What happened that was your last straw
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Join Date: Sep 2014
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What happened that was your last straw
So I'm still here lurking. Might be nearing my end again. I'm so frustrated all the time. He is bein better an really trying most of the time. But. I'm still unhappy. I don't know that anything he does would be enough for me. I don't know if I trust him. I'm being really hard on him but I can't help it. Maybe I should just leave. I'm not being fair but I'm so financially devastated and he doesnt seem to care. Well it's more like he doesn't care enough.
What was happening when you finally called it quits?
What was happening when you finally called it quits?
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Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: My mind wanders a lot, but I try to stay in the present.
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It wasn't a bang it was a whimper.
He didn't really do anything different from what he had done a thousand times before. He came home drunk and fell asleep on the sofa.
What made this time different was that I had been working on me for a while, and I had my boundaries in place. Within 5 minutes of him stumbling in the door I called his military Chain of Command and had him removed from the house. That was the end.
I guess it wasn't so much a whimper as a snore. He barely woke up as they ushered him out the door.
He didn't really do anything different from what he had done a thousand times before. He came home drunk and fell asleep on the sofa.
What made this time different was that I had been working on me for a while, and I had my boundaries in place. Within 5 minutes of him stumbling in the door I called his military Chain of Command and had him removed from the house. That was the end.
I guess it wasn't so much a whimper as a snore. He barely woke up as they ushered him out the door.
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Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: My mind wanders a lot, but I try to stay in the present.
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Originally Posted by Santa 
Our 16-year-old daughter developing a drinking problem.
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Join Date: Jun 2014
Posts: 31
I had been hanging on by a thread for months. The drinking got worse, the verbal abuse got more frequent, and the ******* quotient just skyrocketed. Then came the night he threatened to kill me and screamed verbal abuse for over half an hour. After the police came and arrested him he blew a .26. I filed an order for peotection the next day.
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Join Date: Apr 2013
Posts: 42
I was working two jobs to pay for a car he got repossessed that was financed in my name and a bunch of other bills he had charged up the previous year when he as a very costly affair. I took him back like an idiot with the usual empty promises and apologies. He had created this huge financial mess. I was so overwhelmed and really wanted to believe he would take responsibility and help me dig our way out of this hole. Of course nothing changed. I got a second job. I was working 7 days a week. And 16 to 18 hours on most days. I was lucky if I got more than 4 hours sleep. I was just physically and emotionally drained. And of course he was doing nothing to help out. One day I came home from working my second job with my back and feet aching so tired I was ready to pass out. He was just getting home and had a "date night" outfit on. I checked his wallet and found a receipt for a$70 dinner for 2 at the olive garden. Most of the charges for wine of course. And I was just done. I was killing myself paying for his mistakes and he was out spending more than I earned that day at my second job and cheating again. I put up with his crap for 11 years. Forgave thr unforgivable. But at that point I finally understood what a selfish and sick person he is. I don't know exactly why but at that time I knew I was just done with him forever.
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Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Arizona
Posts: 407
I was planning on leaving after the school year ended (I am a teacher), but was dragging my feet. Then he asked how much my end of year check was going to be and revealed that he was planning to use it for another project car to play with. He is on disability, but thought it was OK to spend the money that I earned on a car that would, in all likelihood, sit in the garage for a year or two (not a new event). I knew that if I was going to do it, I needed to get out before he got his hands on the money.
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Join Date: Mar 2014
Posts: 85
My rock bottom had hit weeks before. It was so bad and people had been saying so for awhile. But I wouldn't listen - I had my own denial of optimism - it will get better, he is trying.
In the end, it was the writing - the record - the numbers. Too often you can excuse anything but the police report and the medical reports were by officials. It made it real and a wake up call.
I think too often we don't trust are guts -- out of love and support. But when people who aren't family and see these problems way too often tell you this is bad. I finally listened.
