularly if it's for one year and with no possibility of going on dates with her, working on our friendship, etc. I just can't accept it. I don't feel like I need to sit and wait.

From a legal perspective, also, agreeing to a separation without having a formal agreement written up is not advisable from what I've heard - terms of separations have a way of determining the details of later divorce agreements (e.g., child custody agreements, etc). I'm not agreeing to anything until all of the implications of it are completely discussed. I don't think that's unreasonable.

No, but I'm planning on bringing it up strongly next session. This is not something I've ever done before.

-DrS

LifeRecovery

Doc-

I see a couple of pieces that you and her are working through.

I see the piece about the emotional abuse.....which seems to be pretty cut and dry and you feel comfortable with your boundary around it.

The second piece I am reading is the time regarding seperation.

These both seem and feel pretty big and important....

Part of my disease is trying to fix everything all at once, and trying to make decisions yesterday when I don't have all the information. I often take a bigger bite out of something then I can handle....and this feels similar.

Do you have to make a decision on both of these right now? I feel like the time of seperation might work itself out for you both just with the emotional abuse part.....won't a seperation happen if that piece cannot be worked out.

I guess my question is does it ALL have to be decided right now or next week in your therapy session (that will be quite a session).

redatlanta

Unless the information that you are reading regarding separation is specific to addiction and recovery I wouldn't put much stock in it.

Look, this whole time limit thing is ridiculous to me anyway. 6 months, 1 year - who knows you know? I would be more apt to say split for 6 and at that time decide if things are moving forward. If not then proceed with divorce otherwise continue on, possibly split for the next 6 months working toward reconciliation.

What I see here with the emotional and verbal abuse and the "freezing out' is a hulluva a lot of anger in your wife toward you. So mad it would seem that she doesn't care right now to absolve the anger. I see in you that you want her to tell her what is wrong, you want to work toward fixing it. She won't tell you. Its not acceptable behavior especially the name calling, yet if it were just icy behavior without the verbal abuse I don't think that would be acceptable either. The suggestion of you living together/ separate is ludicrous, and I am fairly certain would end your marriage quickly.

I think you need to separate. You need to find out whether or not your wife wants to save the marriage, and she needs to verbalize that to you. I think this should absolutely be done in the presence and with guidance of your therapist.

Your wife needs to miss you and needs to be able to clear her head enough of the anger to remember why you were together in the first place.

Someone mentioned the possibility of her having an affair. I don't put anything beyond possibility; however, I don't get that feeling here. What I feel is your wife is clinging to her recovery so that she can heal your marriage.

No guarantees, but for a 20 year commitment, marriage, and children - I think a year in the life is worth it to try.

Best wishes to you.

DocSobrietist

Thank you

If I hated my wife and we didn't have kids, this would be easier.

-DrS

FireSprite

If I had a nickle for every time one of us F&F members have had this exact same thought!

It's not easy no matter what side of the equation you are standing on & at times we each lack the perception to truly see the reality of the other side. True, detached perception without a desire to form judgement is extremely difficult IMO.

MY RAH & I were separated for 2 years, so I know from first hand experience that it is doable. Different circumstances completely but the result is the same - time & distance to be able to see more clearly. Since I was focused on using that time as intended ~for healing & growth~ there's a big part of me that benefitted from that time. He was still an active (mostly secret) drinker during that time & now I can reflect & see just how SuperCodie I had become as well. We reconciled enough to live together again & then he sought sobriety about 6 months later. THAT is when I WISHED I had the ability to separate. That is when *I* needed it most.

When you talk about being uncomfortable with an open time frame for the separation I hear fear manifesting itself as a need to control. You want a guarantee that there is a reward at the end of the sacrifice & that seems kind of unfair of a thing to ask. I mean, if the point is to determine if you can work out your differences enough to reconcile & avoid divorce you need the time separated to figure that out. Neither of you has a crystal ball. So what if you give it a shot, it doesn't help & you end up headed toward divorce? Will that year trying have been a loss? I also imagine that an official separation would help her to see when she is acting abusive a bit more clearly? I mean, then you can simply walk away when you need to enforce your boundaries & she has to seek a different resolution or ramp up her efforts at abuse... either way you both get more of the bigger picture to base your decisions on.

