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.
As always you are so compassionate and wise and I do love and admire you for that.
You are so right with me not doing well since the counseling started. I guess I haven't admitted that it is causing me a lot of pain emotionally.
I agreed to go to the counseling hoping it might sink in, hoping it might make both of us see things. What I have seen instead is how ridiculouse the whole situation is and having the counselor say it, instead of making me feel vindicated, it hurts.
He always ripped me apart to his parents, they expect it and condone it along with his drinking, but they are just horrible people. But hearing him trying so hard to convince a stranger that I am so bad and his parents are so wonderful and hearing him lie about his drinking, just rips me apart. He seems completely socked angry and nasty that the counselor sees through him, taking it as him taking my side or as me getting to the counselor as his parents have said. I think he truly thought he could fool him and make me the bad guy here.
I had no great expectations that he would miraculously wake up, but I guess I did not expect the horrible nastiness and indifference, and the constant praise of his parents.
His parents have noticed the change in him as well, his mother keeps whining that she does not even know her son anymore, that he is gone, that horrible me has hurt him so badly and taken him form them and left such a bitter shell. They see the results, but put the blame on me instead of his drinking, and keep defending his drinking as they believe it is what makes him happy.
I have always known the truth, I know it isn't me, I know it is his drinking and I know his relationship with his parents is bizzare. I didn't need anyone to tell me that and it doesn't help to hear it, because instead of accepting it, my husband fights harder to convince the counselor that he is wrong.
I am seeing a once attractive, funny, loving man, falling to the physical effects of alcohol, his legs are bony and veiny, his stomach and face are bloated and his eyes are dull. He no longer seems to care about his apearance, he is mismatched and disheveled most of the time. He is looking years older than the 40 he is and it hurts. No matter what I do love him, though for the life of me I can't figure out why and it hurts so much.
I have to finish this counseling, as I committed to it, and I myself have to follow it through. Though it is causing me pain, maybe I need this to get to where I need to be. Maybe I have to truly see, what he has become, to let go.
I will be okay, this is just a bumpy part of the road I need to travel, and though I doubt this counseling is helping him, maybe in its own way it is helping me. I have my priorities fully in check, and I am careful to go out and have coffee with a friend after every session and then go home and hold my children close. I am surrounded by love and remind myself often. I reach out to my own parents by phone, not to talk about my husband but just to hear their voices and know I have their love and support, and I am looking forward to their visit next month for my sons graduation. I am looking after myself, and when this is over, and I think that will be soon, I hope I will emerge even stronger and hopefuly a little clearer about what direction to take.
Thanks all of you for you love, support and concern.
You are so right, but it always hurts to watch something or someone hurt or destroy someone you love.
The difference is that as his wife if he where dying of cancer and was not capable of a rational decision, as his wife I would take him to the hospital again and again and make sure he got the care he needed, unless of course he where beyond help, then I would try and make him feel comfortable and loved in his final days.
In the case of alcoholism, we are told to back off, and let them find there own way, even when I truly believe they are not capable of making such a decision rationally. The sitting back and just watching and being able to do nothing is what hurts the most.
In my case I feel his parents are just hastening his end, never allowing him to see his bottom, but just guiding him along the path of self destruction. I know a lot of people do not agree with me, but they have stolen any dignity he has left and them as much as drinking have stoledn him from me and my children, and he cannot and will not see how horrible they are.
I do love him, and he has been a very part of me for so many years. He knows the things I will do often before I do. He knows what I will say before I do, and he knows the things that can cut me to the quick more than anyone else alive.
I will love him till the day he or I dies, as I can't do anyhting else. I cannot control my feelings. When I said till death do us part I meant it.
I believe all life is preciouse and I have too often found myself lately wishing his parents would go before they kill him, as I believe they are. I hate feeling this way, as it is not part of me to wish someone dead, but I keep thinking that with them gone it would do one of two things, either push him over the edge, and he would follow them, or he might have a chance to actually take his life from them. I know this thinking is wrong, and I am writing it because I need to admitt how I feel and how cruel it is , and how against everything I believe it is.
