Transparent82

Dear members,
Thank you so much for your answers and advises when I submitted my question via my friend Enkbaa's account.
I am 39 years old and married for 11 years and have one child. My husband is operation doctor, he does surgery at the state hospital, he drinks after work, sometimes drinks consecutively 3-4 days and does not come home.
I trusted my husband 100% priour to our marriege. However, about 10 years ago after my son was born, when he went to Korea along with his colleagues for the training, he was chatting a woman, even he was chatting same time with me telling " honey, I am busy, I have to go surgery room," however with that woman he left message on the messenger " I will wait for you, could please let me know when you have time on the messenger." Since I knew his ***** messenger password, at home computer I entered his messenger saw that message. Since then I was devastated and lost weight in a week without sleep and depression, I thought I would divource. Since it was emotionally so draining, I had to see family therapist and she advised not to divorce since that was only ***** messenger chat and let him write pledge not to do this action again. So when he came back, I did what she advised accordingly.
Since then I did not suspect anything like that he was working and I was taking care baby and we got morgage moved our own apartment.
Between then, as usualy he drinks in consecutive days and not coming home, I suspect he drinks with friends or mom's place while she was absent.
A few years back at his night shift at work, he was messaging with his colleague nurse at the same shift flirting facebook messaging. I also busted that FB message via his FB address. I confronted him and he pledged not to divorce.
I want to divorce but I think of my child and finance other stuff.. there will no security if I divorce, we hardly have sex maybe 3-4 times a year. usually.
My father used to cheat on my mom when i was kid and I am aware of that also due to his high ranking work, peopple bribed him with alcohol that time, so died from the alcohol, when I was young.
I ahd this fear always that my husband would bring woman in our house if I go to my mom's place and overnight stay there, so unless he goes with him, I never go alone to anywhere for overnight.
I know, that my husband would not bring woman if he stays alone home, its just my fear and imagination or gut feeling, when i heard that my father brought woman while mom and kids went to summer log house. So, maybe its just trauma that i had witnessed his fliertous online messages two times or was it from my father?
I never worked, sometimes I used to private craft work and sold, but my husband is true breadwinner, so I dont need to do work I take care of household and child.
So may should I work full time? b/c I feel my husband and her mom seem to ignore my slightly at several occations, so I thought maybe since I am full time housewife, that's why he ignores me and think that I am guaranteed.
Could you please advise me what should I do in order to get my confidence and erase this fear/ imagination?

Thanks all again!!

PeacefulWater12

Welcome, sorry for what brings you here.

This man who drinks this way is doing surgery operating on people?? Shouldn't you be telling his employers before he kills someone?

Transparent82

Thanks for your response, yes I am sure he never drinks at work place on that sense, but thanks for reminder.

555Lynn555

Transparent it is interesting that the tone of your post is about trusting your husband with his drinking as a sidebar and yet you came to a recovery forum to ask for advice. That tells me that you are focusing on what you think you can control instead of the obvious drinking issue. First, this isn't about you and it isn't about your mother, and it isn't about your father. This is about your husband. You can't control his drinking and you can't control his behavior. Nothing you do or don't do will control those things. He controls those things. You asked a lot of "should I?" questions and it feels like you left off the "or will he stop drinking/will it get better/can I control it?" part of each of them. Only you can decide what is best for you (and your child), but it sounds as if you already know what isn't. Security is more than just financial and if your husband is a surgeon and going on 3-4 day benders, it is a matter of time before the financial piece is gone too. I am terribly sorry that you are going through this and I do hear the pain in your post. That you are reaching out is a good start. If you take your focus from reacting to what he does (or might do) and put it on doing what is best for you and your child, you will be happier. It might not be easy at first but it will be worth it. I wish you all the best.

Transparent82

Thanks dear Lynn555,
For your kind thoughts and concern, I really just want to improve my confidence and less worry about my obssession about him cheating. He is not that bad drinker, b/c he works 8 to 5 everyday and occassionally he drinks as binge for 3-4 days, so I am not really worry about his drinking since he has full time work, only thing that really scares me is what if he cheats/ that I would not know, so these thoughts depress me. I really want to change myself and my confidence, since I stay home woman, I know he is surrounded by younger and pretty nurses and medical officers at work then come home, me always stays home. So those things really worry me, I kept blamin my father when I was younger, yet I married to the man who also drinks.....

sage1969

It will be really hard to convince any of us here at SR that a 3-4 day binge is not a problem. This is a recovery forum, and many of us are in recovery from alcohol / other drugs and addictions, as well as having family members and significant others with this disease (this group in which you have posted is a support group for people whose family members whose have addictions *and* people who have codependency issues).

Drinking binges 3 - 4 days long indicate progression of your husband's disease of alcoholism to the point where it is having an effect on his health and will eventually destroy his body and be his cause of death. As others have said, if he is a surgeon, his drinking will be problematic. I think about the way my ex's hands would shake in the morning, and I shudder at the thought of your husband doing any surgery.

It is problematic that you don't hear yourself saying that it is only a small bit of drinking or that you are so willing to make excuses for him. This is called being codependent. You are so dependent on your husband for your own happiness that you are willing to make excuses for him, make it easy for him to drink the way he does, and to be honest, your obsession with whatever he might be doing when you are not with him. I realise that there may be some cultural differences here and that you might live in a more traditional lifestyle and community where it is expected that the wife is a homemaker and has less choice about parts of the relationship. You do still have a choice about how you choose to live, and you can start by choosing to not participate in codependent behaviors and learning to be confident and strong.

You can start by realising with anyone other than yourself, forget about control, either of what they have said or done in the past (since that is now over) nor what they might say or do now or in the future. You can only control what you say or do. That is it.

We can of course always make changes to ourselves and a positive way to ensure we are confident and not worrying about what others say and do is to love ourselves unconditionally, set strong personal boundaries with others (including spouses and family members), and mind our own business and not worry about what other people might say or do because we can't change other people (staying on our own side of the street).

I really hate to be blunt, but after reading your posts, I feel that nothing will change for you or your situation unless you accept that
1. your husband is an alcoholic;
2. you are codependent;
3. your can't change your husband / control your husband / control anyone's behavior and choices except your own; and
4. your journey to peace is to make changes in your life.

HardLessons

Based on my direct experience, our addicts do not have a good moral compass. Meaning no matter what they might tell you you cant trust that they will be faithful. There came a point in time where mine started telling me the truth about it. The truth turned out to be far more worse than not knowing.