For us we had an open time frame & yes, it drove me nuts for a while but only until I let go of trying to control it into the future & took it for what it was right now, each day. We laid out some ground rules & modified as needed. Every couple of months I reassessed how I was feeling, how things were going, if I felt like we were making progress. I figured that if I would have put that same effort/energy into a new relationship then wasn't my decade+ marriage worth the same effort? As you said, if there were hatred & no kids it would change things. We lived separately but didn't date others, still acted as a couple (dating, etc), were honest about our situation to F&F, etc. And he wasn't the only one with the ability to decide where we were headed - I could have thrown up my hands & called it quits at any time that I chose.

Again - I will never make excuses for abusive behavior & no one should be expected to live with it but to understand that part better I wonder, when did it begin? Were you ever abusive to her over the course of your nearly 2 decades together? Is this part of a longer history of abuse on either side that predates your sobriety?

I think this is a great point too. Like Hopeful4 always reminds us, "This is your LIFE, not a RACE." It takes years for dysfunction to creep over all areas & aspects of out lives & years again to correct the damage, to create new patterns & routines. One of the biggest challenges for me is remembering that even with both RAH & I in active recoveries, we move at different speeds & have different journeys.

DocSobrietist

Thanks for your kind feedback.

I have been going over in my head in so many different ways, playing out different scenarios as to what I want to say with my wife. So much if it, absolutely, is me trying to control the situation and make sure I'm certain of the outcome, or set of outcomes that might result.

I'm not going to condemn that urge in myself, I don't think it's bad or wrong of me to do it, but in this situation it may not be helpful at all. So this is what I've come to:

My wife has some serious anger and resentment issues that I cannot solve or fix on my own, and make being with her on a day-to-day (or at least week-to-week) basis at times intolerable. I can't fix her anger, I don't have the tools to manage it (or the freezing-out, silence stuff). That alone might be a good reason for a separation, I agree.

I want to hear more about where she is - what, specifically, does she want from couples therapy and what does she want from a separation? I've decided the best position for me to take is to spend the majority of the session giving her time to talk about her process and where she is.

However, I'll need to take care of two things, regardless if nothing else gets figure out:

1) What do we tell the kids? I think the kids already know something is going on, and we need to tell them now.

2) We need to start talking. I can suggest that I try my best to avoid talking about "problems" with her (so as to avoid triggering her anger), but I can't promise anything. However not talking at all spells extremely big trouble ahead, wherever our path leads. Practically speaking, we need an avenue of open communication between the two of us. You can't co-parent two children and not talk.

I need to talk to my parents today and let them know what's going on.

-DrS

hopeful4

I think your approach sounds sensible in what you just said.

It is hard when you have a controlling personality to not know what is going to happen next. I understand, I have the same issue. Living in the day to day is very difficult. I want to know just what my life will look like today, tomorrow, and five years from now. However, I have done enough work on myself to know that is not even possible. I can only make today the best I can and not obsess about the rest because it won't matter.

It's good that you want to know what is going on in her head, where she stands with things. No one reaches that point of bitterness without strong feelings, hurts, etc. I am not saying you caused all of those, what I am saying is that she needs some healing and that has to be done separately sometimes.

Yes, you will have to tell your kids. What they need to know is that you both love them, you will both be there for them, and they need a solid schedule. They will want to know how this will effect their immediate life, so you should have that planned out in advance. Be open to making changes based on their wants and needs.

I agree you need to talk. You do have to be able to co-parent and that does involve talking, about the kids. I am in the process of divorcing my husband. When the conversation turns towards us, I immediately guide him back and say, "We need to keep the focus on the kids." Eventually you will have conversation about where things stand, but you will have to face that may be months in the future, and that is ok.

I encourage you to find a good counselor for your kids. That has made a world of difference for my children.

I wish your entire family the best of luck. I hope you are able to come to a better place in your lives, together or separate, and find happiness for yourselves.

God Bless.

DocSobrietist

Thanks. I think basically I'm worried if we don't get back into a space where we can have pretty free-ranging conversations about the kids, how we talk to them and parent them, our intermingled issues (money, schedule, etc.), and be able to exchange some basic pleasantries (how was your day, how was yours, etc.) then I'm extremely worried about how this will effect the kids. I'm worried anyways, but this has to be front and center.

I have to let go of where she is. I'm pretty sure at this point I'm not going to push her (really at all) to renege on her separation proposal - because honestly with the anger / abusiveness stuff the way it is (regardless of my role in it, past or present), it argues for a separation by itself. I still want to try and understand her motivations and process better.

That doesn't mean I don't wish for things to be way better between the two of us. That doesn't mean I'm giving up on us. That doesn't mean I don't love her. But I really have to let go, because the more I hang on the more this whole thing seems to slip between my fingers, and the more worrisome the situation seems to be for our children (e.g., the not talking thing). So I need to try something different, I guess.

