OpheliaKatz

I tried couples counseling with an active addict. It was really useful because it helped the addict gaslight me through the counselor, validated the addict's delusions about our relationship being "okay", and made me feel diminished because I had to consider the addict's feelings repeatedly while the addict only paid lip service to my feelings but never followed through with action. Couples counseling is also GREAT for the active addict if he wants to play the victim and make you his carer and responsible for the way he chooses to make himself sick. That is my experience with couples counseling. If you are considering couples counseling with a recovering addict, someone who has been dry for 12 months and has had a few more months of their own personal therapy to try to figure out WHY they thought it was okay to drink themselves to almost-death, maybe that might be useful for YOU (but only if it's with a recovering addict who has been recovering without a relapse for 12 months, meaning a person who has been honest for 12 months). That is my not so humble opinion.

If you can't tell, I'm really angry at the way addiction has affected my life. I wish this fate on no one.

I also like Melody Beattie's "The New Codependency".

PrettyViolets

The best book that I read was Getting Them Sober--there is Volume 1 and Volume 4 by Toby Rice Drews. There is a website. It was a book about taking care of yourself and setting healthy boundaries. It is important to hear your voice and know your limits. There were a couple of times that I did have to walk away or hang up the phone (I am not coming to bail you out of this situation). It is like you do not even know if he will be alive the next day or if when you do leave if there will still be a door for you to come back through. I kept thinking what if I leave and he gets sober-because he was the love of my life compared to other guys that I dated and I was so afraid I would never find that again. Finally, I found my voice (my I am not a doormat) and if you want to be in my life you will need to be sober confidence in myself. But the real truth about success stories, it was really up to my husband to get sober himself. And once he was sober, there was a better foundation for us to build on. It is still not perfect. Both of you really have to want the same things and be going in the same direction. Hopefully, five years from now you can look back and really learn from all of it.

Carter5

Thank you so much for the honest responses and opinions. I guess my question about waiting to do any type of couples counseling until he's been sober for 12 months would be, what do you (the spouse) do during those 12 months? Live apart? Live your own lives but just in the same house? I just can't imagine living together as a married couple for a year without working on what is bothering me/not working in our relationship. We haven't been sleeping in the same room for almost a year- at first it was because he "couldn't sleep" and was "too anxious" AKA drunk/withdrawing so he would sleep on the couch and now it's because I don't want to be sharing a room.

Sorry - I'm just feeling defeated this morning. I don't know if I will ever "get over" the way I've been treated, spoken to, or lied to and I'm questioning if it's even worth sticking it out to see. I can't help but think about my life and wasting this time. I turn 30 in March and I just never thought this would be the life I would be living.

I have a 40 minute commute and sometimes can get sucked into feeling sorry for myself.

dandylion

Carter.....wow. I can see how you feel confused and torn....and, it looks to me like you feel that the decisions about the relationship reside on your shoulders....completely....?
It looks, to me, like his decisions and actions are a big part of the situation, also.
From what you share...it seems to me that he is struggling with his disease...like, he is not close to being ready to really grab onto sobriety, as his first priority....Really, it takes many alcoholics years of struggle....if they ever do grab onto it....
I realize that you have a lot of resentment built up....which is understandable...a lot of water has gone under the bridge in the last 6yrs. of your relationship...haven't you been together for about 6yrs...?
By the way...if you learn more about alcoholism...you will understand that he doesn't lie to deliberately hurt you (though, it does)....he lies because he is controlled by his disease...his alcoholism. Alcoholics lie (and drink)...it is just what they do. It is n ot personally toward you...it is how they attempt to protect their ability to drink....Drink, to an alcoholic, is like oxygen to you.....water to a fish....
There is a war going on, in his head 24/7....even if you can't see it from the outside.....

Personally, I have come to believe that it is m erciful for the alcoholic and the loved ones, if they can live apart during the early recovery period...like, for a year....to focus totally on their recovery.....
Honestly, it takes a year...and, some say two or three years for the alcoholic to make the kinds of changes needed for life long recovery....

I worry for your youth. You are approaching 30yrs. The prime of your life...and you have been with him for almost 6 of them, (I think?)......
You are unhappy, and you have lost a lot of "that loving feeing".....No wonder you are depressed....I would be surprised, if you weren't.....

