Soberintexas007

I would suggest you let him know how his behavior affected you when he is sober. It is better than doing nothing, and you never know when someone finally gets it.

cookiesncream

Good for you Tigerlily. Glad you were able to keep "your side of the street clean." Coming from the A side telling him how you feel will make you feel better but given his history will change nothing. Trust me, I did hear plenty of times how my drinking made my spouse feel. Problem was that 98% of my drinking was fueled by a lot of pent up anger and resentments I had never TOLD HIM so each time he told me his feelings about my drinking I was a spoiled brat and secretly thought "good you deserve it." That said when he'd had ENOUGH and I was forced to finally get my act together or I'd be seeing a one way ticket out the door... things changed. Personally beyond the feelings bit I'd be really inclined to tell him he disappears you plan on calling law enforcement and filing a missing persons report. Dunno but from your perspective you are in victim mode and you want OUT of that mode.

redatlanta

Since separating is not an option for you perhaps you could approach him that if he is going to stay out all night to send a text or a phone call. I realize that he may not comply but he may.

I don't think detachment from worrying if someone is ok if they don't come home is realistic until it is something that happens so regularly you become used to it. I'm not sure there is a boundary to enforce as him leaving would be the only one I see as enforceable for this type of behavior.

Nothing wrong with asking him to comply with letting you know he is gone for the evening.

LexieCat

It depends on what the boundary is, and what you intend to do when it's violated. A boundary is for you, not him. You don't state your boundaries with the expectation that they won't be crossed. If you keep "adjusting" your boundaries until they aren't, then they aren't really boundaries but rather rules that you keep changing. And the lesson others get is that you don't mean what you say.

If the outcome of the violation is something you can't follow through on (and it doesn't mean you have to be perfect at it), then it's pretty useless. However, if your boundary is something like, "If you are driving and have even one drink, I will drive home, myself, or have someone else bring me home," then you enforce the boundary by doing what you intended to do if he drinks. If your "boundary" is, "Next time you try to drink and drive I'm leaving forever," but you are just intending to prevent him from acting in a certain way and giving him an ultimatum you don't intend to follow through on.

SparkleKitty

When boundaries aren't respected it is up to you to decide if you want that person in your life. Boundaries are guidelines for you to decide what you will and won't live with, not rules to attempt to 'train' someone how to behave.

LemonGirl

No training.... it's a matter of him calling or texting late at night. It sends me into a frenzy and triggers me. Just my personal trigger. I just told him that if he wants to talk he can call, but that my phone is off when I go to sleep. He wasn't sure if he could call if he wanted. He mostly respects me. I say mostly because of the occasional drunk 2:30 AM text, which I ignore. My frenzy started yesterday because I chose to check my phone in the middle of the night (like a dummy; tossed and turned all night), and it wasn't a drunk text, but he did share some feelings with me in it, and well I went the whole day future trippin over it. So, I just reiterated to him that my phone is off at night (as opposed to "rescuing" him emotionally, investing... which I tried to do in the morning, and then when I didn't hear back, victim role set it and I began "tripping". Lol.... I was thinking that readjusting that boundary might mean instead of turning my phone on silent, I will simply shut it off all together or charge it in another room so I'm not tempted to look at it at night.
See? Nowhere near what our op is going through! I'm sorry to hijack! I did need this answered too, however so thank you to those that responded and to TL for original post!

SparkleKitty

Yes, turning the phone off all together would be a great way of enforcing your boundary of not wanting to engage late at night!

FireSprite

Sometimes I find that I need to adjust my boundaries for various reasons.... until they are tested sometimes we don't know what we don't know, right?

My phone has a silencer that I can use.... so instead of having to turn it off every night or manually silence it, it automatically stops alerting for calls/texts between 10 pm - 6 am. That way I don't have to worry about forgetting or spend a single minute thinking about it really. It minimizes the amount of energy I'm spending on something so small in the big picture, you know?

SparkleKitty

Cynical One just posted this on the F&FSA forum. A great read:

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...ngagement.html