hopeful4

I attended a 12 step study last night at Celebrate Recovery. While I was not initially sure this was a good time in my life, I decided to go ahead and go. Glad I did. I have done one other but I am at a very different place in my life this time around.

I met a lady there who has an X husband who she left after 25 years because he is an alcoholic. They still have some intermingled finances but she was doing very good, pulling away, moving forward in her life. He is now in the hospital, has kidney failure and has had both legs amputated. He has no family here. So...she is now dealing with him in that manner.

I felt so terrible for her. Here she is trying to move on with her life and feels stuck in having to deal with this man because he has no one else. It just struck me as so terribly sad. Here this man is 100% going to pass on very soon and she is in this limbo time. How awful.

I guess it scares me too. While my X is certainly not to this point, I can see how he could spiral out very very quickly. We share children so I am tied to him in that way. It's all just very sad.

Sorry I am rambling here. I guess I was just thinking about this and realized that every time I have a pity party for myself I need to remember that it could be so much worse.

God Bless.

lillamy

An old friend of my parents is in a similar situation. She's 80, her husband, too -- and both of them come from families that get old. Like over 100 old. She is now his caretaker, and for the past 15 years, he has been nothing but mean as a junkyard dog to her. He's got a healthy heart and there's no reason to believe he won't have at least another 15 years in him.

I talked to her a lot when I was married to AXH, because her story was similar to mine. And to some extent, her story helped me: I knew I didn't want to be like her, caring for a man whose alcoholism led to diabetes which led to one body part after another being amputated. He's sober now, has been for years, but the damage is done. And he's taking out his grief and sadness on her. She's 80 years old and wants to leave him -- but over 50 years of marriage tells her she can't.

She told me that when they were in their 50s, she once sat her husband down and said, "You are a grown man. You can do what you want with your life. But I want to make one thing clear to you: When you have drunk your body into pieces, I will not be there to care for you. You will die alone cared for by strangers."

And yet, there she is. She's very healthy, they've got savings in the bank, they had plans for traveling and seeing the world when they retired. Instead, she's caring for a man who gives her nothing but grief all day long.

The last time I talked to her, a few months ago, she asked me, "Does one have an obligation to stay with and care for someone who only heaps abuse on you just because you've been married for half a decade?"

I told her only she could answer that question in her own life.

It's good to have perspective, if it makes you less prone to self-pity. On the other hand, it doesn't help your situation that there are starving children in China, if you know what I mean. I don't think we can compare pain and suffering, and I know that as a codie, I often used other people's worse situations as an excuse to minimize my own problems. And that's not healthy either.

hopeful4

lilamy...thanks for sharing that. It reinforces part of my reasoning for finally being able to see what I did not want in my life. I know that eventually my XAH will go down the rabbit hole and I don't want to be the one by his side, and I won't allow that burden to be put on my children either.

He is not one to stay single for long and already has a girlfriend, she seems nice and treats my kids with respect and kindness. I feel sorry for her and cannot help but think eventually she will see the error of her ways in being with him. Not my hula hoop so I keep my mouth shut about it.

What a tragic world this can be.

XXX

SeriousKarma

A lot of my job as a parent over the past few years has been in validating to my daughter that, yes, this is legit. The emotional turmoil, the pain, the shear weirdness of it all. It's not imagined. When I validate it for her I validate it for myself as well.

When comparing my life to others I know I'm a fortunate person. Even if I had stayed in the middle of the storm I would have been "relatively" fortunate. For me, the importance was recognizing that I was in that storm, and that regardless of how bad it was, it sure as heck wasn't a good place to be.

Some people choose to stay, some choose to go, some (many) have no choice in the matter at all. There are varying degrees of sadness. But the ones that break my heart are the ones that don't even recognize the realities of the situation they're in.

Justwantnormal

This is exactly where I'm at. I know it could be so much worse, and I'm grateful that it's not. But it doesn't mean my 'not as bad as hers' situation is one that I should remain in. My Mom stayed with my AF because he wasn't THAT bad. She's only now realizing the damage that caused all of us, but she won't leave now because she feels stuck in her 'old age'. It makes me sad to think of how happy her life could have been if she'd found someone to really love her and cherish her. I don't want to find myself where she is in 30 years, and I don't want my kids to be where I am.

I definitely find it helpful to hear others stories to bring me out of my own pity parties! I also think it's important to use their shared experiences to propel us forward in our own recovery. I read somewhere once that, when dealing with an alcoholic, it's a good reality check to add 'YET' to the end of minimizing sentences. For example, "My situation isn't THAT bad… YET!".

Glad you enjoyed your CR meeting hopeful4 I still have to make my way out to one :/