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Ok, here's where I was: My husband is a good man (pd bills, cleaned, helped out, stayed home) but drank, accidently broke things, lost things, & usually fell asleep from drinking leaving me emotionally alone. Never emotional, or physcial abuse, rather emotional neglect.
Now he's attempting help with a few AA meetings, counsling, reading blue book, yet I think he's drinking still, but drastically less. I no longer look, and not asking whether he's drinking. I rather ask him to spend time with me.
I know it's up to him only. I don't buy it, look for it, or spill it out. I offer to go to an open meeting with him, or counsling. He doesn't want me to yet. I just let him know whever he wants I'll be there. He doesn't really wish to talk about it, b/c he says he doesn't know where he's at & if he be able to stop forever. I do see his struggle each night. I still smell some alcohol, but again it's drastically less. I can tell by behavior. He says to me he's all alone on this, that no one will help.
I know I can't stop him, but is there something I can do to let him know he must work it by himself, but that he's not alone. I frequently tell him that he's a good man, that I enjoyed whatever time we spent together. If I feel the need to say something negative I say it's the alcoholic behavior I don't like, that it's terminal & would get worse. I say I want my husband around b/c he's a great man sober.
I recently wrote this letter to him but haven't given it. Should I give it to him?
To the alcohol that consumes xx,
Let go of my husband. When you are here, you break things. You spill things. You breed dishonesty and loneliness.
You are stealing his health. Slowly you are taking over his body. You’ve already convinced his mind that I’m the one with the problem. So, you’ve manage to have xx mistrust me. You also teach him to lie to me, which makes it difficult for me to trust him. You are trying to break our trust in each other.
You also keep him from me because you know that I don’t like you. You pretend to be his friend, to console him, to keep him company. So you and xx drink alone, you stay away from me, or and you get him to hide you. In reality you are consuming him. When you drink with him alone, you keep him from real conversation, from his real feelings. You keep him numb and secluded so no one can tell him you are like a cancer disguised as a friend to him. You keep growing and taking over small parts of him, until one day it’ll just be you and him, instead of xx and me. What I’m really afraid of is that one day it’ll just be you there, and xx will be gone.
I want you dead, gone, removed completely from xx's life. You see, xx is a really good man, friend, lover, father, and husband. I really love, and admire xx. It’s you that I hate because you take over xx’s good qualities, you hide who he really is, you stop him from his full potential. I suppose you’ll fight me as long as you can. I suppose you want to kill our marriage, take over xx’s life and body, until you kill him too. Or maybe you’ll keep him just barely alive, so that you can live on. That’s why I will never learn to live with you. I will never accept you in our marriage, in our home. I will not share him with you.
One thing we learn to do in alanon is to examine our own motives for what we do. So, take a look and see what you are trying to accomplish with this letter - is it just to clarify your own feelings for yourself, or to try to influence his actions, or what? For me, I often found that those letters I wrote were mostly for my own benefit, and it worked best if I kept them to myself. My A interpreted the ones I showed to him as attempts to control him. Although I swore at the time they were nothing of the sort, looking back at it all now, years later, maybe he was right.
Anyway, welcome. Anything you need to get off your chest, this is the place. We understand as others cannot, and no one will judge you here.
I too have felt as you. I have a drawer full of letters to him, never sent. I did it for me. Believe me, that nice man inside KNOWS full well you love him and want the best for him
What is more important is what he thinks of himself, he has to give that gift to himself.
I did not self actualize, and love the me hp gave me by anything anyone else did, or said. I had to work hard to get well from my self loathing.
Yes my husband was a gem too. Been here like TT writing for years. We sure do relate and we are so so glad you are here.
Believe me the best thing you can do for him, is to take care of you. It lessens the guilt he feels inside from his disease tearing you apart.
The best that you can do as he is making these attempts is to accept him and the efforts he is making for what they are, be patient, and keep your focus on you.
I did not realize how much pressure my constant and epic attention was putting on my loved ones, and by wanting to thoroughly let them know how "there" I was, I probably made them wish I was somewhere else, because I simply could not leave them alone. At times I made their problems seem larger even than they were because of the amount of attention I paid them, and I absolutely made my loved ones take their eye off the recovery ball by expecting them to be grateful to me, pay attention to me, let me rescue, help or fix them-- in short, all those times I wanted to make sure they knew I was there for them, what I was really doing was making the situation all about me. I did the best I could at the time, now I know better, and I hope that by sharing this, my mistakes will be of some constructive use to someone.
With regard to your letter, I notice that is not addressed to your husband, it is addressed to the disease he is suffering from, something that is victimizing and controlling his life. Rather than giving it to your husband, something I would instead suggest is for you turn it over to the universe or your Higher Power in some symbolic way, like you would mail a regular letter, to who it is really meant for: Alcoholism. Since Alcoholism does not have a PO Box, you might consider shredding it, setting it (safely) on fire, tying it to a balloon and letting it sail away, or taking some other action to get it out of your head and heart, and to really let it go.