Don't you think it might be a good idea to seek a personal therapist for YOU...alone, without couples counseling...to figure out what you want/need for the big picture of your life....you still have a LOT of years to live....and you should have some inner peace and joy, in those years....I think.....

You don't have to decide on anything, today...but, I am thinking that some time and distance from the situation (and some good therapy)...will bring you some more clarity....

PuzzledHeart

The Dear Sugars podcast featured love and addiction in their latest episode:

A Spy In The House Of Love ? With Ariel Levy | Dear Sugars

Definitely worth a listen. What I find interesting (and is not mentioned in the podcast) is that Cheryl Strayed flirted with heroin use in the past (she insists that she wasn't at the addict stage, but was getting pretty close). Her ex-husband and her friend staged a dramatic intervention and she got clean (this happened before her hike up the Pacific Crest Trail, which she wrote about in "Wild".)

And yet, she STILL endorses the advice given in this episode, based on her own experience on the other side when another friend became a crack addict.

AnvilheadII

I have a 40 minute commute and sometimes can get sucked into feeling sorry for myself.

i have a lengthy commute as well and have become an Audible book FIEND!

ScaryTime

Hi Carter5,
I saw so much of myself in reading your post. I am so sorry you are going through this.
I have no answers but I can share a bit...
Like you I had some apprehension before my AH and I got married but chalked it up to the fact that he had three children...who I love dearly!.
Throughout the years his drinking got better, and worse. He Got an OWI in 2006 and I tried telling myself this morning as it I was ending things but we still had my step son at home with us so I shouldered on in the marriage.
My AH “literally” drank himself to death as he went into cardiac arrest in 2016. I was there and did CPR and he is fine now with a defibrillator. I thought at the time that he HAD to quit drinking now, but his drinking only got worse. And he became a closet drinker and the lies, manipulation, and emotional abuse got worse as well.
I also have an alcoholic father and mother and have been a co-dependent my entire life to one alcoholic or another.
AH is now in recovery 20+days sober. Great! Now what do I do with all of the anger, hurt, resentment? I keep telling him that he needs to leave me alone, give me some space but is difficult when we live in the same house. I desperately want to live my own life and have been going to al anon meetings and reading everything I can get my hands on.
I feel like the more I look to do that though and the more I discover about myself and my co-dependency the more depressed I get. Wasted time... I mourn the life that I wanted that I never got.
I am 18 years into this marriage, I wanted children and never got them now it is too late.
If you don’t love him then get out. Life with an AH is no party. I got ZERO support from my AH ever. And now that he is in recovery it is all about him again and I am left to deal with all of this emotion yet again on my own.
When I do have a weak moment and give him a hug or an “I love you” then he starts to behave like EVERYTHING is all ok again. And it’s not I don’t know if it ever will be.
I started getting bouts of vertigo about 1.5 years ago and at the time my dad had to be moved out of his home and down here by me for health reasons. He is also an A (as I said) but doesn’t actively drink only because I have him in assisted living and he doesn’t have access - but he still is a master at manipulation, lies and emotional turmoil.
I had a vertigo “attack” last night for the first time in about 4 months and it was the worst one yet. It actually woke me up in the middle of the night and I was so off balance that I had to crawl to the bathroom to throw up. I am so stressed out - work 40+ hours a week, going to school online for my bachelors degree, and dealing with all of this sh!t. It is not fair and I think that all of the stress is to its boiling point and is now impacting my physical health.
Sorry this is so long, I just see so much of myself in what you posted and wish to all the powers that I had made different choices.
Please don’t let my story’s end be yours too. To say this situation is hard is the understatement of the decade. Focus on you and where you see your life going, then go get it.
All the best to you and everyone in this crappy situation!

TropicalWinter

I love to listen to podcasts when I'm driving. I listen to personal growth podcasts and also podcasts related to my future career field. There are Al-Anon podcasts, too.

FireSprite

I very much needed time apart during early recovery. We were dealing with the same problem but needed different solutions & we were speaking different languages, dealing with different hurts.

