AnvilheadII

you don't necessarily need to air ALL your dirty laundry in order to ask for help. or you could.....it's probably not nearly The Secret you think it is......

this is YOUR life, fwn.

skippernlilg

In my experience, asking for help from the A's mom backfired. Her biggest concern was her baby, while my biggest concern was my actual child. In hindsight a better choice for support would have been an unbiased friend.

dandylion

fwn,,,,,I think that one of the hardest parts of going through this can be the feeling of isolation....
Some kind of live human support is so important...
You could find that in alanon...those who understand beyond mere words....

dawnrising

This ^ in my experience is the biggest red flag. Please take care of yourself and reach out now, locally to get your help in place for when the baby comes. Your health and well being is most important right now for you and your children. You need rest and peace so you can get through this pregnancy. I cannot imagine going through this while expecting and little ones as well. If you ask plenty of people for help you may have a nice rotating schedule of help, and my guess is that not only will that help with the baby but also with isolation, guilt, shame and embarrassment. I covered, lied by omission and felt very alone all those years of covering for my AH. You don't need to do this alone. Prayers for you and your little tribe.

DiggingForFire

FWN

Thanks for the advice everyone. I hadn't thought about his mom being the less than ideal person to talk to about this. She was the first person I ever started having this discussion with because she visits us a lot and has seen he and I fight about his drinking and for the longest time he was telling me that I was controlling and it was in my head but talking to her validated my feelings, she SAW what I saw.

I do know that if at any time I need help with the new baby or my other children that I have several people I could contact who wouldn't hesitate to help me without asking questions. There are a handful of women here that I have a good relationship with that have children my children's age and they all attend the same school and we live in the same neighborhood, so I feel good about that if we ever ended up in a worst case scenario.

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Husband and I woke up before the kids this morning and he's seeing how distraught I am about all of this, how stressed the possibility of his drinking makes me feel and how I cannot handle the uncertainty day to day if he's drinking.
He told me that he'd strongly considered last night just coming home from work and telling me to take care of the boys so he could have some time alone because he really wanted to drink a lot more than he'd been drinking lately (this would be a first, he's never done this to me). I knew he'd had a bad day at work, we'd gone to lunch earlier that day coupled with it being the weekend I was worried he'd end up drinking. Thankfully he did not drink and we had a really, really good evening as a family. He said even though he really wanted to, he knew if he did he'd ruin our the entire weekend for everyone (which is true, I'd have flipped out if he came home and said he needed to be alone to drink and then got drunk. Flipped. Out.)
I proceeded to tell him that I'm glad he was able to make that choice, because he wouldn't have ruined just our weekend, he'd have ruined the next few months for everyone with a decision like that. I'm at a breaking point and the anxiety alone of him here with us without his own resources to help him when he doesn't have his own mental will power seems to be taking over in my head. It's all I could think about yesterday and this morning after that random night this week where he decided to drink.

He says he's going to show up at the outpatient place on Monday during work hours and make sure he's in the class for Monday night. Hopefully he follows through.

I was also down a rabbit hole this morning when I woke up thinking about how if we can just fix this problem, we have so much left to work on in our marriage. This problem has taken front and center for so long as far as our discussions and our fights, there's so much left to resolve. I even started thinking about the pros and cons of staying with things as they are now and then I felt bad. The cons list is long. The pros list is short. I love him and he's the father of my children and does so much good with them but man can alcohol take a toll on a marriage. Funny how you can get stuck in the day to day and feel okay and not think about big picture 'what's really happening here' details. Things like lack of real intimacy. He doesn't do anything to make me feel special. He's always stressed at work. I'm a very social person and I don't want to go anywhere with him because of him and alcohol. I love having people over and I don't because of him and alcohol. I love going on vacations, would love to do a baby moon but I don't want to because of him and alcohol. So now in the evenings we stay pretty isolated at home which isn't what I prefer because I'm here all day every day. We went on a nice long walk with the kids this morning, so that was good. Mornings and lunch times are always good as a family, it's afternoons and evenings that fill me with what ifs and have me on high alert. Not a fun way to live. He only drank that one time this week and didn't get drunk, he's white knuckling it as you guys say here. Hopefully he makes it through the weekend so he can start his class on Monday and start to learn/get some tools.

I should probably set up an appointment with my therapist soon as well. And try out Al Anon. Nothing with childcare around here, and my husbands work schedule plus his outpatient program plus him needing to do community service for his DWI is really going to eat up our time these next few months. Gosh, plus the baby. And my other 2 kids. School starts in September so that helps.