In the end, it was the writing - the record - the numbers. Too often you can excuse anything but the police report and the medical reports were by officials. It made it real and a wake up call.
I think too often we don't trust are guts -- out of love and support. But when people who aren't family and see these problems way too often tell you this is bad. I finally listened.
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Join Date: Nov 2013
Location: Australia
Posts: 537
For me it was seeing the effect on the kids...with the final straw being the day he locked me out of the house with our son sleeping inside, and started to smash things up and rant and rave.
The final, no going back straw was when he threatend suicide with a co-worker, got taken to hospital and blew 0.3 and claimed he wasn't "that drunk really".
In reality it was a series of escalating events combined with me having a bunch of therapy to help me firm up my very weak personal boundaries. Each event was just another nail in the coffin. Thinking of my kids, and finally really feeling the impact that my own childhood has had on me, and knowing I had to break that cycle was what got me over the line.
The final, no going back straw was when he threatend suicide with a co-worker, got taken to hospital and blew 0.3 and claimed he wasn't "that drunk really".
In reality it was a series of escalating events combined with me having a bunch of therapy to help me firm up my very weak personal boundaries. Each event was just another nail in the coffin. Thinking of my kids, and finally really feeling the impact that my own childhood has had on me, and knowing I had to break that cycle was what got me over the line.
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Join Date: Sep 2013
Location: Iowa
Posts: 3,050
He had me backed up against a wall, fist cocked, ready to smash my face in because I couldn't answer a question he was trying to ask (still no idea what he was asking, he was slurring, blacked out. It was impossible to understand him). I stabbed him in the neck, intending to kill him, but he staggered at the last minute and I just grazed his collarbone. DS5 (he was 4 then) was watching.
I left with my mom when she came to visit a month later, stayed gone for six weeks while he was "going to meetings and getting his act together."
I went back. We went and got my DS12 (now 13) whose father had just passed away that summer. I was paying for everything. Gas, groceries, doctor and dentist visits so DS4 could go to Head Start.
He got his disability check. Went out immediately and bought liquor. Got stinking drunk. Cornered DS12 and in the living room. Got in DS's face and screamed, "Hey TJ, where the f---- is your dad, huh you little @$$hole?."
That was it for me. At that moment I saw that he was never going to stop drinking and that the children and I would always be his punching bags when he was drunk. They don't change until they want to, and most of them never want to.
Your husband never treated you well. Why are you expecting a miracle from him because he says a few words about changing? That's a recipe for disappointment. He is a gold digger who has nothing to offer you but misery.
I left with my mom when she came to visit a month later, stayed gone for six weeks while he was "going to meetings and getting his act together."
I went back. We went and got my DS12 (now 13) whose father had just passed away that summer. I was paying for everything. Gas, groceries, doctor and dentist visits so DS4 could go to Head Start.
He got his disability check. Went out immediately and bought liquor. Got stinking drunk. Cornered DS12 and in the living room. Got in DS's face and screamed, "Hey TJ, where the f---- is your dad, huh you little @$$hole?."
That was it for me. At that moment I saw that he was never going to stop drinking and that the children and I would always be his punching bags when he was drunk. They don't change until they want to, and most of them never want to.
Your husband never treated you well. Why are you expecting a miracle from him because he says a few words about changing? That's a recipe for disappointment. He is a gold digger who has nothing to offer you but misery.
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Join Date: May 2012
Location: Florida
Posts: 6,780
On the night that I consider MY rock bottom, I showed up at home late after work & after picking up my niece in addition to DD, to find AH in the drive, still in the driver's seat of his truck, passed old cold with his foot still on the brake pedal, the truck in Park & the engine still running. I say late, but in perspective that means around 6:30-7:00 pm, tops.
