Showered with gifts
 

Yesterday my AH called me wondering who I had over to measure for curtains a few months ago that I ended up not purchasing because I thought the price was outrageous. I knew what he was doing when he asked, he always does this after I have a 'talk' with him about his drinking behavior. I told him not to worry about it because it was too much. He insisted to know but I didn't give in. Then he asks if he ordered them would they be here by Christmas; no they wouldn't and I said it's a crazy amount and I don't want them. Then he pipes up that he knows I really liked them and its not like he's trying to buy his way back into my good graces. BULL, BULL, BULL, BULL!!!! That is EXACTLY what he is trying to do!! He does this often like last Christmas and after the Valentines day blow up...same song and dance.
Then he calls me again today about our son being given season tickets to a local university to watch basketball games this year (he's being recruited by this school). I enjoy basketball but mainly only if one of my boys is playing. He offers the extra ticket to me and I decline. He offers again..I decline. More talking passes and he says I really should be the one to go with him. I was about to get upset so I said, "listen to what I am telling you, you are not listening to me, I don't want to go."
WHAT THE CRAP!
I don't like that he makes me feel like he is trying to "buy" back my affection. I just don't like it at all. I'm trying to hold myself together today and he's unknowingly pushing me.

That is so true. When I told my ex I don't want to hear his I'm sorrys anymore, he started to buy me presents. I told him to shove the presents up his azz along with the I'm sorry, because it didn't mean anything to me anymore. I told him if he is sorry then try to start treating me like a person. Other then that I didn't want to hear anything.

Just let it all out Katchie-----------you'll feel better. I promise.

((((((((((hugs))))))))))
amy

I saw my new therapist today. I really liked her. I was telling her this story today and her response was that it is typical behavior in homes with domestic abuse and called any home with an active alcoholic committing domestic abuse....something like that due to the trauma associated with it. She will give me more information next week about it. I have such a hard time thinking I live in those terms.

From the child's point of view, I'd agree that it's domestic abuse. I lived it and could never imagine putting my own children through it.

I'm sorry he's doing this, but I understand it well. My AM always loaded us down with expensive gifts that we didn't want (well, I didnt. My sister is AM's mini-me.), but we never got genuine love or affection. Even my father in his own dysfunction takes the stance of "if you can't love em, buy em off."

Yup, my X usto do this all the time too. Ugh...

Tell him you've given it some thought and decided you DO want curtains, after all.

For the marriage, that is.

Mine used to do that, too. Part of the abuse cycle.

Having been on the receiving end of the same type of manipulation, I recommend not biting. However, if he is hell bent on throwing money away, ask for something that appreciates in value that you can use/sell if you two part ways down the road. Stocks in your name, an investment in your name, cash, etc...

Just a question:
Is it common for using alcoholics to be abusive, or is this a separate issue?
Just wondering
Thanks!

Both. It's common, AND it's a separate issue. There is a certain amount of abusive behavior that happens just due to the obliviousness of alcoholism. It's almost incidental to it, not usually malicious, and often goes away if the alcoholic gets sober. It might feel abusive to the person on the receiving end, but I think it's different from someone who has an abusive nature.

Then there is abuse in the sense of domestic violence type abuse, which can be verbal, emotional, psychological, financial, or physical (or all of those). That is a TOTALLY separate thing from the alcoholism, though drinking lowers inhibitions and might make it worse. People who are true abusers do not generally become non-abusers when they get sober. In fact, they may become more COMPETENT abusers.

Although my ex never abused me physically, when he would screw up because of his drinking and not do something he was supposed to, or ruin our night by passing out, he would always buy me something special that he knew I wanted. Sadly, because of the reason I was getting it, it took the 'special' out of it.

Both of my parents, both alcoholics, would do the same - instead of showing me an ounce of parental affection and love, they'd just buy me. I remember friends saying how lucky I was because I always had nice things, when meanwhile, I was jealous of them for having parents that actually cared instead of trying to buy their love because they were completely and utterly incapable of showing it in a meaningful way.

