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Miracles In Progress 12 Step Recovery Forums -> Al-Anon Family Group -> Al-Anon Family Group -> divorce vs. living with an A
Post Info TOPIC: divorce vs. living with an A
estrelladehope


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divorce vs. living with an A
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This is my first time to write something on this board but right now I am at a pretty low point in my life.  I was married about 4 months ago to a man whom I only knew for about 4 months bf we got married - (got engaged 1 1/2 mo after seeing each other and then married 2 1/2 mo later).  He had told me he was an alcoholic (but he was not drinking and had not been for a year or so) and he was and is currently using methadone to get off heroin.  I guess I was naive (I am young and was living with my parents for the past year bf getting married).  Everything was fine until my high expectations and nagging started which just reaffirmed all the negative feelings he had about himself already.  Anyway, it is a disease but I guess I stepped on the merry-go-round.  In the past month I have moved out twice (the 1st time I decided, 2nd he wanted me out) but am now currently living with my husband.  I know myself well enough to know that I cannot handle being married and then living separately (maybe that is immature but for me, personally, if we are not living together than there is no real marriage).  I started going to Al-Anon over a month ago and it has helped me see my part in all of this but since he has started going out more often to bars with friends who are doing drugs/drinking, he has started to neglect me even more.  I let him do his thing since I KNOW I have NO control over him or what he does but when I get down I ask myself "why I am still in this marriage" and "what am I gaining by staying married to him."  I wonder this since I have always been in pretty healthy relationships bf I met this guy and now I am in the most dysfunctional relationship I could think of (of course it could be worse!).  I just spoke with my sponsor (have not asked her yet but she was the first person from Al-Anon I ever called) just a bit ago and she said to give it 6 months.  To focus on myself and not focus my attention on the A - which is SO hard to do especially since I am married to him - my idea of marriage was companionship and right now, I am not feeling much like a companion but someone who keeps the house tidy and meals prepared and when he is in a bad mood try to get out of his way - out of the house or in another room - so where is the quality time we should and I want to be sharing together??? 


Does anyone have any suggestions for me?  He wants to have this big garage sale where we get rid of alot of our stuff saying that  then we can accumulate things together as a couple but I am so scared of doing that since every day I am worried that I am going to come home to him saying he wants me out and that he cannot handle living with me.   I hate having this feeling every day that tomorrow could be end of us.  This is not healthy and I know that if we ever did get a divorce that at this point in time I would feel a sense of weight lifted off my shoulders but then what if we could be happy someday - that sense of not knowing just drives me crazy!!  Anyway, if someone could just tell me their story or give me suggestions I would really appreciate it.   I have already decided to give it 6 months and when that day on the calendar rolls around, I can then worry about how I feel about this marriage and this man.  



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debilyn


~*Service Worker*~

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hi welcome. I learned after going thru a lot of what you have to protect myself. I have my own income I have everything of my own. If I got to share it with my A great, if not and he left again, he was the only thing I lost.

I almost lost my home. I lost my new jeep, I lost my good credit, I lost a very good friend too, becuz of his disease.

For me protecting me is what helps me. If I got some nice time with A great. but it was like dessert. I never depend on him, we never shared anything but working around the farm. It was fun, but we never went anywhere.

The disease get worse and worse. their companian of choice is their drugs. If they are sober their sobriety is number one.

If my a is not drinking he is taking pills or doing h. I loved this man over thirty years. I am losing my love for him slow but sure. I chose to not let him come back. nothing left in him anyway. so sad.

You work on you, when you get a stronger hold on to the skills of alanon, and live them every day, you will be able to answer your question for yourself, I promise.

For now do things for you. go for walks. YOu might cry and be lonely at first. I got to where I did not want him to come, he was a downer anyway. take steps to make your own life. that is what I did. Not telling you what to do, more my experience. I put money away just for me.

what makes you stay? What do YOU want for you? we can only change ourselves and no one else. I learned to accept my a husband as is. but he got physically abusive and that was my boundary.

glad you are here. Please keep coming back. love,debilyn

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jj


~*Service Worker*~

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Posts: 505
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hi and welcome,


I don't want to tell you what to do but i can share what I have gone through in the last 10 years. I have seen the progression of the disease in my a from mere fun to an addiction. We used to go every where together spend every moment together and over time he began to have nothing to do with me. We even go weeks with out having a conversation. I have been so happy and i have been felt so alone in the world. Then depression started and i completely close my self off from everyone and everything. Sometimes i wonder why...why so I stay... because i love him and when we have good times they are great. What marraige doesn't have its ups and downs.


