Girlfriend

First, it was my xabf's Mom who called me a "B****" for upsetting her son and moving on with my life before he went to rehab.

Then, it was his little sister (the one that called him to come to the bars with herself and her girlfriends to drink KNOWING that he had a drinking problem) who told me off.

Now, it's his 16 yr old daughter who writes me an email today saying that "we, of all people, know about my father's potential to get better and have all the faith in him as long as he has the proper help. " about him being in rehab now.

The ex wife probably now blames me, too.

Ya know, I know this is typical of an A's family, no one wants to look at themselves and the roles they play in enabling him and so they find a scapegoat, someone else to blame. And HE,.........tells them all that. So, that HE doesn't have to be blamed anymore.

I admit something......I went to visit him in the rehab last Sat. He looked okay, but the rehab lets them go off campus, doesn't have a curfew for them, they can use their cell phones. Don't have any meetings on the weekends. Xabf told me they even let the patients have their SO in to have conjugal visits. He said they "make out" all over the place in front of others and "two people even got married when they released outta here". Strangest rehab I've ever seen. It was a nice visit. He had asked me to come, I said "no" at first and then went. We talked, everything "sounded" good.

And now I realize that again, I was duped. I asked him if he had done family therapy with his family there and a counselor "nope". But, told me all about how the patients journal and go out to the canyon together and some meetings once in awhile. I just did not feel good about his therapy, but I'm trying to be supportive as a friend and keeping my mouth shut.

I did not tell him that I was his girlfriend anymore, I even told him the opposite.....that we've always been friends since we were 13 and that we will always be friends. I did not lead him on in anyway. He wanted to hear me say that I'd be here for him when he got out, but that's not what I told him. I was gonna be truthful and that my visit to him was because he asked to talk to me and that I am now just his friend.

He hasn't got it, yet. He isn't taking responsibility with his family, he;s blaming everything on me to them and who knows whom else.

This hurts. Again, my intentions were good, I was honest, didn't lead him on...and he's still lying to us all.

UGH! I wanna just get so far the heck away from that whole family and just keep running!

Girlfriend

Thanks, Gianna! ((hug)))


On that "Intervention" show last night on the A&E channel, the addict lady, Tina..........her mom was exactly like xabf's!! The minute she came in, she started in on Tina about anything and everything. Just brow beated her down big time.

My dad was like that for years. It wasn't until he got cancer and knew that he was dying that he could then be the real person that he was. He "thought" he was doing the right thing by being tough and critical and non-praising, not being encouraging. That's how he was raised. Didn't know anything different, but in the end, it killed him. When he retired, he sat around and thought about how he had treated us kids and it made him sick. He developed an ulcer and then it turned into cancer.

Why it hurts me so much what his family thinks of me........is beyond me!!! He's shot everyone of them down. It's been everyone of their faults. He tells his ex-wife about me? What in the heck for? what good is that gonna do?

I am so upset. Upset at myself for going to see him and trying to be encouraging, upset at his family and them buying his lies........at him cuz he's still the same. Nothing has changed. He's out in 2 weeks from rehab and Lord Almighty.....he'll probably relapse, get fired and then blame it on ME!

....lol.....this is almost funny, it's so bizarre. When I was drinking, yeah...it was "it's my Dad's fault that I'm all messed up. If he hadn't been such a jerk to us, we'd of been okay"....or "it's my ex husband's fault. If he hadn't beaten the crap outta me for 8 years, I wouldn't be like this".....so, I know the blame game. I played it. It's just frustrating and you're right......I SO need to detach myself from the lies and what his family thinks/says to me because they've all been blamed by him in the past. They know what he's like. I think they're just glad it's me that he's blaming now and not them.

Thanks, Gianna! It's good to read your post and know that there is someone that understands me becuz I feel "picked on"....

sunshinebluesky

i know you probably dont want to hear this, but ive begun to firmly believe that you cannot be friends with them. even if they are getting help.
it must be a long process for the ones who succeed in their recovery,and eventually finally stop blaming everything and everyone else. i dont think it is something that happens very soon in the process. they have the strangest ways of looking at things, and i have often wondered if they still look at them the same way years into recovery.
as ive stated in my posts,my last contacts with my ex, i was very mean to him. and i guess he said something to his dad, cuz he doesnt speak to me on the computer anymore. at first it upset me, but now it doesnt at all. i said what i truly felt at those moments. i was very hurt and upset, i still really cared for him at the time,despite the things i said, and they were true things.
in all this mess, i realized that though we both always said we wanted to remain friends no matter what, his idea of what a friend is, and mine...are two different things.
i have come so far in the past month, getting back to my true self, that i no longer have any need to be any kind of friend to him. i have no need to be nasty anymore, and i can be alright if i run into him, but thats it. my true friends (though they are few) support my hurt, embrace it,and console me. so if his dad wants to defend him by ignoring me, so be it.
he chose to ignore me the whole process of my anger and hurt,and thats fine too. as i will never be there for him again.
i say ignore them all and it will go away................................

