Do alcoholics really love us?
 

One thing that's always come to mind is do our alcoholic partners really love us like they say they do and do they realise half of what they put us through and how upset they make us?

Do they feel any guilt when they lie to us about how much they've had to drink/how much money they've spent on drink? Do they even know they are lying in the first place? Do they realise that we know they're lying?

Do they think about things from our perspectives at all? Or are they too wrapped up in themselves and their problem to be able to do this?

I used to ask the same questions.... over and over again.

Now, I don't care what he's thinking, doing or saying. I come first and if he don't measure up, I'm moving on.

MY life is not about him, it's about ME!!

You're right. Are you still with this person or are you with someone else now?

He lives in his own apartment. We have been married for 15 years. I'm still working on myself. I'll know when I'm ready to move on. I feel it's inevitable, i'm just not there yet.

Hello
 

I am new to this forum. Hi, My name is Lori and I have been married to an addict for 11 years. His last episode landed him in rehab for 10 days, he has been out for5 days and already he has me miserable. He is so selfish in his recovery. It is always about him.

Do they know they are lying?? I think each one is different, some know they are lying but sure they are doing a good job. others do not know. Just my opinion.
Do they love us?? Same thing, some don't know, some do, and prob some don't or can't love.
These are impossible questions in my opinion.

However we see and know of many non drinkers that do not love. Some marriages they just stay for the kids, or don't want to give up lifestyle etc. etc.. I have accepted that there isn't an answer. but I so hate it, that there isn't any way to know for sure. If anyone knows how to find out I hope they answer.
Wishin the Best for you always clancy46

My AH loves me and his kiddos. But, when he is "in" his addiction, nothing, absolutely nothing else comes before how, when, where, he will get his next drink. It's like they are obsessed and think of nothing else. I like to think of alcohol as the devil. It tricks them into thinking they can't live without it. I also like to think of it as adultry, as they put it before their marriage. It is so sad. I don't know if they are capable of love when using, other than loving their drug.

I think it's more realistic to ask, "Do alcoholics love?"

Just by taking yourself out of it, the answer is, I think, a lot more clear.

The fact is that while using/drinking our behavior is pretty close to sociopathic. Guilt and shame come AFTER...not during, our using.

My belief is the answer is Yes, they still love us BUT...they have no capacity to SHOW love when in disease.

Love is a verb.....that means its an action word. Addicts and Alcholics are incapable of taking loving action towards others when they do not love themselves.

If they loved themselves, they would not abuse themselves with the chemicals and thier dreaded aftermath consequences.

I love myself today, which is why I take loving actions towards myself on a daily basis by going to meetings, sponsoring people, setting up chairs, making coffee at a meeting and doing service.

When I love myself that way, Im truly able and capable of loving others.

peace,
FOB

I actually shared this observation with my husband today while we were hiking with the kids.

I told him that when he was actively drinking and did things with us, it was more stressful for me. I felt that he was always thinking of other things (beer and whiskey) and even though he was going through the motions of family times, it was not sincere.

Since he has started his journey into sobriety, the difference in our family time is startling. He said today that he was going to take the kids to the park and I realized that I WANTED to go, I WANTED to spend time with him, it is MORE fun when we are all together.

I feel that he has always loved us , however now that he is not drinking, he is really present with us. It is very nice.

So, I shared all of this with him and he just looked at me and said "Really, I had no idea that you didn't want to spend time with me before". DOH!

Jenny

They love us, they are just emotionally detached. They love the only way they know how. They love and they love deeply, but they don't know how to express it because alcoholism has kept them emotionally imature. If you can live with that, then your ok, if not you need to move on. BUT, they do love you but in their own way and it is a way we may not understand but can accept if we work the program for ourselves.

Daneydoo... someone gave me this passage. It is posted to my computer and I read it every day.


My name is ---- and I am an alcoholic. This is what alcoholics do. You cannot and will not change my behaviour. You can not make me treat you any better, let alone with any respect. All I care about, all I think about is my needs and how to go about fulfilling them. You are a tool to me. Something to use. When I say I love you I am lying through my teeth because it is impossible for someone who is an active alcoholic. I wouldn't be drinking if I loved myself. Since I don't, I can not love you. My feelings are so pushed down and numbed by my alcohol that I could be considered a sociopath. I have no empathy for you or anyone else. It doesn't faze me that I leave you hungry, lie to you, cheat and steal from you. My behaviour will not change and can not change until I make a decision to stop drinking and follow it up with a plan of action. And until I make that decision I will continue to hurt you over and over again.
Stop being surprised. I am an alcoholic and this is what alcoholics do.