The one thing that I constantly question is how could I or why would I bring children in to this?? I love my kids and I don't regret having them and I try my hardest to protect them. So I punnish myself alot!!


I am glad that you have come to alanon and I do hope that you can figure out what you want to do. You obviously love him or the person he was and I honestly think that the adjustment of being married and living together is very hard and that could be a huge part of your problems. I know when we first started living together i would pack up and leave all the time and then i would miss him and vise versa.. soon it was once a year and now i can't remember the last time i left him. I was where you are lots of times and constantly thought of past relationships and why am i here i still do and he probably has thoes thoughts to it doesn't mean that he is going to leave or that i am because i know i love him and he loves me. I tend to over think things and make more out of the situation and when i calm down and quit my stinkin thinkin its like ok i'll be fine and we can get through this. Alanon has saved my marraige so far and I am relearning to live with an active a and learning how to be me again. I could go on and on i have 10 years of experiences and things that i have gone through.


I sum it up as we were ment to be together, they way we got together his sister being my best friend and all of that and 17 years of history and now his sister and I are going through this together her and her husband and me and mine...makes you wonder if hp set this up that many years ago?? Fate??? We are stronger together working the steps together. I am glad by any means that I am in this situation what I am glad about is that we can do it together.


I am glad that you have a sponsor and that you can call her for help. I will keep you in my prayers


love in recovery
JJ



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richard


Senior Member

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Posts: 281
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If you could learn and come to love yourself the way you want another to love you, you would not need many answers or suggestions. This what I firmly believe.


Hugs & Luv,




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estrelladehope


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Posts: 16
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Thank you for the postings!  We have no kids together and I have already told my family I am not having children because the last thing I want to do is go through a divorce with kids.  I am not ready and he is not ready (he already has one from a previous relationship years ago that he lives with guilt over anyway).  I do love him - the man he is deep down inside that I got to know but for me love is not everything.  I know I need to love myself the way I want another to love me.  I am working on it but I read peoples postings on how they are living with an active A and how he is never there and they say they are happy!  It is so hard for me to believe that.  I have always lived in a family full of denial so it makes me feel like they are just in denial of how awful being married to an A is.  Is that crazy? 


Anyway, I am just not sure if this the choice I want to make - keeping a marriage that to me does not seem very stable.  I have been in stable relationships before, I know myself well enough to remember the pain I am in now and to never get back into another relationship with another A.  I am just upset with myself since my father acted the same way with my mom - they were divorced when I was 4.  I had no idea that my husband resembled my father in anyway and it drives me crazy.  We got married way too fast before I could realize these things and maybe it was all a mistake.  I just feel that if I keep telling myself that we are "meant to be" then I am saying that it is meant to be that I am in an unhappy marriage and that is not what I want.  Will things really change in 6 months time?  If they do, they can easily go back to this again.  Not like my life is so terribly bad but I did not sign up for this type of marriage.  There is a lack of closeness - that bond that brought us together and I am not even sure if he wants that back.  Well, I better go to work but please reply to this as much as possible since I need all the feedback I can get right now.



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jj


~*Service Worker*~

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I know it sounds absolutly crazy that liveing with an active A could lead to any happiness at all but I have had it both ways like I mentioned. Learning to love myself and be ok with my life and being greatful for the things that are great in my life helps. One thing from your post is that you have realized your situation early on in your relationship and that is a good thing. Right now I think that your soul searching and realization of what YOU want is the best thing that you can do for YOU. After all we are here to take us back and concentrate on us.


I have so much time invested in my realtionship and when I am in the "I want a divorce stage" I wonder about just that the 10 years i have invested already. I am here because of things like that questioning myself.


Had I known my husband was an alcoholic or realized it no I don't think I would have stayed with him. I din't realize it until I had my son and by that point I felt like it was to late for me. I now know that my choices were mine and mine to make. I do get discouraged by the divorce rate and sometimes feel like I am weak for staying but I try to make the best of my situation. Then I think back and realize that had I not stayed I would not have my kids who are my life.


All I am saying is take your time to make this huge decission in your life and I hope that you have no regrets.


