saggirl1125

Hi everyone,
It's been months since I've posted, but I've been reading. Since I last posted, my live in bf successfully completed a 3 month rehab program, we moved from nj to florida to get away from all the triggers and drama and closer to a better support system for both of us (his sister and my family are near our new home), he has gotten his license back, been working for my father and is starting a new job in his old field next week. Issues with his ex and custody are steadily being resolved and even through the suicide of his brother the day after he got home from rehab, he has stayed sober for the past 9 months. I very proud and so glad to have the real him back and steadily progressing, although he does not have any desire to follow a program or therapy, which makes me nervous.
The problem is that I still don't trust him, my guard is still up and I feel like I'm always ready for the shoe to drop. Every slight alteration in his speech, I feel my insides turn and I get panicked that it's happening again. When he gets home from work, his speech is a little slowed and it happens also when he is alone for a while while I'm out. I never smell alcohol and he isn't drunk, but he seems different at times. He says it's in my head because I'm so scared and don't trust him and I guess that could be possible. He accounts for all of his time and money and if he were drinking on the way home from work by stopping and getting shooters, it would require alot of restraint and work on his part to only have enough to be relaxed and slightly slowed speech, not smell like it at all and never go over that amount to get buzzed or drunk... he doesn't notice it and I wonder if it really is in my head? I asked him to get his blood sugar checked incase it was low and causing this since he comes home starving from not eating all day and sounds normal again within an hr or so of being home.
He's getting so frustrated with me for not trusting hI'm and asuming the worst all the time.
I told him I deserve at least the same amount of time to learn to trust him as it took for him to break it, he doesn't get that. I do want to enjoy the good times now without always thinking the worst, but don't know how to let go of that fear, or at the very least hide it better... what did you guys do for yourself to learn to let go of the anxiety and fear attached to loving an alcoholic in recovery

Eauchiche

Saggirl,
Your trust has been broken and has to be rebuilt over time. I think your caution is justified. Do you have any sort of support network, like AlAnon?

saggirl1125

Thanks... I looked into alanon meetings and the closest is about 2 hrs away, with 4 kids and working from home that's a 5 hr block of time that I just don't have. I have a n ex sister in law who is a recovering addict and one of my best friends, we lean on eachother for this stuff alot, it helps because we're on opposite sides of the fence and understandING eachother side helps both of us with understamding relationship dynamics and boundaries better.
Between reading on sites like this one and talking with her I have learned alot about myself and how to stand firm and set boundaries and it really did help alot, especially when he was actively drinking and or considering sobriety, but I'm still adjusting to his sobriety as much as he is and I have a whole new set of work on myself that has to be learned and put into action... slow but hopefully steady progress within myself is really what I'm
hoping for and coming here for this new journey does help

Bekindalways

Hi Saggirl, welcome back.

Unfortunately he will never be cured just recovering. The other shoe may well drop.

What have you done for yourself? Have you been to Alanon?

I worked on detachment and focusing on my own problems rather than the possibility/probability that my qualifier would relapse. In this I found a measure of peace . . . .hmmm . . . maybe peace is overstating it as my side of the street was/is pretty bad (-;

Bekindalways

Oops Saggirl, I was posting at the same time you were posting.

Good on ya for working on yourself. Some folks who can't get to an Alanon meeting, just come here on a regular basis.

I actually left my qualifier because I didn't believe him when he said he was never going to use again. He didn't want to join a program either. Years later he did get sober but I was long gone. Not trusting an alcoholic in the first year of recovery seems realistic. Detaching and minding your side of the street while they do their work is crucial to the future happiness of your family.

Have you read Codependent No More? It is pretty much the bible around here.

atalose

Trust is a very hard and long process to re-build. Please trust your gut instincts, our instincts warn us but often that reality is not something we are ready to face so we allow our minds to discount it.

It’s great he completed a 3 month long rehab, changed places, people and things………..but without working a daily and continued ongoing recovery program like AA the chance he’ll relapse is pretty great.

Maybe somewhere deep inside of you, you know this, and like you said are just waiting for that left foot to drop. That’s life loving an addict, your entire world could at any moment in time.

Policing him will eventually back fire on you and he’ll pull away or get away. Making him accountable for every minute of time and for his money is not how anyone wants to live, of course he’s going to begin to resent that and get annoyed.

And on the other hand many A’s change their drug of choice from alcohol to pills or pot. Again, only time can reveal more.

Trust your instincts!!!!!

MAYA1

Hi, its a great post. I am not with my alcoholic ex anymore but before we broke up, I was facing the same issue. I read that it takes 9 times more to overcome the bad experience and trust again (i.e. if he was drinking for a year, you need 9 years to fully trust him again). Also, its not your business to start trusting him - he must be working hard in order to make you trust him.

My ex was behaving like your bf, so confident, no follow up with recovery and the forgivness and trust was all up to me. I gave up.