I know this sounds harsh, but it has helped me a great deal. It has allowed me to stop lying to myself and it has helped me to stop being disappointed by him every single day when I raise my expectations each morning. He is who he is and that will not change. I need to stop lying to myself and telling myself that today he will love us the way we need to be loved. It won't happen. That in itself hurts, but not as much as being crushed day after day after day. I hope this helps. Good luck!

You know..
Being an addict myself... I tend to cut other addicts a lot of slack in the love department. But.. there are certain things that push my hurt buttons really bad... and when I've tried to address it and leave myself open to more hurt by trying to address it and getting shot down...

It makes me want to shut down.

I've tried to not react... but when I'm blown off on the one or two things that REALLY matter to me... it hurts to the point that I feel inconsequential yet again to someone.

Makes me wanna go numb again.

But... I have all the ghosts of my past transgressions whispering in my ear....

"Payback's a bitch eh ?"


Yeah.

I don't understand your post in response to mine. Does my post make you want to shut down? Can you explain a bit more?

Thank you,

Jenny

In speaking for myself, I sometimes wonder if it is love, or just him doing nice things for me and the boys just so he will feel better about himself drinking!

Oh You bet they think about it, there is no doubt in my mind that my X-A loves me and our daughter, can they control how they show it? No...Can we control how we react to them? Yes!

Step one for me...I stopped reacting to his actions, good or bad.

Oh no you don't.
I'll have none of you going numb again.
Feeling inconsequential to someone has got to be one of the hardest hurts to deal with.
Hugs to you from me Bike.
Do addicts love?
Of course they do.
They are human beings with feelings just like the rest of us.
They may not be able to show that love in appropriate ways while they're using, but that doesn't mean the feelings are gone.

Sorry...

Was kinda caught up in my own thing there.

But.. what twigged me about your comment was the "being present" part.
So much of the time I feel uncared about. Unheard.

I know that it's immature and I feel like an idiot.

But always feeling like I'm an .... afterthought.



That as well.
My guy is stoned all the time. And the drinking is always in the wings. Fun time just ain't fun without the booze.

I don't know...

I don't know what to think or feel anymore. It just seems that no matter what I do... I still hurt.

My daughter tells me to become indifferent. The wise women tell me to detach. So... I guess the path to no pain is to just not care anymore.

Doesn't seem right to me...

Anway... I hope this explained my last post. It really brought up the feeling of how it "could" be.

And I know it's very dumb to focus on that.

Gabe....

Your post is like salve on my owie... thank you.

Thats MY big problem! I can detatch just fine, but I feel like I apear to not care about him anymore, and how can you have a relationship like THAT?

Exactly.

The thing is though... for some reason caring isn't working either... ;o)
Kind of a .. damned if ya do... damned if ya don't thing.

But... I keep trying to connect with something that just isn't there. And I keep looking in the same places.

Now... in real life... I'd be slapping myself upside the head with a two by four if I looked under the same pillow for my keys every day for years and never found them... ??!!

You'd think I'd stop lookin....!!!! At the very least.

Of course... this is more crap from my past. Hair trigger reaction to past fears I'm sure Freud would say.

Whatever.

I think I'll just go hang out with my buddy God...
He never lets me down.

Ahhh man... some days.

This begs the question...
Why do we continually look for what we need from people who are unable to give it to us?
I can ask this question.
I did this for years.
Looked for, asked for, did everything but put up billboards announcing what I needed.
It still didn't happen.
Then finally I had a lightbulb moment.
That being, I needed to surround myself with people who COULD give me what I needed in a relationship.
Once I finally turned that corner, life has been working a hell of a lot better for me.

Your question as to why do WE always keep looking for the things we need from people who TODAY can't give it is what Al-Anon is all about in my opinion.
IT is my expectations that's the problem. I expect an alcoholic to behave the way I want them to when they are incapable at the moment to do so.
That to me is like asking someone with TB to quit coughing because I NEED them too.

I don't believe loving has anything to do with a practicing alcolholic or addict's behavior. Question: If I invision the alcoholic in my life as a beer can, Do I really want them to love me and can I really love them? At the moment of someone else _HAVING_ to have a drink, they are no longer the person I love. Man takes a drink and sooner or later the drink takes the man.

Arn't we all doing the best we know how with the tools we have to work with? I believe that even goes for the A's. For the moment isn't their drug of choice one of the tools they use to live or escape living life?

I agree Daff.
I think the operative phrase for me on this one is "just for today".
Just for today, I am not getting what I need from _____________ (fill in the blank).
Doesn't mean it's always going to be that way.
Life and circumstances change on a daily basis.
And all that we can do is live in 24 hour increments.

