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.
I've come across a number of posts pertaining to the alcoholic's cheating behavior, but have yet to see anything related to the partner's sexual transgressions.
As my alcoholic wife's disease progressed, I became increasingly disgusted with her and her disease. As a result of her disease, she became less and less available and I began to feel more and more like her parent rather than her partner. Needless to say, between her unavailability and my disgust with her, she has become less and less attractive and our emotional and sexual intimacy has been next to nothing. Although I've never been unfaithful or had an affair, I began occasionally browsing free internet porn sites as I sought some sort of sexual release. The last several years have been unbearably lonely for me.
Now that I'm in Al-Anon recovery, I have come to believe that this isn't exactly the healthiest of approaches for me to get my needs met. I certainly believe that my loneliness and some other needs can be addressed through my involvement with the Al-Anon fellowship and through getting back involved in the rest of the world again. However, short of getting divorced and eventually pursuing a new relationship, I am unsure of how to proceed with respect to handling my needs for affection and physical intimacy.
I am interested in others' experience, strength, and hope with respect to how they handled their partners' unavailability and how they went about getting their needs for emotional and physical intimacy met both before and after they embarked upon recovery in Al-Anon.
I certainly know that loneliness and misery. For a long time I told myself that it wasn't so bad, and there probably wasn't anybody healthier out there for me anyway, and lots of people have it worse, and so on - it kept me in the relationship, but it didn't relieve the misery.
In my case the only answer was to leave the relationship. What I wanted was a real, three-dimensional, healthy and intimate (physically and otherwise) relationship with someone who was truly available. The people who would have had a fling with me while I was still embroiled in a relationship with an alcoholic were not healthy, truly available people. It would have just been two unhealthy relationships instead of one. Twice as hard to get out of! In some ways it would have satisfied the craving for drama which was one of my unhealthy escapes from my unhappiness. But then I would have just been stuck in the quicksand and had even more misery to overcome.
I had a million reasons I told myself I couldn't leave the relationship. I wasn't really being straight with myself: I was scared, dependent, and overwhelmed. When I truly saw what I was accepting, I moved on. The turmoil leading up to the decision was awful. The result itself was easy. I wish I had had Al-Anon all the way through, though. I hope you have a face-to-face meeting? Take good care of yourself!
Aloha Steve and welcome to the board. Someone in the program once told me that I would meet more sick partners in the program than before it and of course I had to test that with my own sick ego and personality then and they were right. I did the best I could with the sick person I was until I quit completly and built a solid relationship with my HP first. I don't do anything to hurt that relationship today....my present marriage isn't perfect yet has progressed beyond 23 years which is longer than the first two before it together. ((((Hugs))))
Hi there Steve.
I can relate to the loneliness you feel. I have had an affair on my AH and quite simply I regret it. I didn't want to have to make the hard choices of asking my AH for what I need or deciding to leave so I took the easy way out......or so I thought. The affair is something I can never take back. It met a need for a very short period of time but soon became a further source of loneliness and isolation for me. I hurt myself and my AH more than I could have imagined. All the justifying I did in my head really wasn't so logical in the light of day when it was all said and done. The shame and guilt I experienced about the whole thing was very painful for me. In very simple terms I didn't want to leave my AH but I also didn't want to ask him for what I really needed (because I feared his answer would be no). I created a bigger mess that wasn't so easy to get out of.
I've found that seeking companionship through friends and family to get attention and support his helpful. Talking to my AH and finding a compromise for some of my needs getting met is also helpful. I have also come to realize that I may not always get the kind of attention I want when I want it and that is ok too. I have now set a boundary for myself that if I feel I am going to cross that line again I will leave. Because quite frankly leaving would be easier than what I put myself through. That's my ESH in this area. I wish you all the best with this.
Hi Steve, I think we all deal with loneliness while being with an active addict of any kind. I've learned that my loneliness was something I needed to address for myself, but not for my relationship itself. I knew that the relationship couldn't be repaired since my XAH refused to get help or acknowledge a problem.
I did have a short emotional affair. If this man would have been in state or was interested, I know it would have progressed to something physical. But, he was a good Christian man and saw the path we were heading down and he openly and honestly put a stop to what was happening between us. It hurt me to have him do that but it was a wake up that I needed to get out of my marriage BEFORE I got involved with anyone else further.
I also learned through counseling and program that no one person can meet all of our needs but sometimes the basic relationship needs just can't be met with an alcoholic. I eventually learned that even if I got my social and emotional needs met through friends, i was still missing a real adult mature interdependent relationship and that was when I knew I should move on. It was a process. So, today, in my current relationship, I often feel that my partner can't meet all of my needs (because, codependents like myself are quite needy to begin with, lol) but I ask him to meet whatever needs are reasonable to him. If he can't, then I find a solution that is either within myself or outside of myself through friends, etc. This was a perfect lesson for me to learn how to be self sufficient emotionally and spiritually even while living with active alcoholism. Best wishes to you!
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Never grow a wishbone where your backbone ought to be!
Back when my ah was dumb enough to visit nudie bars and pay for it with my actual debit card, and would come home totally pissed with strange phone numbers while I sat home with three literal babies, oh boy did I want to cheat. Or hit the gym and buy new boobies lol with his cash. But then I came to accept that his drunken desires had nothing to do with me, nor my own desirability. So that was one motivation. Then, after he calmed his ways and then we started living in separate states, except weekends, I began to feel lonely and emotionally neglected. Throughout all of this inner turmoil, I had stopped taking care of myself. Kind of given up in a way. Now, I take the time to care for me, with nice clothes for when I feel like dressing up, making sure to shower and do my hair even if I don't get time to do it until 1 when the kids are asleep, and I socialise with a few girlfriends over coffee and our babies. I feel cared for because I am. It helps. I hope something in here helped, you are not alone. In previous relationships I have cheated and been cheated on, neither were very nice feelings and just created more emotional drama.
I think about this all the time. All intimacy is absent from my marriage. We even have separate rooms. My AH is so steeped in himself and protecting his addiction that I am invisible and have been for years. I stay for financial reasons. Communal properties, debt, putting kids through college, etc.
The loneliness is crippling. I think about an affair, but what I really want is a life partner, not a secret sex partner. I want a new relationship. Someone to vacation with. Someone to cuddle on the couch and watch TV. Someone to help me host a BBQ and have friends over. Someone to go on walks with me and sit in a coffee shop with me. Someone to take care of me when I'm sick. To hold me up when I'm feeling down. Someone I can laugh nd cry with. Someone to go to bed with and wake up with. Every day. I want someone to do life with.
My loneliness will not be alleviated by a part-time, clandestine affair. I need touch, yes. But that's only one thing on a long list of intimacies that I need. I'll feel better in the moment. But that affair won't do much more than that.
