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Jan. 31 was my AH's 50th birthday, so I planned some special things for him. Needless to say, all that got thrown in the muck and mire of alcoholism, and things went from bad to worse. We didn't speak for days afterward. One of the gifts I got him was for a Riverboat Dinner Cruise, and I upgraded the basic cruise with shrimp cocktails, an 8X6 photo of us on the boat, a bottle of bubbly and two special keepsake goblets, and a balloon bouquet on the table. The cruise set me back about $160. I didn't have the $$$, but wanted to do something really special, something I thought he would like for his bday. They have a band and dance floor, and it is supposed to be really nice. We were supposed to go tonight, but it was cancelled due to bad weather. We found out last night. He tells me then that he really didn't want to go anyway..it was too cold, he didn't want to stay inside the boat, he wanted to be able to walk around outside on the deck. I told him I had paid extra for preferred seating so we would have a table for 2 right by a window. Then he got all hateful with me. He doesn't know why I would be so stupid as to book a cruise in the winter...he doesn't care if we have window seats....it is for HIS birthday, NOT mine, and it sounded to him like I was doing it for me. I am selfish. I argue. I can't keep my @$% mouth shut. Well, in all honesty, maybe I was doing it for me. I didn't think there was anything wrong with having a night out with my husband, doing something he used to enjoy. A few years ago, he would have been so excited, tickled to death to do this. He was all worried about being cold on the boat...it is a huge cruise boat, heated. This man, who has sat for hours in a deer stand in -12 degree weather was worried about being cold on a dinner cruise. Go figure. So, it ended up, I kept telling him to just drop it, it was cancelled anyway, and we could re-schedule. He kept yelling and acting like an idiot. Blaming me for everything that has ever gone wrong in his life. I finished up the dishes I was doing, during this one sided "argument", and picked up my cell phone and car keys to put them in my purse like I do every night on the way to bed. Then I decided to use the bathroom, so I went in there, laid my things on the vanity, and proceeded with my business. He came barging in the shut bathroom door, grabbed my cell phone and said "Oh, yeah, think you're gonna call the cops on me again?!? Wrong!" and put my phone up somewhere. I just finished up and put my keys in my pocket and went on to bed, with him yelling in the livingroom. On my way into the bedroom I told him he could stick the phone wherever. He is always mad because I don't always answer it when he calls, sometimes I am driving, and my phone is in the backseat. He is normally a pretty quiet person, but when he gets like that it is like he has no control over his mouth, and hardly takes a breath. He can talk non-stop for hours. I don't even respond. He is in a completely different room than I am. I am in bed with the covers over my head. It is so weird. I had to work this morning, so got up at 4:30 and worked until noon. Am now at the library, not wanting to go home. His moods change so suddenly and so irratically. I have no clue as to what will set him off. One thing he was yelling last night was that he hated his birthday, hated it being in the winter. I told him (this was before I had gone to bed) to just pick a different day, one in the summer or something, and we could celebrate his birthday then. He could have a new birthday. A very-merry-unbirthday! Oh, that just made him madder. So, since the cruise was cancelled by them, I can get a full refund, so I am going to, I am not going to reschedule. Not after he acted like that. Now I am $160 richer. I am going to go tomorrow and get a manicure. Next year, on his birthday, it will be up to him to make whatever plans he chooses. I am not wrapping gifts, making a cake, spending $$$. Heck, I'm not even gonna write his birthday on the calendar. I think I am catching on to this whole "don't have expectations" thing I have struggled with. I don't like it at all, but I'm getting it now. I like to plan, dream, scheme, look forward to happy times and celebrations. But lately, all I have been receiving in return is pain, hatred, sadness. So, may I introduce the new and improved Becky1. No expectations for me, no sir. Well, I will maybe have one or two....that nothing I do will make him happy, ever. And I expect that alcohol will eventually either kill him or our marriage, one or the other. Love in Recovery, Becky1
sounds as though you are angry because of his ungratefulness and unappreciation for all that you did to make a special night. is this the first time? expectations.... disappointment. i'm sorry your heart got broke again. i KNOW it hurts. keep coming back, hon.
much love cj
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time to stop going to the hardware store to buy bread.