The best of luck and I hope that you find serenity in what ever you decuide. No decission is a wrong one. If you stay or leave please know that you will have support from me and I'm sure others here.


LOVE in recovery
JJ



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ArwynEvenstar


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Hi Estrella and welcome.....

The others here have much more wisdom than I do in dealing with your A so I won't even try to expound further on what they have said. BTW, I learn daily from their collected wisdom.

But I would like to say, that I don't think anyone thinks of you as "immature" for expecting your marriage to involve living with your husband. You don't say how old you are, but my generation (I am 49) lives together when they are married. I guess that some can handle the seperation but I know that I am not one of those people. Moving out would be the end for me.

One other thing I would like to add....your husband, although telling you (on at least one occasion) to leave the home, wants to "get rid" of a bunch of stuff by having a garage sale. You seem fairly convinced, that in the long run, your marriage is not going to survive (if I read you correctly). Is there somewhere that you could store YOUR things?? Possibly in your family's or a friend's attic or basement. It doesn't mean that you will ever need them, but I feel that's rather like having some money socked away seperate from your husband's. Sort of a security blanket more than anything else. If the time comes that you decide to leave, you won't stop yourself, thinking "I have no way to start over". If the marriage stays together and you grow as a couple, your things can always be sold or given away, but in the meantime, having them set aside will allow you not to worry about that aspect, that you have to leave with nothing and are unable to start over on your own.

Just my humble opinion...take what you like....

~arwyn

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"Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
estrelladehope


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Thank you again to everyone that has responded!!!  I guess I can take these next 6 months to make up my mind.  Sometimes I just feel so hopeless that it will ever get back to the way it used to be.  He went out again last night with the friend of his that is using and did not come back till late.  I really did not worry but I still miss spending any time with him.  How are people happy in marriages when they do not spend time with the other person?  For me marriage is all about spending time with that other person - is that so crazy?  I just wonder since I am sure there is someone else out there for me that feels the same way.  I love my husband but not sure if I can and should handle being married to him - how can you love someone who does not even love themselves and feels so bad about themselves that they turn to alcohol?  There is that saying that you have to love yourself bf you can love someone else - so how do all these people stay with an alcoholic when that alcoholic is the way he is because he does not love himself - so how the hell can he love who he is married to???  As my mother said and says about our father - he loves you the best way he can - but ya know - sometimes that is just not enough - am I asking for too much from my A husband to be my companion - his companion is alcohol and I cannot change that - will staying with Al-Anon and focusing on me change this marriage to a companionship - has that happened to anyone married to an A???? 



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Merlynn


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Hello Estrella!


I can not speak for being married to an A because I'm not (my A was my Dad), but even in non-A marriages, there are times when one is closer to a spouse and other times miles apart (metaphorically speaking).  My hubby and I have had our problems regarding what I would call "neglect"...he's big into online computer games, and used to spend hour upon hour playing them while I was pretty much left to my own devices.  Rather than use the time constructively to develop my own hobbies and interests, I would nag him and sigh at him forlornly in an attempt to have some of his attention.  These tactics rarely worked, and never in any satisfying way.  I even tried playing the same online games he did myself, but this lead to other problems, including some unintended emotional attachments on my part to someone else online that almost cost me my marriage.  What have I learned from all this?  No ONE person on this earth can meet ALL of my needs.  To focus all my hopes and dreams and energies on just one person, no matter who they are, no matter how much I love them or they love me, is to invite disaster and unhappiness.  My happiness is ultimately my own responsibility.  No one can "make" me happy.


This is not intended to excuse your A's behavior, but to say that even if your A wasn't an A, you would still need other people in your life to fill in the gaps....friends, family, church groups, what have you.....you would need hobbies and things that interest YOU, whether they interest him or not.  If you like, use the next 6 months for some self-discovery.  Focus on you...your wants....your needs....your dreams....I'm sure whatever you decide to do, in the long run it will be the right choice for you.


twyl & ltr,


Mer



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KathyS


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RE: divorce vs. living with an A/Estrella
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Estrella,