I'm really in awe of the shares here and the level of honesty here. I know one of my current support friends is a very controlling person and I think the reason I have such issue with her is because it mirrors so much of how I am. I also know that people do tend to get controlling when they feel out of control and want to hide. I know I can sit and take everyone else's inventory very very easily and that would be part of my controlling. The truth is I really do not know what led my boyfriend to substance abuse, he has the typical under nourishing, abusive family, the major stressors, the lack of a support network and the chronic rebellion stuff many many people have. He also had many many bottoms including jail, illness and institutions. None of them ever seemed to get him to surrender. I have had other boyfriends/husband(s) who did indeed surrender after I left them. I would not be the one to suggest that my actions had any place in their surrendering. I know I have sometimes resented deeply that I did not get to see them sober or experience them sober or even get to hear an amends from them. I could lose myself forever in the coulda woulda should haves of my relationships and especially my current boyfriend's acting out which has reached epic proportions.
What I do find difficult to do is to look at myself and what issues his behavior triggers in me and what comes up for me when he acts out. Many of those issues are related to my childhood which was one of neglect, abandonment on many many levels and abuse. Like many people here I did not have good boundaries, know the red flags, cue myself to red flags, check in with myself during my days of dating my boyfriend (being a codependent I committed very very quickly to the relationship). I no longer beat myself up mercilessly for this.
One of the current issues I have with my boyfriend is very much around care of our animals and who does what and when. I feel like you that really the care of the animals has been left to me while my boyfriend claims to be deeply committed to their care at the same time controlling and abusing me for issues around the pets. I have learned through this group to look at actions rather than words. In words my boyfriend claims to be committed to our relationship in actions he is not. In a similar fashion he claims great and abounding love for his pets but his actions do not match those words. I lose a lot of the confusion, resentment and argumentative around this and now I am hoping to be able to let that go. I know my truth he does not need to validate that.
I think it is incredibly difficult to practice letting go in the face of relentless manipulation and seduction. I know my boyfriend can really try that on. Yesterday he came home from whatever he had been doing claiming to be exhausted. Well guess what I am exhausted too so I no longer jump up and try to soothe him as I once did so very compulsively to the point of exhaustion after all now I am a factor in my life too. I try very hard to no longer abandon myself for others..as I once had to as a child in order to survive. One of my meditation teachers Stephen Levine says that no one's heart is always open. There are times when everyone's heart is closed. I no longer beat myself to a pulp because at times I have to build a steel wall not to react or act on my boyfriends projections that I somehow need to be a saint to deal with him. I do not and I cannot yet be cannonized!
I am very glad that you are here your honesty is breath taking as are many of the posts on this thread so I thank you very very much for talking about this very difficult subject. That takes such great courage to be totally honest about ones life and to risk asking for help and feedback.
Your question is complex, and I have shared. My thoughts when I read your post were actually very simple and answered my own questions too. Thank you. They were simply this ..
I have at various times let my A know in bullying and nonbullying ways over the years know that I would help and be a part of any steps towards recovery he wanted to make. I have proven over the years that I will be around for the nasty days ... why wouldn't I be around for the good ones? I believe that when he is ready for me to be a part of it, he will ask or if all else fails he definitely knows how to manipulate me, and I would not detach from that one
Your letter is beautiful. Writing lets me pour out my feelings in a way that hurts nobody and helps me to grow. I personally do not share the things I write with my A because of the way my feelings could be used against me, and the added guilt it would cause him. The few times I have shared them I found it diminished the effect writing it out had on my wellbeing, and influenced how I wrote in the future. Almost as if I was writing it to effect him instead of help me.
Part of my experience in rehab was having my wife, son, parents, and sister write a letter to my disease exactly as you have done. You have done an excellent job detaching your husband from the disease and placing the cause of the behavior where it belongs.
If he is attending meetings now and reading the Big Book, drinking as he has known it is probably (and hopefully) ruined forever for him. Coming to the realization that he cannot drink like a normal person is a very scary and difficult thing to deal with. It becomes such a huge part of our lives it seems impossible to live with out. Give him time to get through this 'loss.'
You sound very educated about the disease of alcoholism, and very compassionate about what he is going through. My gut feel is that your letter will most likely show him that you are not being judgemental about what he is going through and you care deeply for him and respect him as a human being. These are very important things for our loved ones to show us in early sobriety.
Before I started going to AA, I'm not sure how I would have recieved a letter like that. After learning more about my disease, I think I would have welcomed it for the caring gesture that it is. This is the kind of support I wish my wife had shown me at that time. The majority of feedback I recieved from her was anger and distance. That did not help me in any way, and in fact had a negative influence on my already low self esteem.
If you are sure that you are speaking from your heart and your motives are true; that you really want to support him 100% in a non judgemental way, you might consider giving him the letter. It may help him see how, like I saw from the letters from my family, that this disease does not only effect those who have it, but those we love also.
