GirlFromCO

Congratulations on your 20 years, and I hope you have 20 more together. I can't imagine what it must feel like to go through this. Big hugs DS!

Jeni26

Keep hoping desertsong.
Our stories are very similar. I stopped but he didn't, and those were very hard times. I admire your strength. When I first got sober, I hated seeing him drunk, his behaviour was loud and belligerent and it just seemed as though we were drifting further and further apart. Also, I could see myself in his behaviour and I didn't like being reminded of how I was.
I think he was really struggling with coping with the new me. He had lost his drinking buddy and we no longer laughed together. I had moved the goal posts and as far as he was concerned it was unfair.
He is a good man who also wouldn't hurt me intentionally. We've been married for 21 happy (if drunken!) years.
Now he has joined me, he has been sober 11 days, and our relationship is growing. It feels new and fragile as we ate just learning about each other, but I'm enjoying this new journey.
I don't know if this will be forever, we are taking this one day at a time.
Never give up hope. Lean on the support you have here and at AA. Stay strong. Xxx

OklaBH

Im so sorry! It must have been husband night. After I went to bed mine went to town and bought beer. He was on day 3. I wasnt to mad about that until he just called me and said he wants me to give him my ENTIRE paycheck so he can CONTROL MY SPENDING!!! You know what though sister? We arent going to drink over it. Hugs and I'll PM you later! :ghug3

RobbyRobot

No, you're not wrong.

Forgiveness is key here, as you already know, both for others, and for our own past misdeeds to others. Yeah, we essentially must own what we feel, yes, and yet we must not ignore the flash-points reached within ourselves as we experience the complications of relationships with others.

Owning ourselves does not get others off the hook for their wrongness towards us (or others). We do not have to simply allow ourselves to be mistreated because we are guilty ourselves of having mistreated others back in our drinking days. Two wrongs do not make a right.

Tough choices ahead.

Eventually, forgiveness, and empathy, will be your sole remaining go-to solution for accepting of your husbands drinking behaviors and whatever else. Eventually, the resentful anger will pass, the constant worry will diminish, the unhappy confusion will fade. This will be a pivotol page reached in your own sober journey. It will be a time of revelation in your marriage.

Marriage is a free choice. One way marriages are inherently insufficient choices. Love left alone, unshared and misplaced, is not enough for a good marriage to survive, and from my own past experiences with my ex-wife, I have learned that often the greater love is to work thru it, and into a better life, even if that means separation, than to make do with what does not work. I've since happily re-married. And so has my ex-wife.

I'm not saying separate from your husband. I am saying, eventually, you'll have worked thru enough of your resentments and past misdeeds, you'll have simply your current real-time marriage situation before you, and different choices will be in your awareness, choices which will make the greatest sense to you, and hopefully to your husband as well, for you to both move forward in a new marriage deal.

For me, and my ex-wife, enough was enough. Although there was no drinking in our past 22 year marriage, we are both recovered alcoholics, and there is more to alcoholism then just the symptoms of drinking, has been my ongoing experiences. Sobriety brings its own undeniable realities into a troubled marriage, of course. Sorbriety itself cannot save a marriage. Nonetheless, sobriety does save lives.