SmallButMighty

I think you are doing the right thing.

"Nothing changes if nothing changes"

That's the phrase that finally got through to my codependent brain and helped give me the strength to change me... and what behaviors I would (and wouldn't) accept in my life.

Change is hard, often it hurts like hell, but not changing when things are bad is far more damaging.

Deep breaths friend.

maia1234

R,
I am sorry, this is so painful. I divorced my axh after 34 years together, 26 married. We started dating when I was 15 years old. You talk about divorce being hard and that you still love each other..... I cried my eyes out signing the papers. He was no where ready to get help, and I think I gave him more then enough time to figure it out.

What I learned in an alanon meeting is that just because you love someone, doesn't mean that you have to stay married or live together, and watch them self destruct. I couldn't believe that this women had divorced her husband and still loved him, blew me away. What she told me is that I could love him from a distance. I had enabled him to never grow up, sober up or work a program. (I thought I was just helping him)

Any way, I am 2 1/2 years post divorce. I am doing very well, as much as I feared I couldn't survive with out him. His drinking is still out of control, working part time, has a terrible relationship with our kids. I am so grateful that I didn't continue to "hang" on and help fix him. Sobriety is a one person job. Hugs my friend, be tough, she has to do it on her own and know that you are not always going to be there to cushion her fall.

hopeful4

I am sorry this happened. However, I am glad that you stuck to your grounds. This will give you a little breathing space and let her figure out how to handle her own future. It's only in her control.

You did not Cause it, you cannot Control it, you cannot Cure it. Those are the three C's that have gotten me through a lot of situations.

Hugs.

honeypig

Just wanted to echo what hopeful said about a day here and a week there of not drinking is NOT sobriety and NOT recovery. I know I thought that same way during the early part of dealing w/XAH's drinking; I felt that simply b/c he didn't have measurable amounts of alcohol in his system (or, as was more often the case, I THOUGHT he didn't have alcohol in his system), he somehow turned into a healthy, reasonable person. It took me some serious time to learn that simply not having a measurable blood alcohol level didn't equal sobriety, recovery, or healthy. Does this person SEEM more normal? Sure, but underneath the disease is still simmering, and all the mental/emotional/spiritual crap is still lurking. Nothing has changed.

It's hard. No doubt it's hard. It's been 23 years since I met XAH, and we were married for 19 of them. I still do care about him, but in the way you'd care about ANY human being, not in the way you love your spouse. He lied again and again and again, over almost the entire course of our marriage, and in the end was unable or unwilling to choose recovery. So I was the one who had to choose.

Are you getting outside of your own little world? Are you reading and posting to other threads here? Are you checking into Alanon? All those things will help you get through, so do your best.

Wells

Hi rescuer,

Sorry you have to be here but really glad you found this place. As I always preface, many people here wiser and more experienced than I. I discovered this place last year when the clock finally ran out on 10 years with my exAGF.

I'm not sure if you mentioned, didn't see, if you knew of your wife's drinking habits before you married. I did, right from the moment we got together, but I assumed it was just "party lifestyle" and it took me a long time for the switch to flip and realize that this may be more of an issue than just a personal lifestyle choice or preference. Good on you (as well as her) for realizing. Some folks never do, especially the A's.

I'll speak mostly from experience with my ex here, draw comparisons where you'd like. I tend to obsessively learn about things that affect my life so I've spent a lot of time learning about alcoholism, a lot of it here, and as much as I wanted to buck the trends and the statistics, I couldn't beat it and neither could she. I held onto hope for a very long time.

The one thing that is nice to hear is that your wife has shown regret and some sort of realization that she's got a problem. That is a good first step. One area I have never gotten a handle on is the apologies, the sorries, the regretful conversations -- I had them as well, and to this day I can never be sure if they were truly remorseful due to the hurt she caused me, or just manufactured tears to manipulate the situation, or more tears for her own self and not genuine regret. I wish I could give you more insight there but that's for you to decide, I never could.

During and after our break up, there were more apologies and sad moments and it was very tempting to just stay or get back together...but after many years, I finally made a deal with myself -- I couldn't be with her if she was continuing to drink. It took me a long time to get there, where I just knew I could no longer have her in my life if she was drinking, because the outcome was almost never a positive one for me.

