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.
They say the first step to recovery is recognition.
I got married 7 years ago. My husband is an Alcoholic, and I knew it when I married him, but I did it anyway. He and I started a business together, and after a year, he decided to gift 10% to each of his sons. Grown men with issues over him divorcing their mother, so they wish I would just go away. Anyway, he took away 10% from me.
Fast forward a few years and neither of the sons are doing anything except taking, and my husband says the reason is that they do not have enough skin in the game, so he says he wants to give them each 33%.
So, he wants me out of the company, and I take back my assets and put them into a trust with my kids and he gifts 2/3rds of the construction company to his two kids.
Fast forward 6 months: His youngest son starts using heroin. He starts taking $375 a day in cash from the bank. Nine months later the elder son starts using heroin, and trust me when I tell you this kid can go through some money.
I am an accountant, so I do their books and watch all of this. My alcoholic husband enables his heroin addicted kids to the point of him finally kicking them out of the company, but only because I contacted the bonding company and revoked my indemnity agreement, (in other words, I refuse to be financially responsible for his construction company).
My husband had a choice to divorce me, kick the kids out of the company, or stop working construction.
I was prepared for a divorce, if that was his choice.
Since that time, he has allowed them to work as employees, until recently, when they were caught stealing and forging checks. He has finally faced the truth that his company is $195,000 short of being able to pay his vendors. So, he has been begging me to borrow the money, and there is no way in hell I am loaning it to him.
But on Sunday, I looked at our personal shared bank account and found that his youngest had used my husbands debit card to steal money from our personal account, where we BOTH put money for our mortgage and it was a final breech of trust for me, no matter that it was "only $500". I do not care. I want him to call the police and put that little b*** in jail.
But he refused, and I was furious.... so I retaliated ... ON FACEBOOK. In a crime discussion group from the whole county where my husbands family lives. So, of course his ex wife saw it, his kids saw it, half of the whole county saw it.
So, of course he called me and told me it was doing no good for me to post that, and that his ex wife was going to retaliate against him, if I did not take it down. The thing is, I am furious ... but mostly furious at him for allowing them to destroy the business! Yes, I am angry and resentful toward his sons, but I am even more angry at him, because he is the one who allowed this.
Now his ex wife is calling and screaming for him to grow some balls and MAKE me take the post down. I told him if he had any balls he would have taken the kids out of the company when they started stealing money, and that I will not take down that post, even if he holds a gun to my head.
I have gotten my stubborn on, and clearly I am crazy to continue this chaos.
Meanwhile, my husband went to find an AA meeting in our town, and ended up going to one at 5:30, and one at 8:00.
AA is new to him, or at least new to him since our marriage.
Maybe things are turning around for us.
-- Edited by hotrod on Friday 22nd of May 2015 06:48:41 AM
Hello Saucy welcome to Miracles in Progress, thank you for sharing your concerns with such clarity and honesty. I can certainly identify with marrying someone that I knew was an alcoholic, but I did it anyway because I thought I could handle it and change him.
As you have experienced, alcoholism is a chronic, progressive, fatal disease that can be arrested but never cured. We are powerless over this disease and because we attempt to interact with the insanity , we too react in a negative irrational manner and need a program of recovery of our own. I am happy that your husband has found AA and is attending. That certainly is a step in the right direction.
Al-Anon is the recovery program for family members and face-to-face meetings are held in most communities. The hotline number is listed in the white pages and I urge you to seek out the support and attend.
Breaking the isolation caused by the disease, learning how to honestly take care of ourselves, live one day at a time, stop reacting and to act in our own best interest are all powerful tools that helped me to gain control of my life and serenity.
I am reading that boundaries are the issue all around. Your husband and his ex wife sound like massive enablers. Your response is to draw some boundaries of your own. NOW...what may bring you more peace and help you feel less "crazy" is to just make those boundaries so you can detach and avoid fall out from his enabling. Separate bank accounts. Maybe separate finances. Maybe this is just an area where you guys are not meant to share but that doesn't mean you can't be married. Maybe this is necessary so you can empathize for him having these addicted children which I'm sure is a nightmare even though he does seem like he's enabling the heck out of them. I don't know. What I am reading is that you are involved to the nth degree in some dysfunctional dynamics that are hurting you. I think it may be possible to bail on this dysfunction without bailing on the marriage, and get your serenity back. I don't walk in your shoes to know if you and your husband have good interactions outside the issues of finances and his children. You mentioned at the end about him going to AA...is he an alcoholic? Do you think some of the poor decisions come from that?