Honestly, if you want to stay with him, I recommend therapy / al anon meetings, etc. Perhaps therapy for both of you would be good so he understood its not just your job to trust him.

take care

Refiner

That's so not fair of him. Unfortunately, he may already be drinking or doing something else that's mind-altering it sounds like. If he's not in a recovery program, he's just abstaining... for now. You will most likely be waiting for the proverbial "other shoe to drop" for a very long time if not indefinitely. Are you ok with that? With 4 kids and such a busy life, I pray you find the tools that help you cope.

PhoenixJ

I have learned too late SG- trust once lost does not always come back. My booze cost me a wife of 30 years last week. I can offer you no sage words of wisdom. Be true to yourself. His journey is his own. Maybe still reacting to emotional issues in the same way a teenager/child would? I do still. It is great he is in recovery. His focus is his sobriety as it should be- otherwise you being there would not happen. You certainly have my support in feeling mistrust- natural. If you did not- then pink clouds appear and you wake up in a loony bin. Read here- post. You are a good person.

FireSprite

Hey sag - everything you talk about here is stuff I also felt during those beginning stages of sobriety. My RAH had the same flippant reaction & same way of blameshifting it back to me - I had to remind myself that *I* wasn't the one that eroded the trust in the first place & him being impatient with the rebuilding process was emotional bullying, even if he never meant it that way.

It was probably 6 months into the process before I even started to REALLY address my own issues. I had to wait until things calmed down & we were out of crisis mode before I could even start sifting through the rubble that was my Self. How in the world was it reasonable to expect me to simply let it ALL go & carry on as if nothing? (That is not to imply that I carried on & brought all of past events into the present & used them as punishment now that he was sober.)

The lack of a recovery program would highly concern me (RAH relapsed 2 yrs into staying-sober-but-not-recovering), but the bigger thing inside of your control is YOUR recovery & THAT is where, IMO, you can really start those seeds of trust again. In my recovery I discovered that building trust with others ahead of myself was like working a problem backward with partial information - I was never going to get where I expected to be until I had a good starting place. Trusting myself was that place for me because it meant that I knew I was strong & resilient enough to weather his decisions, crappy or not, and that ~just maybe~ I would be intuitive & aware enough ahead of time to sidestep those troubles before they ever affected me.

These older threads may help you feel less alone:

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...-marriage.html

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...iggers-me.html

NYCDoglvr

He must prove he's trustworthy, and that takes time. When I realized I didn't trust or respect my alcoholic it was time to go.

pndm07

Hi. In my experience, at least for me, it just never goes away. I am getting a divorce, and still always worrying that the shoe will drop. There does come a point however when the dropping of the shoe, if it happens, doesn't kick you in the gut as much. You just kind of accept that this is part and parcel of the condition. It is something I still struggle with every day, although I get more stoic with each slip/relapse

TobeC

I'm an alcoholic with six months of recovery. There is healing that needs to happen with both parties involved. With me, my kids forgave me first and I have moved on with a beautiful relationship with them. My wife and I have a three decade relationship that is still on thin ice and may never recover and my bottom was pretty shallow. At this point, I've decided that eventually starting over with someone else may be my best option as the whole detachment with love concept is kind of toxic to my recovery. It's a concept that if not understood fully can easily torpedo a relationship.

qtpi

Good thread- thank you. I left a 33 year marriage after alcoholism, neglect, and emotional abuse that progressed over time. The last year of course was the worst. One of the many reasons I made up my mind to end things was the estimated 80 to 90 % relapse rates I noted as I did my research. Once my STBXAH detected something different in me- probably because for the first time ever I refused intimacy- for the first time ever, after nearly 40 years together, STBXAH said he would stop drinking completely. I was astounded after all the arguments where he said he didn't have a problem. HP was looking out for me- earlier that day I had signed a lease on my apartment.
MY STBXAH stopped drinking in front of other people - but I still think he drinks. He won't go to Rehab, AA. He kept all the alcohol in the house- he said for " entertainment" of company we may have- we rarely had company and it was a lot of booze. I am 62 years old and the thought of being on the Relapse Roller Coaster as I go into my retirement was enough to frighten me off this path.

I give couples who can stay together and work this out kudos. I really would rather not be alone as I age. I wish I had more hope for the marriage but knowing him like I do, I don't trust him or believe what he tells me. In the course of the separation he has done some things that confirm to me that leaving the marriage is the right path. I guess what they say- more will be revealed.

TobeC- how fortunate you are that the kids forgave you. My DS won't talk with me and things are shakey with DD- she is talking with me- but STBXAH is misrepresenting things with her and trying to get her to be a "go-between". I told her kindly yesterday that what goes on between STBXAH and me should only be between us. I feels sad that he is doing this.

TobeC

What's tough with alcoholism is none of us set out to intentionally hurt anyone, especially our loved ones. There isn't a day that goes by that I wish I couldn't rewind the tape and talk some sense into myself. When I was ready, I did what I had to do to stop the insanity and got the help I needed. Obviously, the buck starts and stops with me being accountable to myself. I can only say that my life is so much better on this side. I love the sober me and the freedom it's given me. I know it took time to get to where I am and the hurt I caused is real and will take time to heal. I can only offer my understanding to those I hurt and pray for their forgiveness and trust. This mess was created by me. I own it. God bless you guys!