Do you regret marrying your alcoholic spouse?
 

When I'm in Alanon some of the stories I hear are absolutely heartbreaking and I often wonder how people can do this for so many years when I am struggling on just a couple. I recently heard a gal speaking who was getting ready to celebrate a wedding to her qualifier in recovery. Everyone was excited for her but I had this terrible thought of "why is she doing this?"....in no way do I mean that A's do not deserve a lifetime of love like anyone else, but knowing what you know today, would you have made the same decision?

Do you feel your love was enough to weather this hurricane of a storm?

Alcoholism is a disease. But just like the saying goes, sometimes love just aint enough. Some people are just not cut out to deal with a spouse who has the particular illness of alcoholism. It just wears them down too much. Sometimes "I Do" becomes "I just can't".

I wish I could ask my father that question. He stayed with my mother, and managed her alcoholism, for forty years, and when his eventually health failed him she was not capable of returning that care and attention, or to even express gratitude for all he had done for her. I wish I could ask him if it was worth it, if he got what he wanted, that if he'd known what he was in for if he would have left earlier.

For my father, "hope" was his only plan, "denial" his only support. It seems he was unable to look past the person he wanted my mother to be in order to see and accept the person she really was.

This is from a stickied thread a few months ago. I think it might answer your question.

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

Like alcoholism (and all addiction), codependent thinking involves denial and rationalization.

I certainly wouldn't marry an ACTIVE alcoholic, or one without at least a year of solid recovery. My first husband was a year sober when I married him, and this January he will celebrate 37 years of continuous sobriety. My second husband was mostly sober with slips when I married him (in a burst of unwarranted optimism), and I left him a few months later in full-blown relapse from which he's never (so far as I know) returned. So I'd never recommend THAT to anyone.

As for someone with solid recovery, I'd say anyone with five or more years who seems to be emotionally stable and responsible (especially if they remain happily involved with AA) is probably as good a bet as anyone you meet--other problems, like infidelity or even late-developing addiction can come along no matter how sure you feel about the other person when you marry him/her.

Of course not.

i meant. I would NOT marry him again. I DO regret-would i marry him again? of course not.

if i could have peeked into the future to see everything i would have sacrificed and gone through with him, i would never have married him. he's a totally different person than he was when i married him.

Turns out that, for me, it wasn't even close to enough.

But I could walk out of the hurricane, and I eventually did.

Then comes the work of rebuilding all the devastation left behind.

I don't know how to answer the question of regret. There are 16 years of memories and not all were bad, four children, and the biggest chunk of my adult life wrapped up in the decision to marry him. I can't wish it all away but would I have wanted a different ending to that chapter - of course. This is not the life I had pictured. It is not the life I wanted with him and it is certainly not the life I wanted for my children. But I chose it. I can look back and see that I chose it every step of the way and I do wish that would have been different. But we don't get do overs. We make choices today. Today is our chance to know better and do better. In 5 years we'll be looking back on them. I hope that I'm making better ones now but if I'm honest - not always.

I don't necessarily regret marrying the alcoholic. I regret the chanfe in behavior in him that IMO I couldn't have predicated before the marriage.

While I don't regret marrying XAH, I regret not drawing boundaries when I needed and I regret staying for as long as I did.

I'm the AH in this scenario, so I imagine my feelings are bit different. It breaks my heart to think of my EW regretting marrying me, but it is what it is. That's one question I'll never ask. I'll burn in hell first.

I regret marrying my ex. He abuses lots of things, including alcohol. I didn't see it because I was drinking when I married him. I thought the problem was me. Then, I dealt with my depression and my alcoholism, and he resented me for getting better. He's repeating the cycle now and dating people he can party with. Marriage isn't always a party, though, and when times get tough being married to an alcoholic leaves you to weather the storm alone.

I regret ever meeting my xAH. I am glad to have done so ONLY bc I have our wonderful daughters, but now that his insanity has impacted them too, I would give anything to go back in time and leave him the SECOND I sensed something was amiss.

