mrmc27

My husband has been in rehab for a week. Life at home has been good. Going on. Me and my son have a routine. Then I went and saw my husband today. And it's then I realize all the anger I have towards him. The best was when he told me to be strong when I was leaving. Be strong? Really? Because in pretty damn sure that's what I have been doing for the last year trying to hold everything together...ok. Rant over. So how did everyone get over the anger? Detach? Or what? Thanks for listening. Sometimes it just feels better to write it down.

mstrust

I'm nowhere near over it... In fact, tonight was especially bad in that it has consumed me. There is a thread up called "Calling all Codies"...good advice in there.

drc5426

I'm also dealing with bouts of anger on a daily basis and am going through the process of detachment.

He is in right now. Talking with council, doing meetings and hopefully sorting himself out. You need to do the same. Routine as a sole caretaker is difficult, I know. My situation is similar to yours and I experienced the exact rehab visit that you did.

Reconnect with old friends, have someone watch your kid for a few hours and take some time for yourself. Find yourself is what I'm saying. It's easy to become obsessive and angry with your addict when you contemplate their future motives. What might happen when they come home.

Treat him being in rehab as a break that allows you to find yourself again.

Sunshine2

I think you need to stay with the anger until it leaves you. Trying to suppress it, just suppresses it and it will show itself at the most inconvenient times. You need to move through the anger, not around it. JMHO

crazybabie

I agree anger is part of the process feel it stuffing does damage.

Synfull Vyxun

I too have the anger issue with my mother, I keep being told I need to sort it and go to anger management, and detach myself from her, and stop worrying about her as she is a big girl, but last night she fell down the stairs, and is now in hospital. These people who tell me these things do not live here, do not see what it is like everyday, I am just trying to help my mother, but it is so frustrating. ;-(
I know this doesn't help you much but at least we know we are not alone in this.

mrmc27

I wrote him a letter last night about how mad I am. Because I don't think he gets it. Now since its morning I don't know whether to send it. Any thoughts on that?

mrmc27

It's nice to know that I'm not alone in this. Makes me feel like maybe I'm not a crazy person!

FenwayFaithful

Just wanted to add and say me too.

Now that I am sober I have SO much anger toward my EXABF.

I want to march down to the prison and kick his teeth in sometimes.

I think when we begin to distance we really come to terms with how horrible they treated us and all the lies and stuff and the anger we repressed for so long or felt guilty for feeling cos they made us feel guilty for it bu turning everything back around on us...

I don't really know how you deal with the anger. I think maybe you just need to let yourself get mad. Let yourself feel it. Yell too if you have to, go down to the gym and punch a punching bag, take up kick boxing, write out your feelings...what's really helped me is writing out angry letters about how I feel. Sometimes I save them, maybe I'll never end them, maybe I will.

Also this may make me a crazy person but sometimes I pretend to yell at him or talk to him and just say all the things I wish I could say to him to an empty chair or something.

It seriously does help.

Supersarah

No, you are not crazy, you're stuck in a crazy situation! We all get it. It sucks! It's not anything anyone would 'choose'. You've just got to dothe best you can.
My 2c, I wouldn't send the letter, why bother? They know the hurt they've caused. It helps no one, let him get on with getting better and working out how to deal with life.
Maybe go and get some help for yourself, meetings, support groups or individual therapy. Read all you can.
I'm so sorry that you are having to deal with this, It's hard with kids involved. Please make sure you have people around who can support you. Hugs, Sarah

kmangel

When my son was first beginning his drug using journey as a teenager, I would express my concerns to my husband who would tell me I was imagining it. For years I worried about him with no support from my husband. I wanted to be validated for not being crazy. I saw a problem but my husband didn't want to do anything about it (other than enable it). I fell into depression which I know is anger turned inward. Fast forward 10 years and my son became a heroin addict. We had a few years of a respite from our son's drug abuse when we moved to a new state, but it all resurfaced when our son moved back to the neighborhood of his teenage years. I remembered how my husband didn't want to face the truth about our son as a teenager and how I felt at the time (angry), so when we discovered our son's heroin addiction, I found a counselor for my husband and I to talk to. It really helped because I finally had someone who was able to validate my feelings.

Writing the letter puts on paper how you feel about your life with your AH, but words are not going to change anything. It's what you do that is going to make the difference. Are you seeing anyone about what you are going through? After your husband comes out of rehab, too, you can see someone together. It's a tough situation to resolve--getting all the hurts of the past out and dealt with so that you can move past it.

paintedxpheonix

That sounds silly right?

Write a letter to him about everything that makes you rage, angry, even sad and upset. All of the resentments. Don't hold back. Once you have written the letter and you are sure you have gotten it out, take the letter outside at night and burn it.
Simply say "I burn and release my anger forever into the darkness"

After the letter burns completely just let the ashes blow away into the darkness.

I hope this helps.

stairs

This is a great idea. I am going to do this with my feelings towards my daughter. I really like having peace at home now that she is not here and then when I visit her things are fairly good until we go out shopping then my resentments runneth over when I think of all the money stolen and wasted, etc.etc.etc, in her addiction over about 3 years of insanity and I realized that I am still really angry with her and in a way the fact that she is doing so well now ticks me off...and I can't really express the anger to her directly, but I can't let it go. So this letter burning idea is a great solution. Thanks phoenix.

