an AH's repeating cycle of behavior
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Join Date: May 2003
Location: Levittown Pennsylvania
Posts: 264
an AH's repeating cycle of behavior
I have posted about this before, and people found it interesting. So I thought I'd post an update on my experiences with it, in case it helps others see it in their lives too. It is long, sorry.
My AH's behaviors are part of a large repeating cycle, kind of like the Groundhog Day movie. I thought it was something unique to him until someone here posted a link to an article called 'Addiction, Lies and Relationships' by
Floyd P. Garrett, M.D. After reading that, I realized the repetitive cycle I saw in my AH was just another common aspect of the same disease.
The amazing part to me has always been that he is in denial of the pattern of behavior, just as he is in all other 'evidence' of his alcoholism. He practically has to rewrite history, or simply refuse to continue a thread of conversation, if you try to have him acknowledge his own repeating behaviors.
His basic pattern is... Spring brings feelings of wanting excitement, wanting to be out partying, social, run run run. His drinking goes way up. He is back to work (landscaper) and feels rich, and he knows people are staying out later in the bars. Horseshoes, pool, barbeques, and girls. He wants to stop home to shower and head back out. The grass looks greener everywhere but home. Selfishness is at 100%, and he cares about no one, and nothing will stop him from doing what he wants. He comes stumbling in after closing to pass out. Every 3 days he stays home one night to just let his body recover.
In our relationship I always refused to accept this treatment and we'd fight endlessly or split up.
By late summer or fall all that partying starts to end, he wears out his welcome with some people, others are done with summer break and back to reality, maybe a girl he was chasing is done with him, and even for him the reality of life sets in. He is broke, missed paying some bills, has the winter unemployment cycle looming. The bars aren't so full, and eveyrone seems to have somewhere called 'home' to go but him. Now that grass looks greener, and he wants to settle into a comfortable home life for the winter. Holidays are coming and people are planning their family activities, and he realizes he wants all that.
When he was younger, people would just find ways to forgive him, to say he is just young and wild and needs to grow up. He'd put on the charm and it was easy for him to get back in with me and his family.
I was usually missing him and wishing he'd settle down and he'd come with promises of love and to change. The first year, when we were living together, he actually checked himself into a rehab to get back in my good graces. He was there over Thanksgiving.
The second year I chose to just go running with him, which he was fine with, and we had fun. But it was an exhausting way to live, and meant always juggling a sitter for my young daughter, and dragging myself into work. But boy did he love me that year.
After that second year we got married, and when that cycle came along the third time I was beyond hurt. How could he act like that now that we were married, and bought a house? But nothing was going to stop his cycle, I know that now, so I shouldn't have been shocked he chose separation over stopping.
But I was. The pain was beyond description. And that is when I found Al Anon. Did I learn how much I didn't know!!! Wow.
And of course, come late August, his cycle turned and now he was in a bad spot. How does he get back in with a wife he separated from to go running? How does he get his family to forgive that?! Why, go sober of course.
And he did, for months, and convinced us all. He knew all the right things to say, he'd done 3 rehabs over his life, he is an expert. AA meetings, etc. We eventually bought it and reconciled. It was wonderful few months of sobriety together until the slip came and eventually the spring brought the heavy drinking back.
That was this past spring, and it was much easier to tell him to leave and know it was for good.
I have been working on me and my post-AH life, and I am happy. I am working my recovery from codependence and discovering a world I love.
But his cycle has continued. He had his wild summer, drinking and running. He met a new girl within a couple weeks and moved in with her. But he still called me all the time, whenever they had a fight. I could tell they were quite a rollercoaster, and she had no idea what she was getting into. Seems most of their fights were about her trying to control him and him drinking too much, what a surprise huh? She was going to be the one he'd quit for, she'd say. He even got her pregnant, something I refused to do because I told him he was not ready to be a father. I am sure she thought she found her prince charming. I am sure he came on quite strong, he heard him call her his soulmate, and with two small sons and a pending divorce he found her at the same point in her life as he had found me.
But fall has come. You know what I am about to say, right? He broke up with her, he is done running, and he wants to settle in. She wants him to settle in with her, but he said if he's going to stop drinking and settle in, it'll be with his wife (that's me). He is done with her, and I'll bet she feels she was just run over by a train. (I believe she ended her pregnancy!)
He calls me all the time now, wanting to keep me on the phone for hours, telling me he loves me, he never loved her, he belongs with me. Thanksgiving was wrong with me not there. Quack quack quack. It is all the same pattern.
Except I am not the same. I don't dream of him finally changing so we can live happily ever after. I see him with educated eyes thanks to Al Anon, and not the blurry codependent vision I once had. I am kind, but detached. I try to be a friend, but one who doesn't let him manipulate me in any way.
I have removed myself from his cycle, and I have done so for JessieandMe. This is important to note. Because it is believed that an alcoholic will not have any chance for recovery until his enablers stop protecting him from the consequences of his actions. So many will try to remove themselves only in the hope they are manipulating the outcome of their AH seeking recovery. Yet there are so many others they can find to enable them before ever choosing to face recovery, so this can just lead to further pain. It is still codependent behavior.
If my AH does choose to find recovery, I will be very happy that my actions may have been a stone in that stepping path for him.
But it will not change the path I am taking. I am too early in my recovery efforts of codependence for it to be healthy for me to be involved with an alcoholic. That is not the right choice for me.
My AH's behaviors are part of a large repeating cycle, kind of like the Groundhog Day movie. I thought it was something unique to him until someone here posted a link to an article called 'Addiction, Lies and Relationships' by
Floyd P. Garrett, M.D. After reading that, I realized the repetitive cycle I saw in my AH was just another common aspect of the same disease.