It's not that I am just angry that he wasn't all jumping with joy...I know better than that. But to be so mean and hateful and screaming obscenities about it.....Hmmmmm. He is angry all the time about everything anymore, it seems. He finds fault with almost everything I do...is never smiling, never happy. I am a giving person by nature, I will turn myself inside out, and it thrills me to make someone happy. I give to charities, I volunteer to help friends, volunteer at work, like to see people smile. Like to do things for my little baby granddaughter, make her cookies, make her dresses. The world is such a hard place sometimes, I enjoy trying to spread around a little cheer. And, I find, if I do a kind turn (helping an older person at the store, returning grocery carts, telling the cashier when she didn't charge me enough) it makes me a better person. I just do not know how my AH looks at me and sees such a bad bad person. I am not. I am more than kind to him. I can sit here right now and say I love him, but I honestly do not know how that love has been kept alive thru all the bitter battles we have had. All the hateful words he has flung at me, all the tears I have shed in secret. I feel like my heart is just barely beating, just a little shred of blood and tissue. I can hardly take a full breath because of the pain. Yet, I don't want a divorce. I never stayed this long in a relationship before, when things got a little bad, I left. They are way, way, beyond that, but still I stay. Have I lost my mind? I have a job, I can make it on my own, I have done it lots of times before. I just wanted my life's journey to include this man who is now a stranger to me. I love him, but at the same time, I feel like I am just waiting in the sidelines watching him die. I take care of myself, I do things for myself, with my friends. But, this man, who I gave my heart to when we got married 6 years ago, cannot see past the alcoholic haze he is living in. We sleep together, but we don't even have sex. I miss him. I miss the person I used to be, happy, feeling loved, pretty, special. Now just mostly feel fat, old, tired. Yet I keep plodding along, trying to work a program, trying to get better. The fact that I am still alive is a miracle. Love in Recovery, Becky1
Ouch!! What an impossible situation. I think you handled it well. I would be tempted to save the cruise tickets and take a friend instead (to me, $160 doesn't sound like a bad deal), or throw a pedicure on top of that manicure. Hope you get some peace sometime soon... Jamie
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I'm like a pinch of tea...put me in hot water and see how strong I can be.
I just do not know how my AH looks at me and sees such a bad bad person.
I doubt if that is what is happening at all. I suspect that it's when he looks in the mirror that he sees that bad person, and all the anger and hatefullness is directed at himself.
It used to break my heart, the way no matter what I did, he would take it badly. My response was to put my head down, work harder, try to be more loving - this seemed to make him worse. It was only when I started to realize how much he despised himself, that I could understand. Every time I returned good for bad, it was like a reproach to him. He LIKED it when I behaved badly, when I screamed and lost control and told him I hated him. Then his mistreatment of me would be justified, and he could feel good about himself - it would all make sense to that sick brain, anyway.
We are wasting time when we try to make sense of what they do - they are so ill, so unhappy, their values are so warped, they hate themselves and everyone else so much..... If you want to stay with him, it is vital that you not take the things he says personally - otherwise it will drag the soul out of you. He knows that he doesn't really deserve a birthday celebration, but a kick in the pants instead. If you continue to love him despite the way he treats you, in some way that makes him despise you (along with needing you desperately, of course). The only way to live with this sort of insanity while keeping sane yourself is to not tie his reactions to your actions - that is, do what you want because you want it, not in order to get a certain reaction from him.
Many of us alanons are people pleasers - we thrive in that warm approval. It is our part of the sickness, that draws us to people who are hard to please.