Synfull Vyxun

Great idea, I am going to try this to.

seventytimes7

I agree 100% with the above. No point in sending the letter. In a way, it's another attempt to get them to "see the light" and change into the person we WANT them to be. Unfortunately, they will justify themselves further, blame you more and you will get sucked even deeper into the madness. If you doubt this, get and read the book "Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me) - Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson. The sad truth is that we ALL justify ourselves, but when you add addiction into the mix, the crazy making escalates to ridiculous proportions.

I don't know about you, but being mad is a painful experience for me. Also, I become exhausted from it, which weakens me and ultimately I start to feel sad, then I get really needy. Guess who I then turn too? And the cycle begins anew.

Definitely get help for yourself, if nothing more than to learn how to step off this hamster wheel of despair. Spend your emotional & financial energy on TLC for you. Surround yourself with NON-TOXIC people and allow yourself to heal. If someone had literally stabbed a knife into your heart, you would be rushing to an emergency room to let skilled surgeons put you back together again and spends months recovering and taking things very slow and easy. Your loving friends and family would be bringing over casseroles every night.

IMO this is no different, just without the blood and guts and we can't really talk about it to anyone (except SR!). Which makes it kind of worse in a way . . .

I am starting to have a "bubbling up" of angry thoughts regarding my AS. Up until yesterday it was nothing but compassion and understanding and urgency to help any and all ways that I could after almost losing him to suicide.

For some reason I'm irritable the last few days. Why the drugs? Why the destruction? Why the total self absorption and disregard for those that have loved him so much. Why the lies, manipulation and cocky gangster attitude? As if this lifestyle is so ATTRACTIVE somehow, with skid row rehabs and filth everywhere. Just.awesome.

So pardon me if I sound soap-boxy, but I'm writing to myself a little bit here even though I'm replying to your post. I don't mean to offend, I'm just all over the map with emotions and I've found this to be a safe place to talk about it honestly.

Wishing you healing & peace. 70X7

stairs

Yes while my daughter was in jail she wanted me to write to her and I would sit down and start writing and it would turn into a diatribe of all the things I was furious over....I ended up telling her we needed some space between us.

And back in the earlier days before things really got to be over the top, my husband was in total gaga land about her too....it was like them against me and then the proverbial sh*t hit the fan....it's a hard road back to normalcy whatever that is....but I do agree that sending the letter does no good. Which is why I don't see a point in raging at my daughter, she is doing well and in recovery and I still have leftover anger from all the things I went through, the whole gangsta thing yeah and the skid row rehabs and none of them working and the recovery houses that are in it for the money....then jail and having to 302 her in a way to get her there, not for psych reasons but via ambulance....just one thing after the other, bam bam bam. So I'm just getting myself back together and starting to get my house in order literally and figuratively and devote the time to my younger daughter that she deserves, and I guess I feel like how dare my older daughter ask me for anything after all she has taken?! I realize that it's my issue at this point and I need to let go of the past and move forward and to do that I will have to FORGIVE: forgive her for the damages and forgive myself for not being Ms. Perfect in dealing with it all and forgive my now Ex husband for not being more supportive of me instead of defending our daughter and indirectly causing our divorce as that was a huge reason for it.....ok rant over. This is quite a hot button for me as you can see!!
Thanks for listening and best of luck to all of you with your family members and the anger they left us with.

interrupted

When I arrived here the anger was eating me alive. It was even starting to threaten my healthy relationships because I was having such a hard time holding it together. Since I've started ACoA/Al-anon work and therapy it's like I'm becoming the real me. That sounds weird, I guess. I'm nurturing the me that was hidden inside of all of this protective baggage. Sometimes that is literal (praising myself for daily accomplishments that I wish would have been acknowledged when I was younger) and sometimes it is more figurative, but my anger was just an external amplification of all of my internal pain, so I'm working on healing that internal pain.

The process of working on myself has released much of the anger I was feeling. There was no single big moment where it all just went away, but it has faded as my focus turned inward instead of out at all the things that I have no control over. Focusing on the things I can change is very empowering - I can change how I allow people to treat me, and I can certainly change how I treat myself. So feel the anger, acknowledge its validity, but keep working on yourself through the pain. Because focusing only outwards is a dead end, there is no growth outside of ourselves without first healing within.

paintedxpheonix

Stairs I totally feel you. Your anger is validated, and if the others don't get that, who are they to judge you're feelings, just as who are you to judge how they handled it. Dig? This whole thing is such a twisted sick web that we don't know what we are doing from one end of our shiny arses to the other. Be it addict or sober loved one trying to help the addict.
Some how we all get angry or upset at each other in one way in the other and have to outlet it somehow.

So imo, be angry, be mad, sit with it till it's gone because if you don't it will come back.
I hope this helps and makes sense. Sometimes my brain and fingers gets ahead of themselves.

Leftover

Yes, I too am angry. I'm angry at the addict son for giving me so many years of pain, i'm angry at the addict for causing problems in my marriage. I'm angry at the addict for using me and my money any time he was in trouble. I'm angry at the addict for being nasty to his siblings. I'm angry at the addict for not recovering. I'm angry at the addict for manipulating me. I'm angry at the addict for still making me angry. BUT MOST OF ALL I'M ANGRY AT ME BECAUSE I CAN'T LET GO OF THE ANGER. I'm having a bonfire tonight and you are all invited.

Ilovemysonjj

Hi everyone, I have to say the anger is something I am now also experiencing since I know JJ is "okay" and now facing his addiction. I am very upset that he stole, lied , cheated and put me through Hell for 5 months. Just want to say I think it is very normal and part of our healing process. I am NOT going to tell him the exact feelings I have, but I have let him know I do have some emotions and anger issues that I am working on.