Zoey

This is another heartbreaking mess that goes with this hideious disease.
The A's family, might hate and disown him, but it is still the girlfriends or the wife's fault . (I don't know what happens when it is the wife or gf that is the A, but I feel the females are always the ones that get blamned" So if we feel like we are fighting the whole world, it sure looks like it. Looks like double standard still around.
For sure the bar room buddies are going to blame anyone that does not drink with them.
I am so sorry you are being hurt. I plotted to kill. Then deceided that was too easy for them, so i changed my plan, I would hang them all by their thumbs, with no food or water in a darrk room with no air movement and a tape playing, "Judge not, lest ye be judged". Oh! Crap! these people have caused me to be judgemental of them , and I do not want to be judgemental.
Felt good to say "I will kill" As you can tell, I understand and sending HUGS and LOVE. Seems easier to deal with the A's, We stop having expectations, but what about these supposedly sane non-addicted people??? Guess I needed to join you in the pain. I have yet to hear solutions. clancy46

Girlfriend

I had to go to the ER tonight because I could not breathe. I feel like the air was just sucked out of me. It all builds up and hurts so badly and you just wanna shake him and his family and say "WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH ALL OF YOU???"

I tried to help him. That's how it all started. I saw his pain because I was a drinker and knew it and since we were good friends in junior high and high school, my heart hurt for him to see him that way.

I tried to show him how I got sober. I encouraged him and the mistake I made was falling in love with him. For taking him back every time he cried and said he was sorry. Now, I'm the one to blame by everybody because they're not being blamed at the moment.

I'm not sorry that I could honestly love a person like him, I'm just sorry that he can't love and that his family doesn't have a clue.


Thank you, Clancy and Gianna and sunshinebluesky. You guys, tonite, are my shining lights of hope. To know that someone out there truly does care and doesn't just say it and lie.

minnie

(((Girlfriend)))

I know how hard this is for you. It hurts when people think badly of us. It hurts when when we aren't understood. It hurts us when we can "see the light" and others can't. Heck, anything to do with alcoholism hurts.

The family are caught up in this disease as much as you were/are. And you are a convenient scapegoat. For all of them, not just your ex.

What's stopping you? What are you getting out of keeping in touch with them all? To my mind, it only keeps you in the drama. I have had to cut ties with my ex's family, although I do occasionally have e-mail contact with his SIL. However, we keep the conversation away from my ex and I know that if I have the urge to say anything about him, it is the unhealthy part of my brain acting.

You can't change how they are, just as you can't cure him from his alcoholism. They'll either get it or they won't. The important thing is that YOU get it.

Hang in there, you're doing fine.

Love

Minnie
xxx

Beautiful

His family chooses to use you as the target because it "must" be someone else. Otherwise, they would have to face their own "failings" as parents, as siblings, etc. If they never look in the mirror then they can continue down the road with a clean conscience.

Same thing happens in a stepfamily with a new spouse. Ask me how I know............

ASpouse

First off, I don't know why you went to see him. You are sending him mixed signals. My feeling is once this is all done with, you will be smack in the middle of it again.

You need to cut all ties. I know you want to be friends, I know you want to see him through this, but this is truly something he needs to do on his own.

As far as his family goes, I would block their emails and phone calls. The blame game gets us nowhere. Girlfriend, you are still way too involved in this entire thing ....Who cares what his family thinks? Have you just come out and asked them why they feel the need to blame you for his problems? I think I know the answer to that question, but I'd be curious to see why they think it's your fault.

Have you thought that maybe, just maybe you can't be friends anymore? Just because you've known him since you were 13 doesn't mean anything.

Girlfriend

I got an email tonight from xabf. It was a new email address, so I didn't recognize it.

I opened it and all this stuff starts pouring out from him to me about how he's talking to his exwife (who's remarried and lives in FL.) everyday and how they are both laughing at me and (he says) that I'm "over the edge".

What is up with that? Why is he telling me about his exwife all of a sudden?

He says that I haven't known him "for 30 years......she's known me for 21 years,.....good and bad and she believes in me".

Why is he telling me about his exwife? To make me think that they're getting back together or what?