Thanks for the replies. That is what I love about MIP---you guys just tell me like it is. I come in here whining and cryin' about how horrible my life is, but you guys understand... I guess I will have to stop doing anything nice for him, because when I do things nice for him, just because I do love him, and WANT to do something nice for him, but do not expect him to do cartwheels or something, I still am greeted with mean words, cussing, yelling, and then he leaves and I am left alone. All that said, I am kinda glad he is gone tonight, last night was so awful and I am stiff and sore from laying in bed hearing yelling and how awful I am, no wonder he doesn't want to make love to me....etc. etc. etc. Tonight, after I left the chatroom early this evening, I went to get a manicure, and am now typing with a perfect set of dark mauve nails. Just the human contact of the little Oriental woman doing my nails, her little soft hands holding mine as she worked on my nails, almost made me cry. I am so very lonely for human contact. And, I know I keep saying it, but I want it with my husband, not the woman at the nail salon! Geesh! Anyway, in spite of being a little teary now and then, I am better. Thanks and love you all. Love in Recovery, Becky1
Don't you just get sick of it? AAAGH, it's always something! Today, mine was working on the thermostat. He got a wild hair a while back and bought a new one on a whim, no looking into anything, (and there was nothing wrong with the old one, the house was built in 99), and didn't like it after he installed it. Reinstalled the perfectly fine one, but made a mistake somewhere in the wiring, and now the AC kicks in when you want to just run the "fan" function. Not a big deal, really, but he was working on it today and getting mad, cussing at it because he couldn't get it. My guy is normally very good at stuff like this, so I am sure he was just frustrated. But part of me thinks he wanted me to say something to get him to chill out, so he could go off on me. And the whole time I was thinking "I guess that's what they mean when they say they lose the alcohol, but keep the "ism' when they get sober". Anyway, I just ignored his hollering and went about my business, had a girl scout function with my daughters' this afternoon, and the weather was beautiful here today. He was onto something new when I got home, but mad at it too. LORD!!!! Have you ever heard that woman's prayer? Lord, give me patience.... if you give me strength, I'll just choke him to death!!!!!!! Have a great day!
Becky1 wrote: It's not that I am just angry that he wasn't all jumping with joy...I know better than that. But to be so mean and hateful and screaming obscenities about it.....Hmmmmm. He is angry all the time about everything anymore, it seems. He finds fault with almost everything I do...is never smiling, never happy. I am a giving person by nature, I will turn myself inside out, and it thrills me to make someone happy.
-when your A gets sick and tired of being sick and tired, he may change
-when you get sick and tired of being sick and tired, you may change
people pleasers like us usually have 1 great big similarity -- we are hurting on the inside, because we never address our own needs (that's my opinion, anyway). i drove myself nuts doing all i could to make A wife happy - why wasn't she happy? ***MIRACLE*** the answer, with program, is --------- it isn't mine to worry about. it is my happiness i need to tend to. my path. my HP. my serenity. i lost myself, my identity, but program is helping me back. soon, i will be embarking on a step 4 -- i can feel it, and i need to do it. i don't want my heart broken anymore, so i did what i could to set things in motion to get to the place where i can see happiness in my future. your choices are solely yours, and i wish you blessings that your path leads you to serenity.
much love cj
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time to stop going to the hardware store to buy bread.
It breaks my heart to see you in so much pain. I remember I use to make plans, and then nothing would happen. I stopped making them. I use to get soooo angry at him but then I realized I was more angry at myself for not realizing that I shouldn't have made any plans to begin with which involved A. When I really got it, it was empowering. Granted I was lonely, but then I didn't have all the angst of having plans gone amuk because he was active.
I was very lucky because he was seldom verbally abusive to me, (It usually happened when I decided to pick a fight when he was drinking! BAD IDEA!) and he never physically hurt me. Your hubby probably hates himself more than we realize. Ever know anyone who was proud to be an addict? You know, deep in your heart that you are a kind, loving, caring person. Granted the words sting. But deep down inside you know you are not all those hateful things that he says you are. If you doubt yourself, just looks to here and see all the good work you do.
As for making plans for his birthday next year, just for yourself: WHY WAIT UNTIL THEN? Do things now for yourself. It's a BECKY DAY or as you know I call them: PIPER KITTY DAY. Now I wouldn't suggest you go out hunting mice (unless that gives you pleasure ) but do something that you want to do, just because you do. Keep pushing ahead with your plans for your recovery. You're doing just fine.
Love and blessings to you and your family.
Live strong, Karilynn & Pipers Kitty
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It's your life. Take no prisoners. You will have it your way.
but then I realized I was more angry at myself for not realizing that I shouldn't have made any plans to begin with which involved A. When I really got it, it was empowering. Granted I was lonely, but then I didn't have all the angst of having plans gone amuk because he was active.
) but do something that you want to do, just because you do. Keep pushing ahead with your plans for your recovery. You're doing just fine.