First off I'd like to say I am glad you are here!  I'm even more glad that you are attending face to face Al Anon meetings.   I can feel your pain and confusion and just had to reply to you.  About me......I am 37, have been with my A who is addicted to cocaine in all forms from needle, to crack, to sniffing lines for 4 years.  We have three young children together.  I love him with all my heart but I must admit......had I known back then what I know now about this disease of addiction, I would have RAN!!  No matter how much you love someone, and how much you may both want to see them recovery from their addiction, there is alot of pain involved for us, their partner.  Even with a wonderful program such as Al Anon in our lives.  There is a lot of loneliness, alot of hurt, alot of frustration and if we're not careful alot of resentments.  I don't know how old you are, only that from your posts you are young.  You have your whole entire life ahead of you.  You've only known this man for a matter of months.  If I were you I would think long and hard if you are prepared to spend your life with an addict.  Wether in recovery or not.  Marriage is a lifelong commitement.  However considering the time you knew him before you married, and the fact that you were not aware of his addiction before marrying him, noone would condemn you for divorcing him, nor should you condemn yourself.  You mentioned that you have had healthy relationships in the past.  You also mentioned that your Dad was an A.  Believe it or not, this has alot to do with the fact that you married one.  Even though you weren't aware of his addictions at the time, there were charactaristics in him that resembled your Dad.  You might not have even picked up on it except for subconciously.  My Dad was also an alcoholic.  Now here I am with an addict.  I've seen this pattern repeated in other members over and over again.  As for your *sponsor* who is not as you put it your official sponsor but the first person you became close with in the program........NOONE is supposed to give anyone advice or tell them *what* to do.  Such as her telling you to give this marriage and him at least 6 months.  While yes this program does recommend not making any major decisions or changes for the first six months you are working this program, that is not written in stone.  It is a suggestion.  It also is recommended as long as you are not in any danger, or fear of abuse from your partner. I'm sorry but I feel strongly your situation is different.  You are so young, you don't have any children with this man, and you have known him less than a year.  Please don't feel as if you HAVE to stay with him.  I'm not saying you don't love him, I'm sure you do or you wouldn't have married him.  But perhaps you rushed into it, and didn't realize exactly what you were getting into as far as him having an addiction.  I know the whole stand by your man mentality, as I myself have lived it for 4 very long, hard years now.  But I will be honest, as much as I love my A, and even though we share 3 beautiful children together, there have been numerous times in the past that had I had the means to leave (financially etc) I would have.  The pain of being in a relationship with an addict can be too much for many of us.  It is not unrealistic for you to want companionship and togetherness with your new husband.  That is perfectly normal.  But as long as he is not in recovery for his addiction, and not abstaining from all mind altering substances right down to alcohol or pot, your relationship can never be what you hope it to be.  I hope all the replies have helped you.  Please don't be hard on yourself.  If you'd ever like to talk privately please email me at kathysctc@yahoo.com


Kathy



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Kathy S -- ~*I trust my Higher Power that I am exactly where I am supposed to be in my life today.*~
sanddie


Senior Member

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RE: divorce vs. living with an A
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What I found most difficult in leaving my a was always the hope that he would get better.  It wasn't until I came to terms what it was doing to my mental, emotional, and physical health that I realized that by the time my a got better, IF EVER, that I would continue to self destruct and not address my needs.  I struggled back and forth with feeling the selfishness of NEEDING to take care of myself and actually received counsel from the Pastor of my church because the other piece of this that greatly affected me was leaving a marriage, something that was supposed to be a lifetime committment.  Not only did I feel I was being selfish, but I felt that I disappointed God.   


With these feelings, I sought prayer of what God intended for my life and eventually found certain scripture passages that related to marriage.  I studied these and continued in prayer and the realization finally came to me that God is in control of each of us and that although we can love people, we as individuals are NOT RESPONSIBLE for the way others treat us.  Scripture also indicates that we are not to be drunk with wine, but be filled with the holy spirit instead because if we are drunk with wine we are being disobedient to God.  I also found that a husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church.  So this strengthened my ability to take care of myself because I realized what I wanted and that was a husband who had strong faith in God....  Thus, realizing that God wants me to be with someone who is equally yoked to me so that we can grow together and be the person He wants us both to be. 


I am not trying to push my beliefs on you, just offer some insight on what helped me.  We all have our own healing and discovery process and my prayers are with you as you make your decisions.  I know first hand how difficult that is at times, but I also know the peace that came afterwards with the decision which indicates my choice is right.  It's an undescribable peace that I feel in my heart and even though it was so painful to leave a man I love tremendously, as time passes I know I made the choice that was best for myself and children. 


I cannot stress enough that we are not RESPONSIBLE for any ADULT, nor cause their illnesses. 



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