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For the last couple of weeks, I have been beseiged by torrents of tears. These can happen any time.....riding in the car with hubby driving, us not even talking, just going to the grocery. This morning at a fast food restaurant, eating breakfast with him. All day yesterday, on my birthday. I don't know if it is because of all the tears I have held in over the years or what. I started antidep,. meds March 1, maybe it is unlocking the dam. It is just so darn hard to live in a small house with another person and have them look right thru you. Not touch, not talk, no sex. Only pecks on the lips hello and bye. Well, I did tell him today I wanted a "real" kiss, and he finally did, a short one. And, I asked if I could take a nap with my head on his lap today, and he said OK. But my heart always hurts! All the time. Like an open wound. The last 2 years of the courts being involved in our marriage, and the separations, the drinking, etc. have really taken a toll and I don't know if we can recover. I am not leaving. I have no plans to do so. I left him a little note this morning that said "I remember how much in love we used to be. We can still be again. I will if you will." with a smily face by it. He threw it in the trash. I am so hurting and so confused. I know I cannot make him love me back, but he used to! We went for years and never even had an argument! I miss my husband. Love in Recovery, (in which I am not doing very well) Becky1
Do you have a sponsor? Have you started working the steps? I knwo for me, as I started working on me, I found a channel for my feelings to go through, and I didn't feel so helpless when my feelings overwhelmed me. Do you journal? Exercise? Eat well and consistently? When we don't take care of ourselves and often, our bodies will revolt. Do you see a councelor? I know when I started taking meds, it was under the supervision of a professional and coupled with therapy. Just some ideas to get you started.
Hello Becky , well I beg to differ I think your doing great in recovery you asked for what u wanted (the note) the tricky part is not to expect that it will change anything it is only important that u spoke up . Alcoholism is not about not loving you it's about him and his disease. keep reaching out to him with in mind Let It Begin With Me slogan , you are after all the one that sees the need to make changes . Your doing fine keep the focus on your needs and don' ttake his drinking personally its not about you .
I am so sorry you are hurting. Please give the meds time to work and I would love to talk to you in pm sometime if we are in the room at the same time. I might be able to give you a bit of insight for your feelings. I do care so much about you and am so very happy we "met". It will get better........hang in there and let your HP have this, dear friend.
Sorry you are hurting my friend. But I'm with Abby on this one. I've seen you grow in your recovery over this past year, and I am very proud of you. There have been many moments when I have thought: Recovery? What recovery? I'm a fraud and losing my mind!" Turns out it wasn't so. The moment eventually passed. It will with you. Remember Step 1: powerlessness. His disease isn't about loving you or hating you. It's about his addiction and feeding it. Nothing else matters. You are powerless over his disease. But as you have shown us time and time again, you are not powerless over your recovery.
Love and blessings to you and your family. Love to the kitties.
Live strong, Karilynn & Pipers Kitty
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It's your life. Take no prisoners. You will have it your way.
I wish I had words for you. I don't. I'm so sorry. I do want to say that you need to tell your dr that your seeing for the anti depressants what is happening. He may need to up your dose. That happend to me. I hope somehow, someway that the love finds its way back into your home.
I can relate very very much to the issue of feeling totally shut out. That is one of my core issues with theA. I also think these days it is one issue that I cannot negotiate through anymore. I have tried too hard and too long to get around it. I feel at times totally shut out from so much and he makes decisions that affect me arbitrarily.
I am sorry you have to endure this but believe me you are not alone.I know the pain, anger, grief and frustration that you may have. You are definitely not alone and I do not think that there is a question you are doing everything you can to clean up your side of the street. After a while for me in the cleaning up part I became aware the A did not have any interest in it. He sees nothing in recovery. I see everything in recovery.
My heart is breaking for you. i have been there. The disease is in control. The man you love is locked in there somewhere.
I know it hurt to find the note thrown away. The disease does not care. It only wants money for its drugs, and when it gets the drugs, it is thinking all over again how to get money for more. It had no time for love, or hugs or caring about anything but the drug. Think if you were starving, you had to fight to get food everytime ya needed it. It is worse being addicted.
I guess I think back dear friend, and I remember doing my best to just be happy that he was in the same room.
I know the loss you feel. I too had a nice man at one time in him.
Remember how cannot change them? We cannot look for them to hug us or touch us etc. If we are too make it living with an A, we cannot have expectations. Sad, my experience is this anyway.
If you can get used to not getting all that stuff from your husband, and be happy when you might get it, you may be able to learn to be satisfied.
I have been to the point where I think about the words experience, strength and hope ......... and I have felt in such despair that I often feel I have very little strength or hope...... but dammit... I just keep on getting the experience!!!!!!!!!
But ..... thanks to this program, and thanks to God, I don't stay there near as long as I used to!
Recovery .... progress not perfection. It's not all roses, recovery is a process .... and you are processing and recovering!
You have come to the right place again and we will love you until you learn to love yourself. When you learn to love yourself you will learn to love your alcoholic unconditionally. I was told in early recovery to kill my expectations of trying to have my love returned from a very sick person and eventually I learned that and learned to accept her for who she was rather than who I wanted her to be....and then I was okay. I am married again to someone in program and guess what? ...somethings have changed and some are still in the process. When she isn't being what I'd like her to be I am not thinking that she isn't loving me. I just accept her for all she is giving me without trying to judge it as being adequate, enough, great, poor or whatever.
He can read your body language cause that is more than 57% of all communications. When you cry say you are hurt. If he can't deal with it...have compassion cause he is probably feeling very hurt and vunerable himself and then as suggested by Tiger; call your sponsor or someone else in the program and bawl until you start laughing. It worked for me.
I spent many many years in denial, because I could not reconcile the actions he took with the feelings I felt, that I THOUGHT he felt, that I wanted to feel and wanted him to feel. It was because I hadn't taken his disease into account, and had kept thinking that it was about me, in some way. It wasn't. It was all about his disease. It's kinda like trying to make sense of the weather, without taking the sun into account, and thinking that YOUR actions will affect it.
The reality is - he's sick, and you are trying to get something from him that he doesn't have. You can either keep torturing yourself about this, or you can adjust your expectations to be something like reality. The choice is yours - whichever you choose will have no effect on him. Looked at that way, it is not HIM that is making you unhappy, it is yourself. I'm sorry, I know this sounds so harsh, but what is, is.
Thanks for all your replies. What is making me unhappy is the grief process for what was. I feel like there has been a death, and in a way, there has been.
