confused2018

I reposted this to this Forum once I realized there is one specific for family and friends.

Hi all, I am new to this, stumbled upon the site while searching for answers to the endless questions I have.

My story...started dating a woman 7 years ago, who had recently divorced a man who was abusive, both physically and emotionally, was an alcoholic and user. She "partied" too, but no where to the same extent. During the marriage and divorce, she did drink excessiveley, and when I met her she did like to have some drinks although it didn't alarm me. During the onset of our relationship, we did drink and spend plenty of time together with and without drinks. As the relationship grew, i saw signs that her drinking was different than mine. Around 3 years ago, I propose and she gladly accepts. And then more signs...outrage while drunk, flase accusations directed towards me, fighting about nothings, physical towards me. The actions towards others in the house began to deteriorate as well. A little over a year ago, she was fighting with me while at dinner, ended up leaving apart. She got black out drunk and ended up in some strangers house, although nothing happened. At that point, she committed to AA. One night into the program she fell off, but was back on it. At this time, our relationship did take some major changes, as it was often for us to go out to dinner and have a couple drinks, after sports activities stop at the sports bar and have a couple. In hindsight our relationship grew stale...just taking care of all the blended family things, work, chores, etc etc. This past September, she attended a HS reunion of sorts in New Orleans. She called me the second morning and told me she had a couple drinks. I was surprised, and honestly didn't know how to take it. When she returned, we talked about it and her general opinion was "**** AA, I want to have a couple drinks", basically told her sponsor off and started have a couple drinks here and there. Now I didn't know it at the time, but have since learned that this action is only the begining of the storm coming. All along this time, she has been also seeeing a therapist. In October, she comes home with the revelation that her therapist helped her see....she has never been alone and needs to live life alone for awhile (she met her husband when she was 14). OK, thats a shock. I will summise the next two months....we co-habitate for a bit, I move out over Thanksgiving to a hotel, she tells me after a couple days to just come home, its foolish. Meanwhile she is still drinking, albeit it not excessively. Second weekend in December, she takes off with a couple friends to a professional game, and I believe ends up drinking and sleeping with some guy. Comes back, I confront her after finding a couple odd pictures of a stranger on her phone, she denies but says she needs the space and out I move. Present day, we spend plenty of time over the holidays together, alone and as a family with the kids. She still says she loves me, but needs to get healthy before she can have any chance at us. Told me the other day she fessed up to her sponsor. So my question, what does a relapse really do to the mind. I get the fact this could just simply be the dieing actions of a woman for the relationship. However I have read plenty of stories about people like myself who have experienced this type of behavior. With her starting to drink again, it all went down hill and fast. Any advice or experience would be greatly appreciated. We just mutually agreed to go quiet for 30 days to see where things are than, for when we spend time together it feels so right and good, however we both know where that got us and neither of us want that again. Guess its not only a AA question, but intertwined with the relationship stuff to. Thanks for listening. I admit I am far from innocent in the "relationship" issues....while I thought I was supporting the AA I suspect what I was doing was creating distance in essence. I have plenty of my own faults that I too am seeing a therapist about, albeit I started mine only a couple months ago. And my real question is about the AA part, what does relapse entail, what are common actions, etc. I have talked to a few trusted friends who have been in the program for 10+ years and they have said that it can be rough, they usually have to hit a "new low", etc. I am just curious if this sounds familiar, what the path entails, etc. And any advice. Thank you for the responses in advance.

Mango212

Have you given Al-anon a try for yourself?

http://www.al-anon.org/

I'm sorry for what you're going through. Welcome to SR. I'm glad you're here.