After about 13 yrs of marriage, we had been separated for a couple of years, then moved back in together for about 6 months before he came out about his secret drinking & got sober (but still resisted recovery for the most part). I had spent those 2 yrs in a codependent haze & then WISHED we could afford to separate again during early recovery... my own efforts to get healthier showed me the irony of how I'd wasted all that time wringing my hands & waiting on him when I could've been making leaps & bounds of progress on my own. But that's the thing - we can't do better until we know better. I just wasn't seeing myself separately from him - I had dissolved into someone I no longer recognized over many years so just going back to "me" wasn't so easy either. I had to FIND her first - REDEFINE her.

We were not each other's best support team in early recovery - I was angry & exhausted & tired of excuses & BS. He was drying out & "thawing out" emotionally which sent his emotions & body chemistry into roller coasters of ups & downs on any given day, for any given trigger. I was the same way honestly, but for entirely different reasons & neither of us could explain to the other what we couldn't understand ourselves. Feeling pressured to explain & apologize before we had comprehension was impossible.

Honestly, part of me also wanted to make it hard for him - I was still dealing with active resentments & was furious at how recovery is just as selfish as addiction. And I can admit that a small part of me even pushed at him just to see if that's "all" it would take for him to blame me for a relapse.... not terribly mature but man, was I self-righteous at the time!

There's nothing easy about any of this Carter, I wish I had some big AHA secret to share but truth is, it sucks. All around. For everyone.

ScaryTime

FireSprite
This
“...furious at how recovery is just as selfish as addiction.”
Exactly! What! I feel right now!
Right on the money in that “There's nothing easy about any of this Carter”.

BAW81

Carter - I am sorry that you find yourself in this situation. I am happy that you found yourself to this site. I know I wish I did after the first year of marriage with my STBXAH.

I had a rough first year. Even though we lived together for a couple years before getting married, I will always look back on that year as the beginning of the end....ALTHOUGH I didn't want to believe it. I didn't want to GIVE UP. I didn't want to FAIL. I was going to DO whatever I needed to do and MAKE things better.

After a series of horrible events regarding his drinking we entered couples counseling. It didn't work but it did lead me to individual therapy. I remember the therapist talking to me about the fact that healthy relationships can be attained with HEALTHY people. I knew what she was trying to tell me back then but I didn't want to hear it. I wanted my marriage, I wanted my golden retriever, I wanted my house with a white picket fence and 2-3 kids.....

I ended stopping therapy so pursue this life I wanted with my husband and things got a little bit better, I got pregnant, and life got SO MUCH WORSE. He lost his job, he drank away our money, he blamed me, etc.

The joyful time of being pregnant and expecting my baby, yep, did not happen. And then our child was born and what I thought was worse became hell.

We passed our 5 year legally married in the Fall but I filed for divorce over a year ago. It is a constant daily struggle. On top of that, I'm fighting to protect our innocent child who is going to have to deal with this for the rest of his life.

I do not share my story with you to try and convince you to leave now. That is up to you. I share my story because I wish I would've left after that first year and had I found this site back then, perhaps I would've been more enlightened to make a better choice.

Please listen to your inner voice. The instinct that tells you when things are not right. I silenced mine and I am paying a big price tag both literally and emotionally....

Best of luck to you.

teatreeoil007

Carter,

I haven't read through this entire thread, but just wanted to comment on the "anger" part.

It's not bad to feel angry. In your case, it's fully justified...some people give us messages that anger is a wrong and bad emotion to have. Well, I can see it might wrong if we DO something wrong with our anger like verbally abuse someone in a fit of anger. I've done that before and felt bad afterwards. I think most all of us have had fits of anger before.

What I've come to believe is it's not the anger itself that is wrong. It's what we do when we're angry that makes all the difference. Sometimes it's just good to be able to state, "I'm angry about this because ______________________________." I think being able to express the anger somehow dissipates it and as long as we can express without hurting others in the process.....

But there are a lot of folks who are very uncomfortable when we simply say we are angry. They want to hide from it or hush us up.

Some of us, however, have had influences in our life that have told us we are bad for being angry. I really really wish parents and other influences would do that! It tends to cause people to feel all bottled up inside...and they say depression is anger turned inward. I think there is something to that.