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It's been a couple of weeks i think since my last post. Right now things are well. I guess as good as they can be. I have a job now!! Part time til next week when the kids go back to school. Then I'll be a full timer! It's been 8 years since I've worked a full time job. So it's going to take a little bit of an adjustment. But I'm looking forward to. It makes me feel good that I'm making my own money! Anyhow... My AH has been behaving for the most part. I have been just focusing on myself and my children. I know he's still drinking, but not crazy. I just can smell the alcohol on his breathe every now and then. I think it's only been about 3 times in 3 weeks. I think he thinks i don't know when he had been drinking. lol I don't say anything to him anymore. It's wierd how it don't bother me as much as it used to. I should have been taking care of myself A LONG TIME AGO!!
Like I said things have been good EXCEPT Intimacy. The last couple of nights he has been cuddling with me, which is find. I love when he holds me. I think He wanted more and I Right now have no desire. I feel that if i do he's once again feeling that he is in the clear. Does that make since? Not sure how to handle the situation. Not sure what to say to him. I love him very much. I've been doing so good that last few weeks so what things to go back to the way there were before. Thanks friends
I know what ya mean about giving in to intimacy, and then the A possibly thinking that they're in the clear. My Asober and I are now sleeping in separate bedrooms, and just the other night we watched a somewhat cheesy, scary movie together. I am kinda afraid of the dark after watching scary movies, LOL, and told him I was afraid to go to bed, half-jokingly. So he slept in the bed with me (no hanky-panky, though - not even any cuddling). He could have said no, but he didn't. He seemed to have this attitude that everything was now ok, but it isn't.
Anyway, congrats on the new job, and enjoy making your own money!
My only suggestion as far as intimacy goes, is that if you go with YOUR feelings - not what HE might be feeling, or thinking, or wanting, then at least there will be one person who is happy with it. There is no point in second guessing him. It seems, mostly, that alcoholics (or men in general, but I am probably stereotyping here) don't spend that much time thinking about what an act of intimacy means, anyway. They just enjoy it. You can do that too, if you want to, or not, if you don't. As you are finding, the more you live your life as if it belonged to you, rather than being a sidebar of his, the better.
IMO, he's not in the clear whether you sleep with him or not! :)
He's an alcoholic with a deadly disease, and he's still drinking. BTW, congratulations on your detatchment!! It really does work to make life more smooth, no matter what he's doing.
I'm not a guy, so I can't speak to "what they are thinking", seems like sex means different things at different times to everyone. But in our situations you know you'll hear us say "It's about what you want to do" b/c this program is about making us more healthy and self focused.
In the alcoholic mindset he'll think himself "in the clear" whenever he feels like it, and it isn't dependent on anything you do. We all have sexual needs, and if you meet yours with him you aren't giving him the Golden Calf. You are having sexual relations with your husband. However he takes it is all on him and there is no escape from his disease other than to quit drinking period and get into a program of recovery.
Oh and congratulations on your new job too. That must give you a whole new feeling of security, that you can take care of yourself no matter what's going on. You are really doing well! This is great news. Thanks for sharing!
hey, i am totally new at this stuff so you might think im just babbling. but i havent slept in the same bed with my ah for over two years.until just recently. it was a combination of things but one of them was alcohol. he disgusted me with the alcohol. if i wanted some intimacy and i smelled it on his breath or knew he had been drinking that day it would be an instant turn off. it wasnt a deliberate act to get back at him that i wouldnt give it to him, i was also holding out for myself and that sucked. after i went to the first f2f meeting (which was not too long ago) and i read one of the packets (i cant remember which one at this moment) i immediately went by him on the couch. he was surprised and said he hadnt expected me to go by him for a looooong time. no we didnt do anything but just the fact that i even wanted to be next to him was great. for both of us. i read something about compassion and how low the alcoholic already feels about themselves, and by intentionally holdng back love or relations for them it may make their self esteem even lower and in turn do the merry go round effect of drinking. at least that what i got from it. i know that if he had been drinking or if he smelled like a drink i might have had that gut feeling of disgust and automatically been turned off. so i dont know what i will do if he starts to have a drink again but hopefully with alanon and this place i will get through it when and if it comes. i never really took into mind that alcoholism IS a disease ( i always said yeah right). would we deliberately hold back our feelings if it was cancer and or diabetes? i think it takes more than will power for them not to drink. no i am not sticking up for the alcoholic people in our lives i just like to see all sides of a situation (im a libra~lol) and it seems to me that just because we are giving them "relations" if we want not only are we pleasing ourselves but making them happy also which in turn makes them feel better about them selves. if not better at least they dont feel lower than they did. but we will see how i act if and when he smells like alcohol. my body might just reject him and it isnt deliberate its just the instant way it makes me feel. i know what you mean about them thinking they are getting away with something so if i can just look past that and do what my heart thinks is right .... i dont know its all so confusing! maybe i just put you to right back where you started lol . sorry! i have to look back at the packet i got because THAT is what made me take that step to even be next to him.. i just went through the pamphlets i got the first meeting i went to. it was my favorite one of course alcoholism a merry go round named denial. thats what made me see so much differently and got me to sit on the same piece of furniture as him lol/ it said that family members can keep the recovery going by changing to more constructive roles in the drama of alcoholism ( i believe if I reject or deliberately withold relations it will be a self esteem issue) and another part i liked was from a guide for the family of the alcoholic in the paragraph about love and compassion -i wont quote but what i got from it was why withold love or realtions for that matter just because they have a disease like any other (cancer, diabetes) its not an act against us if they drink. its a condition of their disease. alcoholics often feel unloved and unwanted. . love must also have compassion which means truly caring. compassion does not mean suffering because of another persons injustice. (maybe i took it in a different way that night. but i let go and we have been ok! i think that if and when he smells like alcohol i will have to come back here and find this post for strength. lol also congratulations on your job! i know what you mean about having your own money! i had a good job good insurance and my own car until i had our last child and staying home was my option. doesnt it feel wonderful to be self sufficient! it can only get better from here! take what you want and leave the rest!! im new and naive so somethings you might not agree with
Well, I think that is just it, frazzled. It's YOUR feelings you can go by. I don't think alanon is telling you (in fact I am sure it is not) to force yourself to be intimate if you are disgusted. It is telling you that it is all right to continue to love the alcoholic in your life, even while you protect yourself from the worst effects of his drinking. To me, that is what detach with love really means.