I tend to agree with the idea that it depends on the A. Some probably do love us and some probably don't. Just like some of us probably still love them and some of us don't. I think in my situation my Abf really does love me. The problem is more that he can't show it. He will never understand my point of view on a lot of it. It hurts when he drinks, but he doesn't see the big deal. I mean, he knows when he's done something really bad drinking but thinks it's alright to do it sometimes. He doesn't get that he'll probably never control it like a non-alcoholic can. He lies and that hurts really bad, but to him they're all white lies so no harm done. Easy to say when you're not on the receiving end. He doesn't understand my need for intimacy other than sex. He seems to think intimacy is only sex. He loves me, but what it boils down to more is whether his way of showing it is ever going to be what I need. I can't change the way he feels about things nor will he change the way I feel. He doesn't hurt me on purpose, he just can't figure out what he does that hurts.

I think, about the lying, that at the time they are lying the're hoping that they can sell us on it and then it'll become the truth. Mainly the "no I haven't been drinking" kind of lies, particularly when they're falling down drunk. As far as what they put us through I don't think they think that far outside of themselves when they're actively using. They hurt too much to think about other people. My AH has the emotional maturity of a 5yr old and I think he loves me only as much as a 5 yr old could, which is not much.

At the end of my Tether
 

I Love this man with all my heart, and have done so for 18 years of lies, abuse, infidelities and so many broken promises. I feel I am only a rescue service for him, when his life is in tatters. After the confession of yet another instance of cheating on me when totally drunk, I am not only sad about it, but damned mad about it.

The love I have for him seems endless, yet I wonder if he has any real love or interest in ME.
Something that comes to mind when he sobers up and promises he made only hours before are tossed overboard yet again is, does he really love me as he says he does?
Does he understand anything of what he puts us both through, and how upset he makes me?
Does he actually feel guilty when he lies to me about how much he's had to drink,
or who he has been with and what, if anything happened between them?
Does he realise he is lying to me in the first place?
Does he think about, and see things from my perspective at all?
Is he too wrapped up in himself and his drinking to be able to do that?

It seems that I can never really have a relationship with him, because the bottle will always be a better lover than ever could be for him.
Often I think that he can never truly love anybody, and I feel so miserable at the waste of both our lives.
At other times, I truly believe he does love me, in his own muddled up and weird way, but doesn't know how to express it.

He actually went for help from Drug & Alcohol service and has appointment in 2 weeks. I was away and he was drunk, broke, filthy, sick and desperate at the time, sobered up after 2 days of withdrawal hell, (total of 23 this year) then back on it 3 days later. Now says he will sober up yet again, and see counsellor because he wants to stop drinking. Hope so, but been there and done that so often I have doubts.

Maybe he finally sees that his BINGES have only brought him pain, great suffering, loads of guilt and remorse, such embarrassment and lack of success with his passion of horse racing.
This is his last chance where I am involved. Too old to go thru anymore.

I don't know, I stopped trying to figure my AH out because it only wasted my time and drove me crazy.

Alcoholics love us so long as they can control us. They love us so long as we make them appear stable. They love us for ads long as we are willing to follow the progressive road of compromise that enables them to drink. They love us for as long as we are willing to lie to our kids about where daddy is and what daddys doing, why he didn't come to the school concert and whey we had to leave Thankgiving dinner early.
They love us so long as we accept that the bar scag who brought him home this morning is just a friend and it meant nothing. So long as we are willling to call and lie to his boss and work a few extra hours each week to make up for the lost money.
That's why we do those things for so long. We know the price.
I did not allow my ex husbands version of love to be internalized by his sons.
He would say he loved them and not show up. Two star atheletes whos father never attended one game. They never stopped searching the crowd for his face.
This is why I said that it is more important to validate your childrens disappointments than to make excuses for an alcoholic. If we don't we give our kids very low expectations of what love should be. Expect nothing.........

I have wondered about this myself.

In my case, I would have to say that if love equals his needs being met no matter what price I pay, then I would say yes, he loves me.

More to the point... he NEEDS me. His "love" he feels for me is acutally his "need" for me.

I am not a medical profesional so when I say this I am relating what was observed by the real professionals while he was in detox for only 4 days.

They wanted him tested for a personality disorder as well. I was floored by that. In 4 short days, these people suspected strongly that there was more going on than the alcohol abuse.

I gauge my beliefs on his actions, not on his words. If he regurgitates the correct words and is believed, then he is capable of what he is saying he can do. Now flip the coin and look at the actions and the lack of aprropriateness is glaringly apparent.

The actions not the words tell the truth. Not all that glitters is gold.

As it was pointed out, if they are actually emotionally behind from their true chronological age, it's gonna show.

If they are stunted in development ....that's all folks. A child naturally is narcissitic until they reach a certain age and they naturally develope beyond themselves. If something affects that process, it never happens.

This is all my take on my situation only.

Expressions of love and experiences are individual and unique. So is how each person came to be who they are and how they interact with people in their lives.