-DrS

Carlotta

Hi Doc,
You got some excellent feedback from the group about resentments, boundaries, control etc. so I won't add to it but there is something you wrote though which I would like to comment on
Basically her bottle married your bottle and were together for 13 years then she entered recovery and it was your bottle and the real her coexisting. During that time, the real her got a lot of resentments against your bottle.
I can relate to her as I am also a double winner and I know from first hand experience how difficult it can be to achieve and maintain sobriety and sanity while living with an active alcoholic. Nothing will kill romantic love faster than witnessing your partner being a drunken fool reeking of booze while you are stone cold sober and trying to stay that way.
Anyway, 11 months years ago you let go of your bottle and reclaimed the real you.
Now you have two individuals who married when they were in addiction (your bottle married hers) and are now sober. You are basically strangers...the bottles have been removed on both sides and your bond is the kids.
Would you even have gotten married if you had both been sober? Maybe yes, but more likely not.
So you have two strangers in a brand new/brand old relationship engaged in a tug of war, fighting for control to see who will have the upper hand and be the alpha partner.
It seems that the last thing holding your marriage together is the kids and everything else is gone (I do not see any mention of affection, love or even friendship in your posts) and it must be quite disconcerting for them to see their parents acting like strangers (hopefully they did not witness her being abusive to you).
Truthfully, I don't see how your marriage can be saved and sometimes part of recovery is letting go and moving on especially if one of the partners (her) is abusive.
I saw your other post about her cussing you out and throwing things at you and I know that if you were the woman and her the man, people would tell you to get out of the situation asap.

Good luck to you and congratulations on 11 month sober.

DocSobrietist

What I might say to my wife on Monday:

"Regardless of my role in it or not, past or present, I don't have the tools or the ability to manage your resentments and extreme anger and what it brings to our relationship. In this last year, I also think that it's possible you haven't had the time or the space to do your own personal work on yourself - which hampers our ability to find how to be with each other peacefully and compassionately as sober and non-co-dependent selves.

That alone argues for a separation so you can have the space to work on those issues (anger, resentment, ACA etc.), also it gives us the time to be away from our unhealthy dynamic and all of the resentments and anger (on both of our parts) that comes with it. I will continue to make my sobriety and my own personal growth a priority. Not that I relish the idea - part of me wishes we could just find a way to fix your anger and resentments, and for me to fix my clinginess and need for everything to be "OK" - so that we could go back to having the pleasant times we were having just recently without the tension and acrimony. Regardless, a separation could possibily help me to learn how to stand on my own two feet as well.

I honestly hope that with a separation we can find ways to reconnect with each other in mutually healthy and respectful ways, and eventually find ways to be a couple and a family again. I think our children would benefit from this enormously, in particular.

However, whether or not that happens with a separation, I would like the priority (right now) to be for us to make plans to find ways to regularly connect as friends and co-parents for our children during this time, as the well-being of our children really does depend on lines of communication being open between us. That doesn't mean we're expected to talk about us or our problems - we have couples therapy for that.

For now, I just want to know more about your process, and where you are. I would like to know what your goals are for a separation, as best as you're able to say. I would like to know what your goals are for couples therapy and for our recovery as a couple. I would like to listen."

-DrS.

catlovermi

How about something much simpler, such as:

"I am dedicated to show through my behaviors and attitudes that I am committed to healing this family, and will demonstrate this for as long as needed to reach this goal."

Mango blast

That shows great thought and intent. You might write that down or print it out and sign it. Read it to her at your session and then give it to her to keep.

Writing letters to each other was a homework assignment during family week at rehab. It took me a long time to write down a bit of what I was feeling. It's not an easy thing to do.

Mango blast

I admire this. Something like that could be great as a mission statement or mantra. Maybe shorten it a bit more.
"I am dedicated to showing through my behaviors and attitudes my commitment to our family's health and well-being."

His letter speaks to me from where I've been and the letter writing experience with my husband. Reading between the lines gave me a heads up that he'd relapse. He did, and is now sober again. At some point in time I think it'd be beneficial for us to write letters again.

CarryOn

Hi Doc...congrats on your sobriety...awesome achievement!

My RAH and I lived separately for about eight months last year - the separation allowed him to quit drinking on his own, and allowed each of us to address our individual issues. We started marriage counseling when we were discussing his moving back home and have continued to go together.

