The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
I was googling "husband putting kids at risk" and I stumbled onto this group. Maybe someone here can give me some comfort, or ideas, or anything.
My husband of 5 years is an alcoholic. My mom and dad are alcoholics, my first boyfriend, my best friend... all alcoholics.
My husbands last drink was almost 3 years ago. I think.
But he lies to me a lot.
We have two children together, a boy who is almost 5 and a girl who is 2 and a half.
Recently, as in within the last year, he started using a vape cigarette thing. Then, a few weeks ago my daughter found a part to it that was soaked in the liquid and put it into her mouth. It was on his desk, I had left the room to go potty and asked my child to grab her shoes, we were heading out to go pick up my son from school. I was gone less than 30 seconds. She had the thing in her mouth and she smelled like liquid nicotine. So I called poison control and was advised to go to the hospital. We got my son and did so and my daughter had to spend 9 hours on a heart monitor after showing signs of nicotine toxicity.
After his vape liquid put our child in the hospital he promised he would get all that stuff out of the house.
Tonight, I was near his desk while trying to get the kids wrangled into the dining room to eat dinner and I smelled something sweet. I opened a cupboard and there was a bottle of the vape liquid. It smells like it, looks like it.... but the label is peeled off.
If he is lying about so much... about smoking, about having the vape liquid in the house, about all these things..... I worry that he is lying to me about drinking as well. Maybe he is still drinking. Sometimes I think I smell it on him, but he is a chef in a place with a bar, maybe it just transferred in the insanity of the kitchen.
He just keeps lying to me about so much that I don't know how to trust him. He never has given me enough time to rebuild my trust in him because he just keeps lying about so much stuff. Some of it isn't even a big deal.... but its the lie that pisses me off so much.
My husband said he would quit smoking, but he smells of smoke often. He lied about quitting after our son was born, he lied about how much he was drinking. He only stopped drinking after I told him I was worried about him and he attacked me while I was pregnant with our daughter and I ended up having to call the police. He went to AA for about 4 months after that and then quit going, said it wasn't for him but he would just not drink. I've heard that song too many times.
So we started therapy. That went ok, then we stopped because things seemed ok and now our therapist isn't taking new patients... Things got bad again, he started therapy on his own with someone new. He still was lying to me about things. Never big things, but lies about all kinds of things. How much money he spent on something, when he got his paycheck, what time he got off work....
I don't know what to do. I'm sitting here, sick to my stomach, I have enough worry because my daughter is having surgery on Monday to remove her tonsils (she has obstructive sleep apnea) and adenoids, I've spent the last three days setting up people to take my son to and from school while I stay home with my daughter and my husband works so that he doesn't have to miss school because I am not going to take a post opp toddler out into the world a day after surgery....... I am trying to get all these things taken care of.... and he sits on his ass and plays WoW, lies to me about stupid shit and not so stupid shit. He just can't seem to tell the truth.....
So how do I believe that he isn't drinking again? How do I trust someone who hasn't given me a reason to trust them in the last 5 years?
I grew up in the back of AA meetings. I grew up hearing the stories, the regrets, the hope and the difficulty that everyone in recovery faces, and my husband refuses to get that kind of support. He has NO ONE. He doesn't have a single friend, he won't even try to make one. He has a therapist who he sees once a month...... I try to tell him my concerns and he gets mad at me.
He's lied about drinking for so long in the past, lied about vaping in the house, lied about smoking cigarettes and lied about smoking pot. He's stolen vicodin from a bottle I was prescribed for an ovarian cyst.
He's lied about so much trivial crap too... when the dog was outside, how late he stayed up playing games, how much something cost, where he bought something.....
He lied about his debt situation before we got married and left it until we were applying for a loan and a STRANGER from the BANK had to tell me how much money he still owed on student loans.
I grew up with alcoholic parents. I was forgotten at school because Beer. I was mortified when my father hit on my best friends mom when he was coming to pick me up after a sleep over and he showed up drunk. I was given alcohol to drink when I was 4 and 5 because that was all that was in the house when dinner time came around. I was driven to school by parents who were drunk at 9 in the morning. I will NOT let my children go through anything like that.
I am so sick of the lies. But I don't know where to go from here. I don't know how to believe him if he is telling the truth. I am not sure I even know what the truth is anymore he's lied for so long.
Have you found a face-to-face Al-Anon meeting? Those are invaluable too.
My experience is that everything I suspected he was lying about, he was - and more. I have seen it happen time and time again to others. Somehow I always expected him to admit to the lying. But they don't - that's what lying is all about.
I suspect you are very right about everything you suspect about your husband. And another thing you're right about is that after all his lies, it's reasonable to expect that he will keep on lying.
You are under no obligation to believe him!
The question then becomes: if you knew for certain that he was doing all those things you suspect, what decisions would you make?
The insanity of addiction pulls us into insanity too. We can get our own recovery by learning the tools of Al-Anon, working the steps, going to meetings, finding a sponsor, and reading the materials. Then the way to go forward starts to become clearer.
I have been involved with Alanon for two weeks now, and I cannot tell you how helpful it has been to me. I can only imagine how overwhelming things must be with the 2 little ones!
I have been thinking a lot about trust myself, and forgiveness. I think because for me, I can't build trust without forgiveness. And, I have been remembering something that a friend of mine said years ago. He said that, contrary to the popular slogan "forgive and forget," you can forgive OR forget. If you forgive someone, you remember their actions and forgive them for the actions, but you do not forget what they did, and you decide whether you need to protect yourself from those actions or decide if they are in the past and you don't need to worry about them anymore. If you forget the actions, you act as though nothing has happened, because you have forgotten that it did. It is as if nothing happened at all. I know I spent years with my AW forgetting unacceptable actions, and I am working hard to forgive now instead.
The Alanon tools are working for me. I hope they work for you, too.
__________________
Skorpi
If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present. - Lao Tzu
