My husband punished me for drinking
 

I need to get this out, I just do.

The other night I did slip, drank beer, but was able to put it down out of fear of getting drunk. I was completely honest with my husband about it, we even talked about it. Yes, he was disappointed, just as I was in myself.

That night I had a night terror. I have had them in the past due to childhood trauma. I have been treated for PTSD and have learned coping mechanisms, which I try to practice regularly. Anyways, in the past when I have had these terrors I scream and trash around, my husband wakes me up, and holds me to calm me down. The other night when I had one of these episodes he let me go through it, lied there and watched me. I woke up in tears and sweating and he was just looking at me. He said "maybe your friend beer could help you through this."

I know I have caused pain, but this just seems inhumane to me. I don't know how to wrap my head around what he did (or didn't do).

What a petty and rotten thing to do. It's not his place to punish you. What a jerk.

I just think of how hard it has been for my husband to watch me self destruct. He is entitled to some hurt in all of this. That is what I think your husband displayed, displaced anger towards the situation. He too has had to cope with your disease. Just something to think of. Doesn't make it ok, but might offer some understanding.

He needs help too.

hope you're okay.

It is hard for our spouses or has been but compassion goes a long way.
Hope you're feeling better anchorbird, hang in there, we don't always want someone saying/ acting 'I told you so'.
Big Hugs x

I think back at all the pain that I caused my family and realize that i'm pretty lucky they didn't lash out at me more than they have. What he did was certainly not nice, but just for a second sit back and think about it from his side of the fence.

Also think about the nature of the last 3 posts you have started here. Your first one about your "slip" and that you are "feeling better about it" by the next day. The second one was questioning whether you need to be in AA from AA because you were able to control your drinking and moderate to just one beer. Now today you are posting about your husbands reaction ( albeit not a kind reaction ) to your drinking.

The trend with all of these seems to me that you are attempting to rationalize your drinking the other night or somehow shift the blame to other people or events. Which is very typical of addiction and we've all done it before.

What you should be focusing on is moving forward without drinking. All of these issues ( the "slip", the AA questioning, your husband's reaction ) are BECAUSE of drinking. Not drinking is the solution.

All the honesty in the world can't change the fact that people get sick of dealing with addictive behavior.

Thank you everyone for your responses. I know he is disappointed and hurt, I guess I just never thought he would hurt me like that.

Time to put my big girl pants on and start showing him that I can and will change.

Hugs, I know it hurts. I remember when things like that happened to me.

But with time and perspective I can understand people's reactions to my behaviors.

I imagine your taking that sip of beer felt like a real disrespectful slap in the fact to him too. And he was probably hurt that you would act that way.

Just keep moving ahead in sobriety!

I have found that not drinking is absolutely the best thing you can do to heal old wounds. Some never heal and but you will be absolutely amazed at how different ( in a good way ) that your life will be after some serious sober time.

I see projection in this response.

Anchorbird - we are only getting one side of the perspective, it is not balanced. It is helpful to put yourself in his shoes and see what type of pain he may have gone through with your drinking. My guess is he is scared and does not know how to react so his own ego is trying to protect him should you fall back into old habits.

Coddling can turn into enabling behavior, which is why there are groups like Alanon.

Its good to vent here but have you thought of sitting down with him tonight and discussing how it made you feel. I have found with my own marriage, which was on the rocks that erring on the side of talking too much can really help. Nobody is a mind reader so talking about it I think might help go a long way.

I imagine your slip caused his fear that you will not succeed at sobriety to be realized. Scary stuff for him I'm sure. But him allowing this fear to be turned to resentment and leveling that against you was not productive. But neither would your reacting to his reaction with similar resentment... Both behaviors focus on the problems rather than the solutions. Sometimes it seems we can't help our feelings, but we have a choice in what actions we take after processing said feelings.

I completely empathise with what we put friends and family through, but think that particular behaviour was rather cold . We are not beasts.

I'm not sure he "hurt you".

It sounds to me like he allowed you to face the consequences of your choice.

I feel for you - but it seems to me that you're focusing on what he "did" to you when in fact what it appears happened is that you made a choice to allow your addiction to take the wheel again and you were forced to face the inevitable consequences. Is it his responsibility to comfort you in that?

I'm not saying this with mean or heartless intent..... I'm saying this from an objective place of observation and as a fellow problem drinker who has had to face consequences and at times fallen into "oh poor ME" thinking...

I am not trying to make light of what I did, that I fell off the wagon. I do deserve his anger and frustration, but I am merely saying that I never thought he would do it in that way.

A lot of things happened to me when I was drinking that I never thought would either.

Please don't take any comments as suggesting that you somehow deserve to be treated badly or punished, but as was mentioned already the reality of alcoholism is that it's going to have adverse effects on us in many different ways. A discussion with your husband would probably reveal his motivations or frustrations that led to his actions. Even though you only had a small amount of alcohol and it only happened once, you broke your promise to yourself and your husband. He obviously did not take it lightly - you shouldn't either.

I think the issue is a little confusing because your husband seems to be connecting your nightmare problem to your drinking. It sounds like he doesn't have much patience for your nightmare behavior either and wanted to draw a line there.
Maybe he is upset or stressed by the nightmares or maybe he thinks they are caused by your drinking.
Sounds like it might be good to talk to him about this and get on the same page about it.

That doesn't seem like a very good approach by your husband... I'm sorry you had to experience that.

Most of us are not at our best when being woken out of sleep by something. I've been knows to snap at my kids, ex, and bf when I am woken up in the middle of the night, especially if I am woken out of a dream, that always is extra hard for me.

So it might not be a sign of an uncaring spouse or a resentful bitter man. It might be that he didn't have time and a clear frame of mind to say "she is really trying, be supportive and gentle etc etc "

There were times when my innocent sweet and dearly loved children woke me in the night and the first things on my mind were not "oh lovely dear child how can I be of assistance to you!?"

Setting your hopes up, the constant worry, disappointment and lack of control – you experience by being inflicted by other peoples addictions is hard.

It is more frustration and hurt than punishment as I see it, it is not very maturely expressed though.