Then I watched him CRAWL from there, up the steps to the house, through the entire house to the master bathroom all the while slurring incoherently about how he wasn't drunk, couldn't understand what the problem was, etc. I have never felt so much boiling rage as I did in that moment - I was horrified that he had driven in that state, in a Mama Bear dither over the kids seeing him like that & blown away that he would sit there continually lying to my face in between spells of vomiting up the very evidence he was trying to hide.
He was in such a state that a lot of truths started spilling out, he was seriously, seriously sick & didn't have the ability to keep track of his lies any longer.
I couldn't help it - I literally kicked him in the arse while he was down & lying in a pool of his own drool on his hands & knees.
Step away from the addict.
I wanted to physically hurt him so badly that it scared me & I had to force myself to walk away. I had never, ever been a physical person & I was finally able to see that I was becoming as sick & twisted as he was.
(His receipts later supported his claims that he'd only had a couple beers, and he had an absolute blackout between drinking the 2nd beer & waking up in between vomiting spells - he insisted he'd had something slipped into his drink. IDK either way, but his argument did nothing to help his defense anyway - it only further illustrated MY point that he'd taken to socializing with some low life dirtbags in order to feel somehow superior. By lowering the bar, he'd lowered his expectations of himself as well.)
Then I watched him CRAWL from there, up the steps to the house, through the entire house to the master bathroom all the while slurring incoherently about how he wasn't drunk, couldn't understand what the problem was, etc. I have never felt so much boiling rage as I did in that moment - I was horrified that he had driven in that state, in a Mama Bear dither over the kids seeing him like that & blown away that he would sit there continually lying to my face in between spells of vomiting up the very evidence he was trying to hide.
He was in such a state that a lot of truths started spilling out, he was seriously, seriously sick & didn't have the ability to keep track of his lies any longer.
I couldn't help it - I literally kicked him in the arse while he was down & lying in a pool of his own drool on his hands & knees.
Step away from the addict. I wanted to physically hurt him so badly that it scared me & I had to force myself to walk away. I had never, ever been a physical person & I was finally able to see that I was becoming as sick & twisted as he was.
(His receipts later supported his claims that he'd only had a couple beers, and he had an absolute blackout between drinking the 2nd beer & waking up in between vomiting spells - he insisted he'd had something slipped into his drink. IDK either way, but his argument did nothing to help his defense anyway - it only further illustrated MY point that he'd taken to socializing with some low life dirtbags in order to feel somehow superior. By lowering the bar, he'd lowered his expectations of himself as well.)
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Join Date: Sep 2014
Posts: 182
For me, the day I came home from work and AH was stumbling around drunk, speaking nonsense and told me to f-off. That alone would not have been enough but the fact that he had picked my son up from school 30 minutes before I arrived home...I knew it had progressed to a point of no return.
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Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Silicon Valley, CA
Posts: 2,066
My bottom was when my husband told our then 2 year old that her mother was a ***** and a liar. He woke her up and said that to her while she was crying for comfort. He was blackout drunk and trying to fight with me but I wouldn't engage - this was a few days after I found SR and learned about detachment for the first time in my life. Then he drove away blackout drunk and I refused to allow him near me or our daughters until he had been sober for 30 days. Our youngest was only 4 months old at the time.
I audio recorded the entire thing.
I audio recorded the entire thing.
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Join Date: Sep 2013
Location: Iowa
Posts: 3,050
Originally Posted by Bullfrog
Hiding in the back yard with my baby, while he raged inside the house. Then my daughter saying, "I hope that my husband won't talk to me the way Daddy talks to you."
That was it.
That was it.
I don't remember it at all, but she told me that moment was her rock bottom, the moment she knew she had to leave my dad.
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Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 224
I traveled on two airplanes, three trains and bus to be with my ex in a remote place in Switzerland while he was playing a week long gig. He binged the entire time, ruined the trip for me and tried to blame me for his misery...that was the final straw...wish I saved myself that load of money and had read the ugly incidents and red flags beforehand, but at least I am there now... I still miss him, but I sure do love myself a lot more now...or at least I am more important to me now.
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