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.
Those of you who "know me", know that I am very wary of any insinuation of "strong = leave, and weak = stay" posts, or advice for people on the big stay vs. leave decision....
That being said, I offer up the following bit of E,S&H as a healthy reminder to look at things from all sides, when we are making our paths.....
A good friend of mine, in Al-Anon, shared a touching story with me that I will keep with me forever.... Her A husband was not physically abusive, but was a rager, and was horrible to both her and the kids when he drank.... They avoided him like the plague, and were scared when he was drunk..... She stayed "for the children", until they had both graduated high school.... This lady has a healthy relationship with both of her (now grown) children, and things HAVE worked out okay, but she had an eye opening conversation with her 23-year old daughter that I wanted to share....
They were having dinner one night, and reminiscing about the growing up years, and G said to her daughter "I hope you realized why I stayed.... I wanted you to learn about loyalty, perseverance, and keeping the family unit together". (How many of us have said the same?? I know I did!). Her daughter, without malice, told her Mom: "Mom, what you taught me was that it was okay to be treated like "xxxx" and be ridiculed and not respected". It took me a long time to un-learn these things myself. I love you, but I don't respect your decision on that one."
I share this with the intent of offering another viewpoint..... We are pretty quick to rationalize our thinking, but the reality is that even our own thinking gets clouded within the insanity of living the roller coaster life around an A.... I don't think the "right" answer for everyone is to leave - far from it - but I DO like to examine the facts, as they are shown to us. My counsellor had to (almost yell at me) - tell me "Tom, you are trying to save a white picket fence marriage, but guess what?? Yours is NOT a white picket fence marriage!"
Food for thought
Tom
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"He is either gonna drink, or he won't.... what are YOU gonna do?"
"What you think of me is none of my business"
"If you knew the answer to what you are worrying about, would it REALLY change anything?"
Thanks for sharing... this is why I put my A out... I love him, and my heart pounds for him, and I know he loves me the same, but my child has to come first. I don't want her growing up thinking that its ok to be abused and mistreated... I want her to be treated with respect, so I have to start NOW.
My daughter is my life... A man with an addiction is not worth losing my child over...
((((Tom)))) Thanks for sharing that story. Although I no longer live with active alcoholism, as my husband has 2 years of recovery, I so remember the days of should I stay or should I go. I know for me at one point I was not strong enough to be without him despite the chaos. As I grew in my program and gained inner strength and a belief in my self and my capabilities of survival I knew I would no longer live with active disease. After a period of sobriety and recovery my husband had a major slip. He learned in one night what strength I had gained in myself as did my children. I showed my kids and my husband that night that I was going to break the cycle of disease in my life and if my husband wanted to be part of that he had to do it sober. Today we live a pretty good life - it isnt always easy - there are still struggles. However, today we live with HP in both of our lives and we stay out of each others programs and enjoy each other.
I guess ours is not the norm for most couples living with the disease. For many the damage is just to great and the well of forgiveness is not that deep. I dont judge those who make the choice not to stay. Either way it is a difficult choice and it takes a great amount of inner strength to carry it out. Obviously for those living in abusive situations the time to get out is NOW. But for those on fence -look within yourself - do you have the inner strength to stick with your decisions? Do you have the strength to break the cycle? If you doubt it keep coming to meetings and trust in your HP - the time will come when you have clarity.
Karen
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Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care. Love you all!
Karen
One of my friends at the moment is someone who stayed for 10 years with an addict because she didn't feel she had a good way to provide for herself and her children. She feels pretty badly about it. I really try not to "judge". There is always a great way if you aren't actually doing it yourself. I also think for many many children it takes a long time to come to terms with what your parents "did". I'm not sure anyone can judge what is right for someone else. Leaving is hard, staying is hard, the person themselves has to look at what their options are when they can exercise them and what they need to do. Everyone's life can look really rosy to me.
When I look back at my own issues with an A there were certainly times when I would have been more able to leave, I had more resources. I didn't. I can't explain "why" or what or when I became resolute to leave and how I left because I certainly didn't have the resources to do it. A lot of things fell in place for me and a lot of things didn't. I just decided one day I couldnt' do "it" anymore. I decided whatever I had to face alone would be easier than dealing with his absolute total addiction to drugs and impending breakdown.
For some of us there is no "right" time to leave or no "right" way to stay all there is is a journey through recovery and in time the circumstances do change, sometimes quickly for some of us and sometimes slowly but they do change if you are working a program.
I think for me, the key moment was loving myself more than I loved him. I remember watching some reality TV show where some man was yelling at this woman and her head was bowed low and she just stood there looking at her feet as he raged and yelled at her. I froze and realized that I was her and she was me- I literally needed to see it outside of myself before I could see how unloving it was to myself to stand there and keep taking it day in and day out. I felt myself visualizing putting my arm around that woman and made it into me putting my arm around myself and quietly guiding her out of the room and away from the yelling, ranting and raving. Giving her a hug and telling her its going to be OK. Really loving her and taking care of her no questions asked, totally unconditionally. That her was me- it still is. I am the one who is going to take care of me- no one else! Hugs, J.