I think I may be a little angry tonight. :(

(((((hugs)))))

I can so relate to this experience. I have found that my husband buys me things not to get back into my good graces but to alleviate his own guilt about behaving badly. What my own recovery has taught me is that when you're dealing with an active alcoholic their actions are 99.99% not about you.

In terms of my husband buying me gifts it was his way of trying to manipulate forgiveness out of me - like I couldn't be mad at him anymore if he bought me a nice new pair of earrings - because as long as he was convinced that I was mad then he kept on feeling bad about himself. If he could move that process along at whatever pace he wanted then he could hurry up and feel better about himself. All the while my feelings, his feelings and the state of our marriage was, of course, never actually talked about.

My RAH and I have discussed my feelings that gifts I received from him were with these sort of manipulative ties in marital counseling. He does not get it even sober. Because to get it makes a big part of his identity fray. The giver all of a sudden has a sinister side.

Katchie, take care of you. That is the biggest gift you can get out of this - your self worth and acting on it. The downstream effect of this change in focus will help your boys too.

Oh my I am so sorry. I know this behavior well. I have so many useless really expensive gifts that I can't even enjoy because they are guilt gifts. The only thing I have ever asked for and really need is a sober partner. I don't know about anyone else but I can't even look at some of the things and certainly wouldn't be able the look at curtains hanging in the house knowing the price of those are so much more than the money. :( I am hoping you will be a little bit "selfish" this holiday and do something spectacular for yourself.

I can see that. If they admit that the gifts are really to "balance out" their bad behavior, then they have to admit and perhaps address the bad behavior. That would force them out of denial and lord knows that almost never happens.

Viola, yea, I have that happen too. At Christmas I was having a real hard time being around my AH and he knew it and knew why. He bought me very expensive jewelry and it's always been hard to wear it. Every once in a while he will ask if I ever wear it, so I'll put it on briefly.

I'm glad I wasn't the only one thinking this. Actually I was thinking, "If you insist, then savings bonds might be nice...."

I didn't get a lot of this big demonstrative type of "buy-back" from RAH, he showed it in other ways, but the point was the same: After manipulating me in whatever fashion he then tried to manipulate me into forgiving him so that he could forgive himself & let go of whatever guilt he was holding & then things could go back to *normal* (In his mind that is, I would still be irritated & he would go one acting as though it had never happened.) Ugh. Too much work to play these reindeer games.

I am very pragmatic thinker. :doggy:

I relate to this. Here's how it was for me:

I felt like if I accepted that I lived in an abusive marriage, two things happened:

One, it would change the way I viewed myself. I've always seen myself as a strong, independent woman, one who didn't take crap from anyone and who walked away from negativity and badness. If I accepted that I lived in an abusive marriage, I would not be who I thought I was. I would be a victim. I refused to accept the victim status because I felt like it would turn me into someone I was not. Abused women are scared little fragile things who aren't strong or brave enough to tell a bad man to shove it. I couldn't relate to that. So I determined I couldn't be in an abusive marriage because I wasn't like those women who were abused. It's very much like an A who goes to an AA meeting and says "I don't belong there, that was just a room filled with failures and drunks."

Two: I felt like if I acknowledged that my marriage was abusive, I would no longer be able to pretend that it wasn't. Which was true. Once I did acknowledge it, I couldn't lie to myself anymore and I had to act. Even though it was emotionally the most difficult thing I had done up to that time, my rational mind told me it was dangerous to stay, dangerous for me and the children.

Learning that domestic abuse happens in all social groups, in all income brackets, in all races, in same-sex and different-sex relationships, among churchgoers and atheists, among Communists and Right-Wingers... it helped me. It helped me see that just as I had had a skewed view of what alcoholics were (dirty homeless people who lived under bridges and accosted you in the Walmart parking lot), I had had a skewed view of what domestic abuse sufferers look like.

lillamy,

This is a lot for me to chew. I grew up in a home where my dad was an abuser. He couldn't control his anger and physically and emotionally abused my mother and sometimes us kids. My AH doesn't hit me and only occasionally says something verbally that hurts my feelings and only when he's drunk -- never anything as often or as awful as my dad use to do so I've just never thought of him being in that definition or me living it still. Abuse light? I don't know but its a bit startling to think on.