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Need some advice. I’m an alcoholic with two solid years of recovery. Wife filed for divorce last summer, just finalized 2 weeks ago. We have 2 kids 14 and 12. Our house had been for sale since last spring, no offers yet (It’s overbuilt for the neighborhood, but when I built it 4 years ago, I had no intention of ever moving.) We are both living in the house with the kids until it’s sold. She sleeps (when she’s home) in a bedroom in the apartment we built for her father. I didn’t want the divorce, especially with new sobriety, but my wife could never see past her anger to allow me to do anything right in her eyes. I made a ton of mistakes (mostly out of fear) and wish I could do things differently over the past two years. I saw a lot of things go wrong as they were happening, but was powerless to do anything. Anything out of my mouth was poison to her ears. So many misinterpretations of what I said. Anything positive I did was either ‘throwing her a crumb’ or ‘too little, too late.”
Anyway, my ex got back Saturday from a cruise to Bermuda with our kids, some of her friends and a guy she’s ‘dating’ and his two kids. Yesterday, she comes up to me crying and asks me for a hug. She says she has had a really rough couple of days and is very depressed and upset. She said she ‘bought’ a house and doesn’t want it, she tried to find one that our kids would want, and they don’t like it. She told me she’s very confused and doesn’t know what to do. I asked her why she wanted the divorce and she said she didn’t. I said ‘well, if you didn’t want it, and I didn’t, why did we do it?’ She said she was following the advise of her therapist, family and friends. We then got into a lengthy discussion about how we both were feeling, the mistakes we both made, the unfulfilled expectations, disappointments and some apologies. It was the most intimate conversation I could remember having with her since being sober.
We spoke again about this today. (she stayed at her ‘friends’ home last night) The discussion was more of the same. What to do about selling our house, taking it off the market, saying here together until our daughter finishes 6th grade, etc. She mentioned something she had discussed with her therapist; about sometimes, something drastic has to happen to a couple before one of them finally hits bottom and ‘wakes up’ to what’s wrong. I asked her if she were referring to me. I said I realized I was screwed up and the cause of a lot of these problems, I just didn’t know what to do the past couple of years to fix anything. I had already admitted my part in the damage done by me to her and to our family while active. After talking some more, something unexpected happened. She actually admitted to making mistakes and being so angry she never gave me a chance. She also talked about stuff I tried to express to her over a year ago. Example; I had told her last summer that I thought that there were better people inside both of us that we don’t even know yet, of course we haven’t shown each other our best sides lately. She expressed the same idea in her own words today. I was floored! I asked her who she was referring to about the person who hit bottom and woke up. She said both of us. I couldn’t believe it! This was all stuff I had been talking to my therapists and sponsor about the past couple of years.
I don’t want to get false hopes up about our future, but I think my ex has hit her emotional bottom. I know I had to hit my bottom before I was willing to get help getting sober. I hate to see her in this much pain, she said she doesn’t know how she can even function at work tomorrow. But I’m happy to see her waking up and taking an honest look at herself. I think the reality of the divorce and selling the house and moving into an older, smaller one is finally hitting her. (Too bad this couldn’t have happened a few weeks ago, God’s got a strange sense of humor) I know I need to be very careful right now, I still love her and can still let her hurt me severely if I let her. Sometimes things seem so far beyond repair. Any advise on what to do or avoid doing right now?
I am crying right now, my heart is hoping that the happy ending will happen for you. The one where you and your wife end up back togehter.
My "A" and I have been together for 8 years. 4 years ago we split up for a year (I think it was 4 I was pregnant with my now 3 year old, so almost 4 years ago). After 10 months of him telling me that we would never get back together, he would just be around for the kids, he noticed that I was starting to let go, and move on. He tells me now that the thought of losing me completly scared the you-know-what outa him. He then asked me if we could work on us. I told him maybe (was to scared he would rip my heart out again, but God I was so happy).
I took things slow, we had dates, we did family things, and alone things. I prayed, I prayed all the time. I talked to my sponsor, and that was it. I didn't need advice, I just had to follow the lead of my HP. My sponsor, she let me just talk. She asked me questions that made me think. She never once told me what to do.
I wish I could tell you what to do. I wish there was some way to tell you the future. If I were you I would pray, pray alot. Maybe journal about it. Listen to what others say, take what you like and leave the rest.
I will be praying for you Lou.
Much Love,
__________________
"Today's problems can not be solved if we still think the way we did when we created them" -Albert Einstein
It's always the same advice here, I'm afraid - focus on your behaviour rather than hers. Keep your own side of the street clean here, be honest without being harsh.
My husband is sober about the same amount of time that you are, and what I found was that, when he first sobered up, he was very vocal for a little while about how sorry he was. Then, that said, I guess he thought he had made his amends to me. From my point of view though, twenty years of pain didn't QUITE disappear with a few "I'm sorrys". Now, I'm working my program as hard as I can, I've had some therapy, I'm really working on myself. Even so, sometimes I just get this enormous resentment. I feel that I want soemone to make it all up to me - all the pain, all the wasted life, the years and years and years, when my feelings for my husband were like a cold clammy stone in my gut. My program shows me that this is not a useful desire - no one is going to make it up to me, the future is what matters now, and I am learning to face the past, and deal with it. However, your wife does not have a program, from what you say. She's floundering around feeling all of this, or whatever her version of it is, without help. Your part here is to show that things really have changed - be good husband, whatever that means at your house. For me, it's those cups of tea, those loads of laundry, those phone calls just to chat, that have shown me that he really is sorry, he really does know that it was wrong, and he really does want to keep our marriage. Hope this has been helpful.