The dynamic in these relationships usually winds up in one of two ways -- The addict decides FOR THEMSELVES (your wife in this case) that they no longer want to live with the consequences of their alcoholism. This happens on their own, and usually for their own reasons, and has little to nothing to do with you or anyone else in their lives. That's one outcome. The other is, the family member (you) reaches the breaking point before their SO addicts are willing to embrace an alcohol-free lifestyle.

I think a lot of these relationships continue out of hope. I know I stuck with it in the hopes that one day she would just realize that SHE had to make a change. As you have read I'm sure, the dream and goal of the alcoholic is moderation. To have alcohol in their lives in moderation by choice and to be able to leave it behind. I also believe that 100% of alcoholics and problem drinkers do NOT want to be alcoholics or problem drinkers. None of them want this condition affecting their lives. But I think in many cases, their way of fighting it is to continue to drink in the hope they will "learn" this technique -- This may be where your wife is now. Knowing that something's not right, and she's got this issue, but hoping she can find a way to beat it without fully giving the stuff up.

I think I actually had this hope for my ex too, that as she aged and matured, and life settled down, that this need to get obliterated as much as possible would subside and she would just become a normal consumer of alcohol like me and everyone else in our lives. I can imagine it was confusing and frustrating for her to be around so many people who seemed to manage to enjoy a glass or two of wine, or a few beers, and not obsess about how fast they could put it away, or how blitzed they could get and how quickly, etc. When I put myself in the mindset of the addict, I learned a great deal of compassion for my ex and it was very helpful in MY recovery.

Imagine you're at a party and they bring in a stack of 10 pizzas for everyone. If you knew that if you ate a piece of pizza, that the following things could possibly happen:

- You'd continue eating pizza as long as there was pizza on the table or until you were so sick you couldn't eat another bite
Or...
- The pizza, if you ate any of it, had the possibility of you acting out and embarrassing yourself, others, or hurting yourself

In your mind, you would (hopefully) decide that you better not eat a bite of that pizza. Your brain realizes the risks, that it's not worth it, no pizza for you. Imagine your wife in that same room, fully aware of both the possibilities above, yet still going right for that pizza. That is the mind of the alcoholic, and when I think of it that way -- They're aware of the consequences but still have no control of their actions -- It allows me to feel a great compassion.

So, all that said, in my wonderful long-winded wall of text way, is a way of hopefully more clarity with where your wife is right now. I think if she is not genuinely serious about recovery, and ready for a life without alcohol, because it's good for HER, you are doing the right thing to be apart. But this is only for you to decide, and no one else can decide for you. Much like the alcoholic has to decide for themselves that they want to quit drinking, we have to decide as their significant others, their friends, their families...when WE have to let go of them. The only person who can know when they should do that...is you.

The other thing I learned is that while my ex may still not choose to get better, she would never have gotten better with me...I was the ultimate enabler and her life with me allowed her too much freedom and not any consequences from the amount of drinking she was doing.

I hope you stay with us and read up and keep us informed. There are so many awesome people here and this place was, and is, a real lifeline for me to read, talk, learn, understand...Stick around.

sauerkraut

Hey rescuer--
Just wanted to chime in to say that I'm a college prof, too. I've found that going through these last years of craziness with my STBXAH and learning about addiction and alcoholism has, I think, made me better at my job. I am more sympathetic to students, and more open to talking with them about these issues. But I know the feeling of struggling to get it together before the students walk in. Thank God our job requires us to think on our feet and be in the moment, right?

rescuer

Thank you to everybody for their advice and support. It's nice being here.

So, she just packed up some stuff and left. I've made it clear that this is going to be a proper separation for several months at the least. She has gone back to the doctor and started going to AA meetings. I told her I don't want to be in touch except for practical things.

She is quite overwhelmed but taking things well in the sense of not arguing and pleading and fighting.

I think I was already toying with this decision, but the combination of my posting here and her last couple of drinking episodes helped me go through with it.

I'm feeling sad and been having some difficulty concentrating on work, but at least not angry and stressed and resentful like I have been for the past few years. I'm not feeling any desire to monitor her recovery (well, I'm still feeling it a little but am resisting it and focusing on myself.) I know there might be more pain down the road, especially if she gets sober for a while and I take her back and she relapses. I'm trying to be realistic and I understand that is very much a possibility, but I'm not yet willing to give up on her and on the marriage completely.

It is disheartening that there are such few stories here of successful recovery of both the alcoholic and the marriage! Do those spouses just not come back here to post, or does it almost never happen?