I block the emails and then they're still coming in. I'm gonna be afraid to open up any email now that I get for fear it's from him or her or one of the family.

minnie

All this energy that he and his family are using to try and bring you down! What could happen if they put that into their recovery instead? Same for you - take back the power that they are stealing from you. It doesn't matter to you WHY they do these things, what matters is how you respond in yourself. As soon as you realise who the e-mails are from, hit the delete key. There will be nothing in them that can help you get healthier, believe me. Step out of the drama, hon. They aren't going to so it's up to you to do it. Anytime you give them a reaction, then you reward them for their behaviour. If they don't get a reaction, they'll move onto someone else. And who knows? One day they might just run out of people to bully and then they'll have to look at themselves.

I know how hard it is not to read these emails - I used to get them from my ex all the time. After you've deleted the first one, it gets easier, I promise. One thing that helped me was to keep repeating an affirmation like "I am worth it" so that I kept the focus on me and my recovery. In fact, I still do it when thoughts of my ex pop into my head, although it has changed to "F*&k off". That works too.

Hang in there. This too shall pass.

Love

Minnie
xxx

Zoey

There isn't any answer to why does he do this.

Many A's talk of Alcoholic Insanity, and I used to hear about the games alcoholics play.

I suspect sometimes it is a plot, consious or unconsious, How dare you leave me , I will get you back by guilt, or maybe I will be very nice, THEN I will drop you.

Just a thought ,as kinda human nature to want revenge. I catch myself wanting revenge over some tiny thing, then I remember I am an adult.

I suspect he is not working a program, Working a program is slow, takes a long time ,
sometimes several years.

JUST PLEASE KNOW ,THERE IS NO ANSWER TO WHY.

Maybe he was the baby of the family and no one ever told him , "no",
Or maybe he was a middle child and was ignored.
Maybe he was oldest and had too much responsibility.

Excuses never end. There just are no answers.
Keep posting , telling it will help you get to a place that is better.
So sorry it hurts so bad. Keep taking little steps.

Girlfriend

Oh! I LOVE YOU GUYS!

This is the first time that I've gone through this kind of situation. It's gotten to the point to where I don't know when the whole insanity began. It's all a big jumbled mess to me.

I'm feeling like crap and danggit! I haven't felt that way since my ex husband beat me down between the ages of 16 and 24. It makes me MAD. And, sad at the same time. I hate what we've done to each other. I've had to get pretty friggin' mean with him and his family. I told all of them off.

He thinks he's "changing" and "becoming a much better person" and that he's "sorry that I won't get a chance to see that in him".

Yeah, at first he talked alot about his ex, but I always understood that and it didn't bother me. I think because when I told off the whole family, she was included because he had brought her up to me and how "she's on my side". So, I think he's paranoid that I'm telling her something that he doesn't want her to know. Hence, why he's bringing her up now alot and saying that he saved all my old texts to him on his cell and that he sent them to her to read (?????).

He tells me that all the time. "I let my family read your texts. And, my counselors and (ex). They know BS when they read it". Oh yeah? Do they know BS when they're told it by him? Has he ever shown them HIS texts to me that he sent when he tried committing suicide and then going into rehab? They were mean and nasty.

The thing is.......I don't like whom I've become. I don't like the fact that I've had to hate him to finally let him go. I don't like the fact that I've had to be a B**** to his family and him to get them off of my back and tell them to stop. I've done this and I'm not proud of it. That's not who I am inside, but it's what I've become through this insanity.

I've got to detach with love and move on. It's hard right now because I'm running out on hope. I've lost my parents (both died) and now I'm losing him for good and that hurts so much. I hate greiving, but it's a process of life and I'm just praying that it all turns around for the good.

I don't know what I'd do without all of you, truly! THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart!

((hugs)))

minnie

Honey, we're your family too!! You can lean on us anytime.

Why is telling him and his family to back off mean you're a bitch? Surely you are simply sticking up for yourself? Your actions are simply a consequence of their behaviour. Nothing wrong with that, in my book.

WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK OF YOU IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.
Their issues, not yours. If your motivations are good, then how other people react is their problem.

I am proud of you, even if you're not. You've come a long way and been through an awful lot. Just think - the loss of him will be more than made up by what you gain for yourself through this process.

gelfling

Minnie has it right...you're defending yourself. You're not a bitch. They're all on guilt trips because they weren't able to help him and you made the decision to get the hell out of Dodge. It's easier to put the blame on someone else than accept responsibility for your actions and inabilities.

Change your email address, phone number and write "RETURN TO SENDER" on any mail you might receive. You don't owe anyone any explanations.

And as long as you feel the need to visit him at what they call a rehab...which I truly have my doubts about...expect the BS that goes along with it. You've taken some tough steps and come a long way. Are you going to alanon?

Hugs

ASpouse

The way I see it, there are no "sides" to this. He is an alcoholic, you are not. Where's the side?