Thanks for listening.

dandylion

fwn…..it is a good thing that you have the other women who won't hesitate to help. Maybe, you could schedule your therapist and look for alanon meetings that are during the day...….and, ask them to sit your boys.....Then, you could return the favor by watching their kids, for them.....
When I was a single parent with three young children...my other single parent girlfriends and I watched each other's children, all the time. We became such good resources for each other...in so many ways.....

FWN

FeelingGreat

This is exactly why giving up drinking is so much more relaxing. Once you're over the acute stage you're not thinking every moment about where the next drink is coming from. For me there was constant tension until I 'surrendered' and realised I had to stop drinking completely. I really hope he gets to this point because at the moment he doesn't seem to be having withdrawals and it's mostly in his head.

FWN

AnvilheadII

hope this outpatient program knows what they are doing. Such high stakes.

oh i'm pretty sure the outpatient program has a clue. the program is not the problem. how receptive the alcoholic is to the message, the tools and sobriety in general is usually where the roadblocks begin.

please think about YOUR plan B.

FWN

Hawkeye13

Agree with Anvil-if he still thinks moderation is even an option the cycle isn't over.

Honestly he doesn't sound done drinking to me. No program can solve unwillingness.

I truly hope he does understand and accept drinking can no longer be part of his life anymore--but as you say, he can't imagine ordering an NA drink while out.

As an A, I also struggled to accept life had to change. For me, it's taken a lot of relapses to finally get it.

Plan B is important for your own health and peace right now.

dandylion

fwn…...yeah. for you, it probably seems like he just has to make a logical decision.....But, to him, I imagine that it feels like a life and death decision, and a war going on in his head...That "alcoholic" voice is going to be whispering in his ear, 24/7----"you can handle it....you can handle it".....

This is hard stuff.....

Have you given thought to talking to a lawyer to find out what his and your rights are, should you want to get a separation/divorce?
Just for the information....because just knowing information can be a relief....

The following website....listed by state....can give a lot of information and help you to organize you thoughts before speaking to a lawyer.....saving time and money....

www.womansdivorce.com

Also, given what you are going through, having a counselor to support you, could be a huge help...

I know you hate to even think about all of this...but, I think that these are important parts of a plan B......should it come to that....

FWN

Thanks for the site, dandylion. I do need to meet with a lawyer just to understand my options and limitations.

He didn't drink again yesterday so that's something. He was much grouchier first thing in the morning all the way until bed though. Blamed it on stress.

It's so crazy coming to this realization that he has alcoholism. Feeling somewhat thankful that he's in the 'early stage' I guess, maybe that's positive as far as him deciding to quit. Maybe not.
Before knowing all of this and being completely ignorant to alcoholism I thought it was always just a selfish choice he was making and that eventually he'd 'grow up' or 'mature' or whatever. But now after understanding more about it I realize that's not the case at all which is difficult for me to accept/wrap my head around.

We'll see if he goes to the first outpatient night tonight.

Thanks for listening. Documenting here helps me keep my sanity through this whole thing.

dawnrising

^ WOW - this is such an accurate description of how my life was. The only difference for me was both my kids had driver's licenses finally, so we could all be gone. I still created my schedule around theirs so they wouldn't be alone with AH. After many times finding him passed out DD just couldn't even be in the house with him alone, its was too much. She worried about how to get a 200lb man out of a fire if that were to happen. I can honestly say I feel so much less lonely actually living alone. The loneliness of living with someone you love who is simply a shell and has checked out of life was just too much. FWN - I encourage you to keep sharing your feelings/frustrations. Isolation from people, feelings, reality is very unhealthy for anyone.

trailmix

Hey fwn, I have seen you post a couple of times about how your AH is "high functioning" and now "early stage".

I think sometimes when we live in a dysfunctional environment for a long time (you mention him drinking for 10 years), things that are not normal become - normal-ish.

10 years of non-stop drinking is not early stage alcoholism. High functioning is not a type of alcoholism but a stage. They are high functioning until they are not.

It is after all a mental illness. He is living with a skewed look out on the world, every day and every minute. I also hope he will have a breakthrough, I would not bet any money on it.

His back is to the wall right now, yet he is drinking secretly in the garage. That doesn't exactly shout - looking for recovery from alcohol.

There are AA meetings every day, they are free and accessible. Has he even looked one up?

Another thing to consider is that he has been drinking all this time. Even when he is sober-ish, that's not sober, that's - not as impaired by alcohol. The person he eventually becomes, if he does indeed seek recovery may be different from the guy you have known. He will also need to spend much time learning coping mechanisms which he probably doesn't have right now because alcohol has been his go-to coping mechanism.

A good plan B is imperative, as others have mentioned. You do need to protect yourself.