To answer one question asked by Wells: yes, your case sounds similar to mine. I knew she drank a lot but didn't realise it was such a problem. I had known her as friends for quite a long time before we became a couple, and I knew there were some periods when she "drank too much", but I didn't know enough about alcoholism at the time. Her father was an alcoholic and her brother is on that road too. Now I see all the patterns, heh.

rescuer

PS. She just discovered that her mom might have cancer (should know by next week), so one more thing on her plate. Hopefully it will help her get out of her own head and not just make her drink more.

Ladybird579

I’m really her only chance at recovery and at happiness,

Sorry to say but you are not. She is.

honeypig

Glad to see you back, rescuer, and glad that you've taken action. I think you may learn quite a lot in the days to come.

That's going to be a hard thing to go through, but life happens to all of us, alcoholic or not, and alcoholic or not, we all have to find healthy ways to deal with it. In my earliest days, I thought/hoped that recovery was some kind of "magic shield" that meant I'd never feel pain, anger or sadness again (or at least not intensely). I found out that wasn't the case, and that recovery (for me, at least) was more about just being with whatever was happening, feeling it instead of numbing it, and knowing that however terrible it felt, the feeling wouldn't last forever.

One further question: Since you mention her "just packing up some stuff and leaving", I take it this isn't a formal legal separation? I don't know what the laws are where you live--I think not all states recognize legal separation--but you may want to consider the legal implications of not having something formally in place. You could find yourself on the hook in a big, big way financially and legally if she, for instance, gets in a serious car accident or runs up large debts. Just something to think about...

SparkleKitty

It's true that when there are success stories like the ones you are hoping for, people don't always come back and post, but it does happen occasionally. Mostly it seems people are too busy living life to come back, which is nice.

However, I wouldn't limit your definition of "success" to only those whose significant other embraces sobriety. My relationship with an alcoholic did not end in his sobriety, but it certainly did end with MY recovery from codependency, and I consider that a success.

honeypig

And to address your question about how few people "live happily ever after" here--I think it may indeed be a kind of self-selecting group and perhaps not representative of the general population, but I can't say for sure.

If you're looking for first-hand info on those who've made it through, try looking up some open AA meetings or open Alanon meetings. Those type of meetings feature people who speak about what their recovery has been like and how their lives changed, what it took and what it still takes every day. You will see what real recovery looks like. I think this could really help clarify a lot of things for you and would strongly recommend it.

You may have read this thread already, but in case you haven't:
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...s-stories.html

dandylion

rescuer....I am glad to hear that she is going back to AA and that you two will, now have some space to work on yourselves, respectively.
It is written that the marriages that have the best chance of making it are those where each partner works their own separate program....simultaneously....

You will not see a ton of success stories...about how the marriage made it happily, after recovery, on this site...However, there are some that have done very well. I do think that it is partly because they don't come back to post, in lots of the cases... As a matter of fact, many people just stop posting for a variety of reasons.
You might observe that a large number of people come here after many years of living in a difficult situation and lots of water has gone under the bridge for them...and, there is a lot of work to be done....
You are in an advantage, I think, because you are still very early in your marriage, and you don't have any children to make it even more complicated.
Still, whether she makes it into lifelong, genuine recovery is up to her....

It is more important than ever for you to continue your learning about the disease and yourself....
from her history, she has a lot of work and digging to do, it seems. It won't happen in a short time....

lol....there is a saying: "Two sickies don't make one wellie"

I sincerely hope that you hang around...and continue to read and to study the "stickies", especially.....

rescuer

Thanks all.

Yes, I've been reading a lot here and elsewhere. Studying and learning is part of my job, I'm good at it The "Classic Reading" post in the stickies is fantastic. I'll also look for an Al-anon group.

Yes I do realise I have it easier than many others. I'm 34 and I know this will only be a phase in my life. I won't let her drinking make me so miserable again, either way. I'm also actually very self-centered (or selfish!); this codependency is not part of any larger pattern.

I know that all this is easier said in the abstract. If she comes back and is sober for a couple of years and we're happy and she then relapses - now that will be tough. I sometimes find myself thinking that it might be easier if she just doesn't quit properly at all as that will save me the later pain. (Told you I was selfish...)

But I'm seeing only good signs at this moment. She accepts that the disease has really taken over; she hasn't fought me on this decision; she's going to the doctor and to AA meetings and mentioned looking for a sponsor. I'm going to wait and watch and in the meantime enjoy being free of her alcoholism. Live in the moment and all that

Thanks for the heads-up honeypig. I will look into the legal implications.