sauerkraut

CentralOhioDad--
Your post brought tears of recognition to my eyes. It is so very hard when there is a child involved, and I also mourn your wife who can't recognize how her choices/addiction/illness are affecting her family and child. As a mom, that breaks my heart.

Your posting also reminded me of another factor that helped me to move on, something that I didn't know before joining SR and learning from folks here. I thought I was helping him by staying whereas, in fact, my staying was supporting his addicted status quo.

Since I left 6 months ago, he has been sober for more days and weeks than he had been in the last 20 years. I know, because he's using SoberLink to show me. Although I'm no longer invested in trying to control or change him, I do hope that after one of those sober weeks he will find the inner resources to commit to his recovery.

FireSprite

At first I stayed because I had no idea that alcohol was a problem at all - I knew my husband drank (as did I) but was completely unaware how much he'd taken to secret drinking. I was substantially underestimating his intake & the resulting impact. He was already progressing rapidly in his disease before I had a name/label/knowledge of it.

I also stayed because despite my ignorance to the progressing addiction, I was fully aware that in those couple of years leading up to that point we'd faced some BIG challenges - becoming parents, building a business & watching the recession devour it along with any financial stability we had left, losing my husband's uncle (who was his father figure) to cancer suddenly, etc. I thought that we'd taken a lot of blows in a short time & that we'd work through it together. His inability/resistance to doing that shocked me, as did his increasing ability to lie, manipulate & run away to hide. He was literally a different person than I had known all those 10+ years prior.

Somewhere around this point in the timeline, I stayed simply because I didn't have the confidence & fearlessness to leave. I was afraid to be alone, I was scared to become a single mom even while I acknowledged that I already WAS one. My FOO/ACoA history played a big part to staying at this point because it was the pattern of behavior I knew & was comfortable with.

I only really knew how to focus on & power through TODAY & didn't have the free time to think too far into the future. I was taking a lateral move in my career at the same time - helping a new business start from the ground up at the same time as I was learning a whole new industry. DD was in pre-k & preparing for KDG. I barely had time/energy each day for what I HAD to do so I just didn't have it in me to push beyond that & see the Bigger Picture.

Then one day I did see it - the whole, big, ugly Picture.... and I decided to get myself healthy before making any big decisions.

Then I stayed because MY recovery was strong enough to support what I needed for me & DD even while RAH struggled with it all still. The desire for recovery was there even when his efforts fell short. I was able to gain control in the ways that mattered over my life financially & otherwise by educating myself & implementing actions like healthy boundaries (vs. reactions), staying on my own side of the street, etc.

Now I stay because we are living a life of a recovery as a family & things are finally improving in a noticeable, lasting way. Finally we are experiencing truly changed behaviors (on all sides, I'm no angel in this) & are starting to build trust & respect again.

Liveitwell

* I agree, SK. Great words, COD-i identified with all of them....it's very hard.

honeypig

This, from FireSprite's post, was certainly a factor for me also. Since he was so incredibly freaking good at hiding his drinking (seriously, it took me a long, long time to be able to spot the tiny signs that meant he'd been at it, and even then, I was never absolutely sure), I really didn't have any idea of the scale of things. Ignorance, both about what was actually going on and about what it all meant, definitely played a big role.

FireSprite

I also had a lot of General Ignorance - that old way of thinking that if a person wasn't lost to drugs, homeless, mentally unstable, missing work, getting DUI's, etc - then they didn't even qualify as an alcoholic. I would have been hard-pressed to name a person in our lives that did NOT drink & of course, I grew up in the culture of drugs & alcohol so it didn't strike me as odd at ALL.

But for me, the real Game Changer was educating myself on Codependency. I had a lot of misinformation about drinking but absolutely ZERO information/education about everything else.

Thumper

I stayed because....

I wouldn't give myself permission to leave. I wasn't a failure. I made my choices and I'll live with them. I had unconditional commitment.

I was very very conflicted about what was best for my children. I still felt like I was throwing them under the bus when I decided to leave but I was terrified for their future and I felt like I could not survive if I didn't - and I for sure knew they needed me - and a better version of me than what they were getting as I slipped under the water into the ocean of alcoholism my husband was swimming in.

If only I could try harder, or differently, or with more conviction, or with less resentment things would change and I'd get the life we promised each other. If only I could be better or different. Try harder. Let things go. Letting go is important but I was letting go of everything that I need in this life.

It was unimaginable to me that he wouldn't save himself in order to save us. I kept believing the words and ignoring the actions because I just couldn't accept that he wasn't choosing us. I do understand addiction and it was still a trap I was deeply tangled up in.

I have very rigid emotional boundaries in some ways and absolutely none in others. He is an alcoholic first but also quite codependent in different ways from me. We seemed like a perfect fit in the beginning but in was devastating for both of us.

