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.
Hi, I am relatively new to posting on here but I have been reading the boards for awhile now. I have read about your situation and my life right is very similar to yours with the exception that my husband is the recovering A in the relationship.
My A and I have been together for over 20 years now with him being an active A for most of it. He went into a 30+ day rehab in May of 2004. He came out and really was working his program but then in Sept. 2004 he relapsed and was trying to pull himself out of it with no success. He hit rock bottom again in Feb. 2005 and sought intense outpatient therapy. I am proud to say that he has been sober ever since but he is still struggling with his addictive personality.
He has told me now that he does not want to remain married anymore, says he still loves me but that we can't be together. I can't afford to move out on my own so he wants us to live in the same house together until we can finish the renovations we have started and put the house up for sale in the spring.
I have attended two therapy sessions with him and his therapist. She basically in my eyes kicked me out and told him that she will not see us together again until I seek out my own counseling and attend al-anon meetings. I explained to her that we live in a rural area and that I have difficulty driving therefore it makes it nearly impossilble for me to go to f2f meetings. This is why I sought out this sight.
If you or anyone has any advice or thoughts they would be greatly appreciated.
I'm sorry if this sounds all jumbled I am just not in a good place emotionally and mentally right now.
So sorry you're going through this. Sounds like there is a lot more going on in your situation (like mine) than is possible to post in a reasonable amount of words.
"...She basically in my eyes kicked me out and told him that she will not see us together again until I seek out my own counseling and attend al-anon meetings..."
A couple of things struck me in this sentence. Did she tell YOU she will not see you together again and give you a reason? It appears as though this message was relayed through your husband who could have intentionally or unintentionally distorted it. Are you placing blame on your husband without looking at your own behavior and actions throughout all this?
One thing I've come to realize through my whole mess is that my ex-wife, like myself, brought a lot of dysfuntion into our marriage. These issues were compounded by my alcoholic behavior and insanity. She pushed the divorce through, against my wishes, even though she told me she didn't want to do it. She is still having depressive episodes, and is still miserable. I really feel she was in so much pain that she used me and our marriage as a scapegoat for everything still wrong with her after I stopped drinking. I may be wrong about this, but it seems to make sense in light of the fact that she has been remorseful and apologetic after the divorce telling me (and others) that she feels she made a mistake. I'm thinking (and hoping) that she is realizing, maybe not consciencely yet, that her pain did not vanish with the divorce, maybe she sees that I am no longer the souce of that pain. I have discussed this with others in the program and they tend to agree with this assessment.
Denial is a very powerful thing. The denial an alcoholic experiences to avoid giving up the drink is overwhelming. I actually belived the lies I told myself about myself. I was absolutlely delusional.
I think to some extent, my wife was, and still is, in denial of a similar sort. I denied I had a problem to avoid looking at myself honestly, and maybe she is going through the same thing to avoid looking at her problems and owning up to them. We are both insecure people so this is perfectly understandable to me now. The reasoning she has for doing what she did, while it does have some basis in fact, was from my perspective selective and exagerated to justify her actions. This doesn't not mean that the feelings she experienced, the pain and anger and the fear, were not real. They were very real to her. It's the source of those feelings that may have been distorted. Perhaps your husband is looking at you the same way; you are the source of pain, so the solution is to get rid of the source through divorce. We read a story at an AA meeting this morning which said "...It was not too difficult to convince myself that my unhappiness was the fault of the man I had married, and I divorced him..." The writer realizes after recovery that she was the source of her own unhappiness. I think there is a profound message here for those of us on either side of the disease.
This has been all very difficult for me. I'm still just trying to get through this one day at a time. I can really see how this disease is truly a family disease.
I live in a rural area as well. We have no al-anon I have joined up as a Lone member. You fill out the registration form and you decide whether you want someone to email or ring you. I am seeing a counsellor on a monthly basis for me, my husband sees his own. Once we have dealt separately with our own issues we will have a joint meeting with one of the D/a counsellors. If you want information on the lone membership contact al-anon by email. I am in Australia and the Worldwide Al-anon told me how to access it here. Hope this helps. Luv Leo xx
The therapist did not tell me that directly, my A told me that is what was said. I did place a call to her office, but was told that I would have to try and get ahold of her in between her appointments. He has a session today and I was going to go along and see if she would at least see the both of us for the first 15 minutes, but decided that this is his private time with the therapist and that I shouldn't intrude.
I am not placing all the blame on my husband. I feel there are two of us in this marriage and that it takes two of us to make it or break it. Part of the current situation is that he became involved with another peson. This person was actually the intake person at the first place he sought therapy. She left there and got a job at HIS place of employent and just recently left to work somewhere else. My A's therapist is aware of what all is going on and has told him that he is greatly jeapordizing his recovery. That he needs to remove this 3rd person from his life and not make any major decisons right now. He has been doing the opposite of what the therapist told him and that reminds me of when he was relapsing and headed off to a AA meeting but stopped and bought a bottle of vodka before his meeting.
I have been trying to put this all in the hands of my higher power. I know I didn't cause it, can't control it and can't cure it. I am trying to what I need to do for myself.