One of the best pieces of advice that I received (and Carlotta's comment reminds me of it ) is that our marriage, as we knew it, was over. In order to move forward, we would need to start from scratch and fall in love again with who we are now. It's a hard thing to do (especially for me), but that commitment to leave the past in the past has really helped. We have discussed the past, but more in the context of emotional triggers.

During the time we lived separately, I really tried to focus on what I wanted from a relationship (regardless of if that partner would be my RAH or someone new). I was then able to look at our relationship to see which of my needs were and were not being fulfilled. When we started our marriage counseling, we were then able to discuss our needs openly because we already knew what needed attention and what was good.

I have not read all your threads, so I have a few questions that may have already been answered elsewhere...how long has your wife been active in AlAnon? Does your marriage counselor specialize in addictions?

I may anger some here, but I honestly question your wife's behavior in light of her participation in AlAnon. One of the primary things that I get from AlAnon is a different way to view my own behavior, to acknowledge, to accept it, and to make a decision about changing it...I'm a much calmer person as a result, even when I am really angry. So, it surprises me that she continues to call you names, etc. I certainly understand not being consistent in how she treats you, though, with one minute warm & fuzzy then the next being cold because there are many, many emotions to work through and sometimes we are better at working our programs than others, so I get that, but I don't get her lashing out at you in the form of name calling, abuse, etc. That being said, you are powerless over your wife - her behavior/thoughts/feelings/etc so really nothing you can do about that.

I think everyone has really emphasized the importance of boundaries being about you, not her. I also want to add that expectations = future resentments, so ideally you want to remove any expectations that you have of yourself and anyone else in your life, including your wife. That may help you move forward.

On the time frame, I think you are really future tripping here. I certainly understand wanting to have an idea of how long this may take, but you could also be hit by a bus tomorrow and none of it will matter. Can you agree to separate for 3 or 6 months and then re-assess where you both are? I am a very controlling person (AlAnon & counseling have helped me with that, too), so I wanted a time frame on things, too. I would have these ideas in my mind about if something happened by the fall, then I would do this, etc...I found that it didn't work. I had to trust my feelings and my own growth/change to when I was really ready for a next step.

I've given some ES&H, now I'm just going to comment on your situation. I think I would separate from my spouse. Establish some guidelines for co-parenting with the help of the marriage counselor, and then cease the couples counseling for awhile. I would get to individual counseling and ask my spouse to do the same, and ask for a "relationship check-up" in 3 or so months with at least one, if not both, of the individual counselors. My thought in suggesting this is allowing each of you to really focus on your individual part in the relationship and whether or not you really want to be together. It seems like you are both still caught up in the chaos, so its nearly impossible to make sense of what to do about it. From there, it may be clearer what you both want, and you can either continue the separation as is, start dating and/or counseling together again, or something else.

I think it is great to talk with your parents - you need the support IRL. I would also talk to the kids (disclaimer - I'm not a parent), from reading so many other stories here, they tend to know more about what is happening than you realize.

I wish you both all the best.

DocSobrietist

Interesting. I had never considered the idea of stopping the couples therapy while we do a separation. But now that I think about it, that almost makes sense.

-DrS

redatlanta

I second stopping couples counseling. That's a good suggestion Carryon.

"I honestly question your wife's behavior in light of her participation in AlAnon"

We only know one side of the story. Perhaps this is the reason she is wanting the separation is her inability to overcome the anger and resentments. I believe the OP was hospitalized due to his alcoholism (please correct if wrong I believe that I read that on another thread that you became very ill and then decided to seek recovery).

We simply don't know what she has been through (well, we do but not specifically).

DocSobrietist

That's essentially accurate.

I think the basic issue is I can't fix her anger and resentments. I wish I could. Thanks for everyone's feedback.

-DrS

CarryOn

I agree, redatlanta, we do only know one side here. The reason I said that is Doc posts she has been in AlAnon for a year, has a sponsor, and spends a fairly significant amount of time on recovery work. From my experience and from what I have seen with others in my group, the crazy making behavior is usually the first to be stopped, but in this case it continues. I think this is why a separation is probably a good idea. There is very significant history here with multiple addicts and multiple addictions, so space is needed. Doc's wife seems to want him around to help with the responsibility of the children, but does not seem vested in working on the relationship, at least not right now. There is a lot to be dealt with, but it seems that needs to be done individually. Thank you for your comment!

Doc, I do hope that you continue to work on your recovery and your wife continues to work on hers, and that you may, in the future, come to a mutually beneficial place where you can repair your marriage together. I can say that the time apart goes by faster than you expect, especially if you focus on yourself (& the kids!). It is also not wasted time when you do that - you are improving yourself which is always beneficial!