It is interesting what we think we are doing "for our kids". I remember my 23 year old saying to me, when I was telling her why I lived the way I did... She said "MOM, don't you know I'm not gonna love myself the way you love me.. I learned to love myself they way I saw YOU love YOURSELF."
Goes to show I should have made time for me and taken care of me a little while they were growing up.
Just like we are all learning now, we need to be able to love ourselves in order to have the love, give the love to our children or anyone else.
It is a very personal choice. I sat in a face to face meeting pondering the stay/leave questoin, when a woman shared that she was a child of an alcoholic. She was sharing how surprised she was at the feelings she had for her mother. She learn to deal with her father who had the disease, but was having trouble with the anger she felt towards her mother for staying. I have two beautiful daughters with my A, her share struck me to my core. At this time, I have chosen to stay with my A, but am thankful for the tools of this program, which have saved my sanity. I am a very protective mother and don't lie for their father, but worry about the affects of this disease and pray that my HP is looking after me and them.
as a child I remember praying that my parents would not split up. Of course, I didn't understand aism then. I just knew that my dad drank too much and my mom was always worried.
As I got older and got married and moved out I sort of felt a little resentment toward my mom for not leaving. She had 5 kids and no job so I know she really couldn't at the time. My resentment of the fact that our lives revolved around my dad's drinking was what got to me the most. My mom was so engrossed in what he was doing that we really did not get the attention we needed. I understand it now because I understand how sick a family becomes with this disease. However, as a child I needed way more than I got.
Bottom line....even though I have the understanding now does not relieve me of the fact that I did not get the nurturing that I needed as a child and it has scarred me. I am learning to give that inner child the nurturing she never received.
WOW that really hit home for me. I am looking at my 5 year old and my 2 year old and having the same leave vs. stay options. Thank You that is going to stick with me for a long time.
Thanks so much for sharing that. It's taken a long time for me to forgive myself for what I exposed both of my girls to because it took so long to do the right thing for them.
-- Edited by Tenderheartsks at 12:23, 2008-06-20
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"If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience." - Woodrow Wilson
These posts are really helpful. I stayed with my abuser for 10 years. I have been away from him for 28 years now, remarried for 10 to a recovering alcoholic. Kids are grown. All I can say is that I am filled with sorrow and regret for exposing my kids to what they saw and for depriving them of what they didn't get. My youngest who was 3 at the time I left is having problems as a result of the exposure she had, in terms of her own self esteem and confidence and her ability to create and sustain a good relationship. The other two are superficially doing well, but are troubled internally in various ways. I really knew I should have left when I was 8 months pregnant with my first child, but I stayed and had 2 more because I didn't think I could make it on my own. The irony is that I eventually left with no more resources than I had initially and with 3 kids in tow, not one. Now, I feel FOR ME that there is no good reason to stay in close proximity to anyone who is incapable to showing up for a respectful productive relationship with me. Because my one short, precious life is too valuable to spend working that hard at something that can actually be fun, enlightening and nurturing in a healthy state. Everyone has their choices to make, but mine is to steer clear of people who for whatever reason are not able to be kind to me and honor my spirit as I would do for them. I always thought when I was growing up that I would be a better parent than I had, yet I did so much worse of a job. And my alcoholic household contained two parents that never divorced, who didn't fight and argue much, but my father was just not there emotionally at all and my mother was angry and frustrated and neither were bad people but they sure didn't give me much to live by. I don't blame them, but I'm sorry that this disease has carried through the years to touch my own children, too. The sadness is that none of us had healthy role models to live by.
My mother stayed with my AF. She tried to leave him a few times but me & sis didn't want to leave home. I know I didn't understand then why. Dad just drank & passed out. I had known this behavior all my life so it was normal. As I got older I realized that I didn't have a father, I had an alcoholic that looked like him. He did recover & I eventually had a father for about 20 years before he passed.
But........
I learned some VERY bad things. I was hard wired as a codependent & married a woman who I would find out one day to be an alcoholic. As I look back at it now I realize that the only time we were happy was when our diseases grew together. At least it was the only time I was happy. So what was I shown? How to be codependent. How to have low self esteem. How to find an alcoholic to feed my codependency. I don't hold any ill will for my mothers decision to stay, but I wish I had been shown that codependency is as much of a disease as alcoholism. I wish I would have been shown Alateen. My mother was not a great example, but she did do the best she could & I can NEVER fault her for that. I love her with all my heart. But you should realize that's we learn. Show them it is not healthy & explain why.
I was sticking around in an unhealthy marriage for my daughter. What made me finally leave my husband was realizing the negative impact upon my daughter. I took her to a therapy session and she drew a picture of me as a fairy with a happy face. Then, she blacked out the face and broke my fairy wings. It was then I saw that staying in a bad marriage was also bad for her. It was important for her to see mommy happy.