So glad you are here and welcome to MIP! I consider this my little slice of sanity on the internet.
This disease is so encompassing - even those who 'know better' can get sucked into the insanity.
My best suggestion is to find F2F meetings and work on you and finding peace and serenity in spite of what is going on around you.
Both of my sons prefer H over anything else, but other substances will work in a pinch.
My experience - they will take as long as there is more to take and they won't stop until they hit their bottom. While nobody can force their bottom, allowing a soft place to land over and over again only prolongs the experience.
I wish you well and hope that you can find strength through the program, fellowship and steps to have peace in spite of.
Make it a great day!
__________________
Practice the PAUSE...Pause before judging. Pause before assuming. Pause before accusing. Pause whenever you are about to react harshly and you will avoid doing and saying things you will later regret. ~~~~ Lori Deschene
Thank you so much for responding. I look at myself and wonder who is that angry, ugly lady?
The only thing my alcoholic husband and I ever fight about is his kids, or his drinking. When we first met, he had been divorced for two years and neither of his sons would speak to him, because he left their mother.
He left the day after his eldest graduated from high school. She was gutted and probably felt scared and abandoned. But she still wants him back and sends him text messages begging him to come home. She actually thinks it is me that keeps him from going back, so she has serious issues with me.
Sometimes I feel like packing his bags for him. They both love their children, and my feelings are too awful for me to type.
Both of his parents were alcoholics, his dad left his mother when he was 6, and his mother drank herself to death eventually, when he was 25.
So last night he finally went to AA, after a day of phone calls from his eldest begging him for money, and him saying no (for the first time EVER). He said it is hard to see his kid struggle, when he, himself is an Alcoholic. Kind of like, "because he is an alcoholic, he should drive himself deeper into bankruptcy to fund his kids heroin habit.
How interesting, I am unsure if he really is just trying to butter me up, so he can give his kid more money without facing the wrath.
He is at a desperate point in his business, and wants to get a home equity loan on our home to pay the debt, so he needs me to agree.
You could both benefit from alanon or nar anon Both are programs are designed to assist families of alcoholics or addicts . Being angry and resentful is not a great way to live
Aloha Saucy ...Wow!! I agree with Hotrod's just previous post cause that is what I got from reading your initial share. You're alcoholic is alcohol affected; under the influence of his own drinking and he is practicing enabling which is what I use to do...doing behaviors that make it much more easy for the disease to grow in some one else. Of course there are lots of "doubles" in the program of Al-Anon...I am one of them. I use to do what your alcoholic is doing honestly thinking that if I did what the disease was telling or asking me to do my alcoholic addict wife would change even while I didn't know what changes were acceptable or how to spell alcoholism. I needed help just like you are asking for and he feels necessary. Learning how to say NO!! like he has learned to say was necessary and impossible to hard at the start and at first it was said for me until I started to see changes in positive favor for her when I continued to practice NO!!. Sometimes it got worse and when I stopped looking over my should to see how she was doing it got so much more better. Face to face meetings save lives and sanity. Keep coming back ((((hugs))))
Oh my, I can identify with your situation so so very much. My AH enables his two sick A children (they are in their 20s) who live with us. It's one of the most dysfunctional dynamics I've ever witnessed. In the mdst of the insanity, I found al anon 6 months ago. It has helped me so much to detach and get some clarity and have the strength to find some happiness outside this house. In fact, every minute I spend outside this house is joyous now, even the moments spent sitting in traffic. I hope you can get to a face to face al anon meeting -- you will be so glad you did. Hugs to you-- I know how terribly frustrating it is to have no ability to regulate / help with addict step kids. If it were my own daughter, I'd lay down some major boundaries and issue consequences if the lines were crossed.
Wow, I have been reading and already feel better. I mean, I truly feel better about myself after just feeling "heard" by you wonderful people here. I do not often feel heard. And then I think I get crazy, and start to get demanding, and angry.
My behavior has been just awful, and I say some truly dreadful things. It makes me feel horrible, but I get on a roll, and can not seem to pull myself from the mood.
Sometimes it feels like you keep saying the same things over and over to your Alcoholic Husband, who does not really "get it".
The interesting thing about alcoholism, is how selfish it makes a person. As long as THEIR desires are met, the rest of the world can shove it. So, maybe they really do hear it, but their desire to get their own pleasure, trumps your feelings and what they KNOW is right.