The amazing part to me has always been that he is in denial of the pattern of behavior, just as he is in all other 'evidence' of his alcoholism. He practically has to rewrite history, or simply refuse to continue a thread of conversation, if you try to have him acknowledge his own repeating behaviors.
His basic pattern is... Spring brings feelings of wanting excitement, wanting to be out partying, social, run run run. His drinking goes way up. He is back to work (landscaper) and feels rich, and he knows people are staying out later in the bars. Horseshoes, pool, barbeques, and girls. He wants to stop home to shower and head back out. The grass looks greener everywhere but home. Selfishness is at 100%, and he cares about no one, and nothing will stop him from doing what he wants. He comes stumbling in after closing to pass out. Every 3 days he stays home one night to just let his body recover.
In our relationship I always refused to accept this treatment and we'd fight endlessly or split up.
By late summer or fall all that partying starts to end, he wears out his welcome with some people, others are done with summer break and back to reality, maybe a girl he was chasing is done with him, and even for him the reality of life sets in. He is broke, missed paying some bills, has the winter unemployment cycle looming. The bars aren't so full, and eveyrone seems to have somewhere called 'home' to go but him. Now that grass looks greener, and he wants to settle into a comfortable home life for the winter. Holidays are coming and people are planning their family activities, and he realizes he wants all that.
When he was younger, people would just find ways to forgive him, to say he is just young and wild and needs to grow up. He'd put on the charm and it was easy for him to get back in with me and his family.
I was usually missing him and wishing he'd settle down and he'd come with promises of love and to change. The first year, when we were living together, he actually checked himself into a rehab to get back in my good graces. He was there over Thanksgiving.
The second year I chose to just go running with him, which he was fine with, and we had fun. But it was an exhausting way to live, and meant always juggling a sitter for my young daughter, and dragging myself into work. But boy did he love me that year.
After that second year we got married, and when that cycle came along the third time I was beyond hurt. How could he act like that now that we were married, and bought a house? But nothing was going to stop his cycle, I know that now, so I shouldn't have been shocked he chose separation over stopping.
But I was. The pain was beyond description. And that is when I found Al Anon. Did I learn how much I didn't know!!! Wow.
And of course, come late August, his cycle turned and now he was in a bad spot. How does he get back in with a wife he separated from to go running? How does he get his family to forgive that?! Why, go sober of course.
And he did, for months, and convinced us all. He knew all the right things to say, he'd done 3 rehabs over his life, he is an expert. AA meetings, etc. We eventually bought it and reconciled. It was wonderful few months of sobriety together until the slip came and eventually the spring brought the heavy drinking back.
That was this past spring, and it was much easier to tell him to leave and know it was for good.
I have been working on me and my post-AH life, and I am happy. I am working my recovery from codependence and discovering a world I love.
But his cycle has continued. He had his wild summer, drinking and running. He met a new girl within a couple weeks and moved in with her. But he still called me all the time, whenever they had a fight. I could tell they were quite a rollercoaster, and she had no idea what she was getting into. Seems most of their fights were about her trying to control him and him drinking too much, what a surprise huh? She was going to be the one he'd quit for, she'd say. He even got her pregnant, something I refused to do because I told him he was not ready to be a father. I am sure she thought she found her prince charming. I am sure he came on quite strong, he heard him call her his soulmate, and with two small sons and a pending divorce he found her at the same point in her life as he had found me.
But fall has come. You know what I am about to say, right? He broke up with her, he is done running, and he wants to settle in. She wants him to settle in with her, but he said if he's going to stop drinking and settle in, it'll be with his wife (that's me). He is done with her, and I'll bet she feels she was just run over by a train. (I believe she ended her pregnancy!)
He calls me all the time now, wanting to keep me on the phone for hours, telling me he loves me, he never loved her, he belongs with me. Thanksgiving was wrong with me not there. Quack quack quack. It is all the same pattern.
Except I am not the same. I don't dream of him finally changing so we can live happily ever after. I see him with educated eyes thanks to Al Anon, and not the blurry codependent vision I once had. I am kind, but detached. I try to be a friend, but one who doesn't let him manipulate me in any way.
I have removed myself from his cycle, and I have done so for JessieandMe. This is important to note. Because it is believed that an alcoholic will not have any chance for recovery until his enablers stop protecting him from the consequences of his actions. So many will try to remove themselves only in the hope they are manipulating the outcome of their AH seeking recovery. Yet there are so many others they can find to enable them before ever choosing to face recovery, so this can just lead to further pain. It is still codependent behavior.
If my AH does choose to find recovery, I will be very happy that my actions may have been a stone in that stepping path for him.
But it will not change the path I am taking. I am too early in my recovery efforts of codependence for it to be healthy for me to be involved with an alcoholic. That is not the right choice for me.
Caring for the 3 little bears
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Oz
Posts: 509
That is so wonderful that you were able to do this just 3 or 4 years into your marriage. Many of us, or maybe just the ones I am getting to know, are around their 15th year before we "have had enough" - Good for you!
And, I am one of those people you mention who have tried ultimatims in the hopes of forcing my AH to stop the cyclical destruction and dreams of "living happily ever after". I am glad you posted this, because it is a huge reminder, and I need to be reminded daily of the cyclical nature of my AH's problem so I won't forget. I need to remember to accept his sorry's for face value, because that's all they are... just giving face - there is no action behind that word.
Thanks for the reminder.
And, I am one of those people you mention who have tried ultimatims in the hopes of forcing my AH to stop the cyclical destruction and dreams of "living happily ever after". I am glad you posted this, because it is a huge reminder, and I need to be reminded daily of the cyclical nature of my AH's problem so I won't forget. I need to remember to accept his sorry's for face value, because that's all they are... just giving face - there is no action behind that word.
Thanks for the reminder.
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