yes detachment did come into my mind when i was writing too. thats a good one detachment with love!it sounds so right! it sounds like the right thing to do! and it is going to be a hard one for me to do as i have found already tonight. i felt my same anger and frustration tonight! it was almost time for him to get to his meeting and someone stopped over, i knew why~ he mentioned he would like to smoke some marijuana and i didnt know how i felt about it, being that the alcohol is what made him violent but at the same time, why go back into that crap when you just got through a few weeks without it? well i knew what i felt when my kids couldnt go by him (i dont want it by the kids) they dont see him enough as it is since he is in meetings or therapy or at work all the time. and they resent him some times. i went on the alanon chat board asking what i should do i didnt have much time to do much since i had to get the kids ready to go. we usually go with him on thursdays they have an awesome playground and they love it. i was guessing the right things, not to mention it to him, i drove to the meeting. he missed the one he was supposed to go to we had to show a neighbor where this jobsite was for an estimate...... but he went to another one around here which he likes better than the one with the playground...... whatever. i will do something different with the kids thursdays like i do everyother night! i knew things were going too well around here!he was complaining about how i was driving too slow on the way to the jobsite and blah blah blah. it wsa like back to where we were before i left him. if he didnt smoke then he could have drove himself. i wasnt going to let him drive. and we didnt even get to the playground. we could have stayed home (me and the kids) now i know we arent supposed to address alcohol, but the pot thing i have decided how i feel so now wht do i do? my kids lost out on a little time with dad (which is all they get anymore~better than being drunk and wondering where he is though) he told me last night he had the little monkey on his back all day telling him to drink but after talking to me about it he said he felt better. and then after tonights meeting he told me he had it all planned out to drink and the boss wouldnt know and i wouldnt know and he wished he could cut that part out of his brain that keeps trying to talk him into drinking. i am glad he confides in me i know alot now about him... i am getting nuts though. i HAVE to get to a face 2 face meeting. i have missed two already and i need to get there so bad! i want that feeling back like i had the past two weeks! i knew that this recovery for both of us would have our ups n downs but i figured i would know what to do! i am sooooo frazzled again! sorry to get off subject! is this cross talk? if so i am sorry. i will try and look it up on here and not do it again if it is. i tend to stray from the subject in daily life too. sorry!!
I don't know what to tell you about the intimacy issue, except that you are not alone. I am not having relations with my husband now. I do not trust him, period. I just can not bring myself to want to do more than give him a hug, and even then sometimes.... Right now he disgusts me. His drug use has turned him into a skeleton. When he is high, he is constantly wanting it, then its like a rabbit, done in 10 seconds. Forget any pleasure for me. I just can't bring myself to get that close to him, and I try not to feel guilty about it. I do have feelings, but I don't know what to do with them either.
Sorry i can't be more help.
Joe- My AH was using me like a sponsor, and it did not work. I love reading and stuff with him, but he used me as a crutch. If this is making you crazy, its ok to tell him to tell his sponsor, not you. He may not understand, but that's his business.
Peace to you all,
__________________
~Jen~
"When you come to the edge of all you know you must believe in one of two things... there will be earth on which to stand or you will be given wings." ~Unknown
after watching scary movies, LOL, and told him I was afraid to go to bed, half-jokingly. So he slept in the bed with me (no hanky-panky, though - not even any cuddling). He could have said no, but he didn't. He seemed to have this attitude that everything was now ok, but it isn't. 
frazzled again! sorry to get off subject! is this cross talk? if so i am sorry. i will try and look it up on here and not do it again if it is. i tend to stray from the subject in daily life too. sorry!!