HeartbrokenGuy

I had to go to several.

The first few were myself and a group of elderly women who's husbands had passed long ago.

I kept going to different ones and doing lots of reading on my own. Books, articles, google searches, this forum.

Find what works for you. Just know there are many others like you out there.

COYS41

They said that group is mostly 6-12 women with 1-2 guys that show up sporadically. Wish they could advertise groups that had a majority of men attending. Would make this searching a lot easier.

PinkPetuna

In the literature I received at my latest Al-Anon meeting I found that there are "Men's Stagg" meetings and "Women's Stagg" meetings in our county. Perhaps there are some close to you in your area?

COYS41

Meeting with my AW tonight to discuss how to proceed. Any suggestions on how to handle the conversation? Last talk we had 2 weeks ago, I told her I think she has a drinking problem among many other deep-seeded issues that she needs to seek help for. She is also aware that I have reached out to her family regarding my concerns and she is not very happy with that, claiming I am putting a riff between her and her family and making things awkward for everyone. I also called her out on a plethora of lies I have uncovered with the discussions I have had with her family and messages I have found on her phone to a guy expressing how much she wants out of our marriage and confiding in him in what seems more than friendship. Needless to say, things did not go well when I brought this up. She started to cry and ended up walking out when I showed her I had proof that she was lying to me.

I know I can not continue to live this way and need to end things if she still feels like she doesn't need to seek any help. I am also certain the above is how it is going to play out. After all, she was a bar for 4 hours by herself while I was at an Al-anon meeting.

I don't want to push too hard and ruin any chance that she may be coming around to seeking help but I don't want to make it seem like I am willing to continue this awkward limbo.

LexieCat

At this point, I think you should approach it from the standpoint of "Let's agree to disagree, then, how can we work things out in a way that's fair without doing further damage to each other."

IOW, drop the conversation. You've said what you felt needed to be said, you've told whom you felt needed to be told, and further discussion around those points is useless at this juncture. She doesn't want to hear it, and neither of you will agree with the other.

You might even propose that you both give some thought to how you can divide things and wrap things up, and then meet again to discuss THOSE ISSUES ONLY.

Stay out of what she "should" be doing or what you perceive her problems to be. Don't defend yourself, either, just say, "I did what I thought was right and I'm sorry if you don't agree. Let's just stick to business."

honeypig

If you call the central office for your area, you may be able to get info regarding any men's meetings in your area. You also may be able to find out which meetings are larger/smaller, since typically the people working in that office are volunteers and belong to local Alanon groups. If you can see in the listings if a meeting says "book study" or similar, that might be a good thing, too, since those meetings may be a bit more structured.

I'm sorry your first try wasn't a good fit--a year or so ago I felt the need for a meeting on a Saturday evening and attended one I'd never been to before. There was only 1 other woman there (I guess usually there is one additional one who comes), and what went on then was NOT an Alanon meeting, by any stretch of the imagination. She read a piece from one of the Alanon daily readers, and then she just talked and talked and talked about herself and things that, to me at least, were not in any way connected w/Alanon or even w/each other. After about a half hour of this, when she saw me gathering my coat up, she abruptly stopped talking and said "OK, now it's your turn." I politely thanked her for her time but said I'd decided I was going to head home now and did so.

I think she had some type of mental problem, and came to the "meeting" simply as a way to be listened to; I've seen this at a few meetings over the years, where someone is clearly just very lonely and looking to talk, to anyone, about anything.

I struggled w/whether to call the central office about this--I was not in a crisis, and I KNOW what an Alanon meeting is supposed to be like, so it wasn't that huge of a deal for me to bumble into this, but holy cows, what if someone who WAS in crisis, who was desperate for help and who had no idea what Alanon was supposed to look like, had showed up that night and thought that this was what Alanon really WAS?

I ended up not contacting the officee even though I probably should have, but I did notice that not long after my experience, that meeting no longer appeared in the listings.

Anyway, my point is that, for better or worse, Alanon meetings can vary a LOT. I hope you're not too discouraged and that you can find one (or more than one, even better!) that fits you well.