I don't know what normal is and I don't feel like I was meant for it. When it comes down to it I think that if someone really knows me - they will figure out I'm just playing at life and they will eventually discover I'm a fraud and be disappointed or leave or laugh or find me unlovable or whatever. It's crazy and I thought I was over that but not so much I guess. Its a lonely and exhausting mental space to occupy and I didn't feel that way with him. I didn't keep me there in the end but it bonded us in the beginning.

But once I decided to leave there was no going back. No more love, not more respect, no more attraction. A lot of pity which I confused with love for awhile. A difficult and painful separation of emotional enmeshment. But I was done. There was no question about that.

Kata

I stayed because I was naive. I didn't know anything about alcoholism, I had never been exposed to that. Or rather, i I had only been exposed to A's that had been in recovery for over 20 years.

I stayed because of hope, of the potential I saw in him.

I stayed because I thought i could fix him

Thlayli

Lots of stuff rings true to me but this is definitely part of it for me too. Periods of sobriety are long enough that I "forget" about the selfish, drunken spending. This time it's spending plus he quit his job...but it's okay! He got a credit card and withdrew his retirement to make it over the hump. *sarcasm*

He also has an 8-year-old son that he has primary custody of. We've been together since he was an infant. That little boy is my heart and it makes me so sad to think I'd have to see him less.

AND...I hate this part...I want to know WHY. I feel sometimes like I'm hanging on trying to find a reason that he wants to upend everything and lose things and make bad decisions.

Thanks to everyone for posting.

Liveitwell

I stayed because I didn't love myself enough to leave...all the abuse from him and his family. I kept trying to make life better for him, so he wouldn't have to abuse, and I lost sight of me and my life and more importantly, my children. Hard pill to swallow.

tigerlily1

The first reason why I have stayed was financial. Fear of not having enough money to live. I grew up poor and living alone on disability terrifies me. If I am truly honest though I think another big reason has been hope. Hope that things will change and the life I always wanted would happen. Hope that all the promises of sobriety that I have heard so many times after some horrible binge would come true. Maybe it's also because I didn't love myself enough to walk away. Thinking for me there is no ONE answer but several.

SadInTX

This!!! This is how I felt too...

I stayed because I loved him...I clung to the days/nights that were good...there were many of those...but the bad days became too much for me to handle or deny anymore. I tried to pretend that it wasn't so bad..that my kids didn't know (he was step dad).

Liveitwell

SadinTx-oh so true. The word you used: clung. That's what I did, too....clung to the good times but the bad evil times were just too much. I could no longer deny my reality or it's affect on me or my children or that we were not safe. I loved my ex, too. Thought I could help him, but that ended u being a waste of my time-I needed to help myself and my children-that's all that matters.

amy55

We stay for many reasons.

I was married previous to my abusive relationship. Got to say the first ex was abusive also, but I still had self esteem then, or I probably didn't. My first ex punched me in the face and knocked my head into a brick wall. I actually saw stars, I thought that was just an expression, till I went through that. I was 7 months pregnant then. I wanted someone to love me, and I wanted a father for my daughter. I was young, I thought marriage was forever. I was 18 then.

I wanted something different then what I grew up with. I was tired of being the rebel, I was tired of being my dad's favorite, I was tired of being thought of as stupid. I was my father's "son". But I wasn't his son, I was his daughter. I was supposed to meet all of these expectations. I was supposed to be the physically capable and the mentally capable. I come from a family of high achievers. IQ's of 140-150. I was always considered as stupid. Stupid as a son should be, because that's being a man.

So, I never bought this bs. I just wanted to have my own life. I did dump my first ex within a year.

So, now the second one. I thought I found the greatest guy ever. (lol) I already knew I had my own baggage. (never did get help with that then, this was the 70's).

I was completely naive. It was terrific in the beginning, (even though I can look back now and see many red flags). He told me how abusive his father was to him, and I just wanted to comfort him, and take care of him.

I remember moonlight walks, and swimming in the ocean and all those great things. Walking on the beach and holding hands. That's what I wanted. I wanted that so bad. I wanted a life about him and me, and our children.

It's not what I got.

My life turned out to be trying to figure out how to placate him. I was always told it was all my fault because I was married before, and I failed at that marriage. I tried my best, I tried to compromise, I gave in, I gave in so many times. I was told that I was fat, stupid, my legs jiggled when I walk, that he hated to see me naked, that I was disgusting.

I still stayed.

I was so on the hamster wheel of "how can I make this marriage work", that I completely lost myself. My self esteem was completely gone, my self confidence, was gone also. I went through 25 years of this beating down on me stuff, that I couldn't even think anymore.

I did leave after going through therapy, IOP for my alleged suicide attempt, getting stronger, and realizing, I couldn't take it anymore. I left when I realized that I no longer cared about my life anymore, and I was worried about his life if he stayed with me.

Please never stay this long.

amy

NYCDoglvr

"Why do we stay with ............?" For my part the answer was denial and rationalization plus inertia and fear of having no relationship.