People automatically get happy when they hear about weddings...doesn't mean the marriage makes any sense whatsoever.

Separating the marriage reality from the wedding marketing hoopla is really important. A wedding is one day...a marriage can be an eternity, especially marriage to an alcoholic.

I didn't marry mine or even live with him...and I'm so thankful.

Seems like most alcoholics are already married...to their addiction. I've never been interested in being second.

I regret the denial I lived in for so long - it began as a coping
mechanism growing up in a dysfunctional home (AF). Not
seeing my life and relationships for what they really are (not
loving and trusting myself) was the ultimate unloving act towards myself.

To answer that question, I have to reference SparkleKitty's quote, because I will have been married 40 years at the end of January to someone who has been chronically alcoholic except for 4 sober "Camelot" years between 2000-2004.

Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if I hadn't married him--I try to imagine an "It's a Wonderful Life" scenario in reverse--what turns would my life have taken had I decided to NOT call my him after we broke up a month after we met. My mother was PRAYING TO GOD I didn't call him, but I did. After all, he's a great guy when he's sober (anyone ever hear that before?)

Instead of asking "do I regret marrying my AH" I think the question is, "do I regret not dealing with my own issues prior to meeting AH?" My father had died 4 years prior and I definitely had abandonment issues. My AH is like a clone of my father--any two-bit psychoanalyst could figure out the transference in my emotions. I should have gotten therapy after my father died. I truly believe my AH and I are soulmates in a certain way--the way in which two damaged people wind up finding each other.

There are a ton of silver linings--my kids are totally wonderful, awesome human beings whose DNA is both AHs and mine. We have some wonderful memories--and frankly most of them are from that 4-year window of sobriety. He is still the person I would want to most be with--if he's sober. That's a big "if"--it's an "if" that's taken me through infidelities and financial ruin and a life on the edge.

The older I get the more I see the regression of life in the way that SparkleKitty alludes to. I have to work harder to just stay afloat in my own identity. I have to work harder just to survive, to be honest. His dreams are still grandiose but he doesn't have the ability to achieve them--he often doesn't have the ability to wear clean clothes for a start. Three of our kids are coming out of the fog of "life is only normal if you're drinking"which has created rifts in our relationships.

I can't and won't answer the question about regret because I have the life I have chosen. I accept my life and am grateful for it. I do regret my enabling and denial because those are the things I have to answer for.

If I were counseling anyone else, I would say, if you have two feet, RUN from any delusions that a relationship with an alcoholic is going to be romantic, optimal, exceptional, grand or even OK in any way. Alcohol is a thief and will steal hopes, dreams, and sanity. Life with an alcoholic in general is volatile, unpredictable, soul-sucking, and thankless. My mental image of the worst parts of my life is me paddling a canoe like hell while he's relaxing in the back while the water pours in and meanwhile he's using the bail bucket as an ashtray. Ironically, the best parts are filled with laughter, joy and connection. The thing about alcoholism is, though, is that life with alcohol tends to be one step forward, two steps back until you wind up with a lot of lost ground. At the end of the day, who is going to have the fewest friends? Who is going to have the least financial security? Who is going to have the shakiest emotional grounding? The answer is, you and your alcoholic spouse.

So, I've gotten what I've asked for in many ways, but I'm convinced my life would not have been any different with anyone else unless I had learned to deal with my issues and take care of myself.. in 1974.

^^ Very eloquent & heartfelt. Thank you.

People find someone who is as wounded as they are, this is true
and why it is so important to work on ourselves & get healthy.

Yup - I wish I had had the guts to not marry xAH. I knew there were red flags, but I was in denial.

However, I am so happy I have the guts to leave him and I am so very thankful I get a new chance at a great life without him. We were only married 2 years and we don't have children. I pray this is just a chapter in my life and not the whole story. My dream is to have a happy, healthy family one day in the future.