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My AH has been sober for about 4 months. I've been working my recovery hard. We talk a lot about our relationship and trust.
I've never trusted him from day one. He is a compulsive liar. He lies about every and anything. So in order to stay in this marriage trust has to be addressed.
Well he stole money from our 15 yr old son about a month ago to buy cigarettes. He was completely sober.I just found out last night. First he hurt our son and once again showed him how to live like a sneak and coward. A sick sneak and coward.
Then there's us. I'm very angry. I went to bed mad.
This morning I tried to speak my mind and played the "I don't need to hear what you have to say I already feel horrible" card.
I told him, he had to make it right. Give the money back and talk to our son.
I told him I need time to process this. Right now I feel like it's day one all over again! It makes me analyze his recovery which I don't want to do.
Thank you for letting me share this. I would appreciate any ESH.
((Ceeleee)) Recovery from the devastating disease of alcoholism is a life long process and when one is 4 months sober, they are still just at the beginning of the journey. It is important to understand that this disease affects the physical, spiritual and emotional centers of a person and stopping drinking is just the beginning.
The First Step suggests that we are powerless over people,places and things so being able to express your disappointment to your hubby and the let go and Let God helps
I do understand your concern over your 15 year old son and would like to suggest that I feel he would benefit greatly from attendance at alateen meetings.
Please keep coming back
Understanding that alcoholism is a disease does not excuse behavior, but it does help explain it. The first year of my husband's sobriety was the hardest, for both me and him. I had to learn to trust him again, but he also needed to learn to trust himself. I never had children, so I don't have the experience of helping a child understand, but I was raised in an alcoholic home and my mother learned about the disease and explained it to me. It helped a great deal to hear that my father was not a bad person, but had a disease that made him do bad things. Later in Al-Anon I learned to hate the behavior instead of the person.
I find face-to-face meetings and the phone with both my sponsor and other program friends to be helpful in venting when I'm angry, and helping to reason things out when I need to confront or take other action.
I think making a living amends is the right thing to do .. do you have a sponsor? This is one of those issues that a sponsor helps or even bringing this up as a topic at a meeting. One of my favorite stories is an RA who made the plain and simple statement .. Yes, I have a disease. I am still responsible for my behavior drunk or sober.
Bottom line is this .. he did something he knew was wrong, my XAH stole from our kids all of the time to the point that he would leave the house and they would count money or whatever .. it is not ok. I am very sorry you are dealing with this and more so that your son is .. I do believe it is ok to say Dad is not ok the issue of theft is what disturbs me greatly probably because of my children's experiences with it.
I do not trust my XAH for a myriad of reasons. He has never taken responsibility for his actions for his part in our relationship or that of the relationship with the kids. He honestly doesn't deserve to be trusted because he continues to do things he says he's not going to do .. in my case .. lie about paying what he should for the kids. That's the uncomfortable truth and you can sugar coat it anyway you choose that's a fact.
As far as working through my own anger .. my XAH has shown me who the disease of alcoholism has made him .. I choose to believe who he has shown me to be .. a HUGE step would be actions not words when it comes to taking care of his financial business. He's my X for a reason and I don't know how I would choose to address the issue of trusting someone who is not trustworthy at this point. Understanding he is sick is great and all .. I get that .. and for the most part I deal with my frustration of the situation to the best of my ability. I take precautions when it comes to dealing with him .. meaning when he makes promises to the kids I preface it with them of I know this is what your dad means why don't we wait and see what xyz day brings. It helps them quell the issue of disappointment with their dad.
I think your son needs to protect his financial independence .. meaning .. do not keep money in the house where it can be seen or taken. It's a sad lesson however it's very much a reality for what your kiddo is dealing with. I have taken these moments and made them teachable moments of personal safety and the fact this is not their fault. Their dad makes his own bed and gets angry about what he has to sleep in when it comes to his personal relationships and people he has hurt.
Hugs this is a difficult thing to watch kids go through .. they have no choice and no voice.
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Faith minus vulnerability and mystery equals extremism. If you've got all the answers, then don't call what you do "faith". - Brene Brown
"Whatever truth you own doesn't own you" - Gary John Bishop
I am reminded of the slogan...'More will be revealed.' I agree that this disease is never an excuse for poor choices or poor behavior. Yet it does truly help to explain it. As he progresses through his recovery, there will be possibly more that comes out that is maddening....where Al-Anon helped me was to detach from the past, present and future with indifference at times and love at others.
Expectations were a huge problem for me. I expected with recovery that amends would happen. Nope - never. I expected with recovery, that behaviors would improve. Yes/No - some did and some did not. So - my motives in 'sharing what I know' often were tied to how I expected another to deal with it. That backfired on me as I was slipped into control again and then angry or disappointed when they handled it differently than I would (or not at all).
For years, my boys would come to me and express their anger/sadness/concern/whatever over their father's actions/words/attitude. For years, I made excuses and tried to 'repair it' - all of which backfired and the boys resented me because I could not change their father and their father resented me for being the messenger/go-between.
Al-Anon helped me step out of this 'monkey in the middle' area, and show empathy to both sides. Al-Anon also gave me the courage to suggest my boys, once they were teen-age, try to talk to their father instead of me. I was able to explain I was not in control and that I was sorry they were hurting. I was able to own my part and offer professional help to/for them. But, as I worked the program, I also worked to retire my many hats in our family.
Our powerlessness over alcohol doesn't stop there - I'm reminded daily that I am powerless over most things and my job is to take care of me and my actions as best I can. (((Hugs))) - the quick to say and consider 'Bless Them, Change Me' has been a great tool for these types of 'gotcha' revelations.
Keep coming back!
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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
I may be wrong in my interpretation of your post but this reminded me of the times where I would exaggerate an event and a lot of my own pain and anger would leak out from it and it didn't quite fit with the crime if you see what I mean. Your husbands disease makes a cheat thief and liar of him, it did in my home too. Ive came to see its the reality of alcoholism. Hes newly sober, getting his head on straight and this takes time for both them and us. The old behaviours will spill out and your old reactions will too. Think about the time he spent with very disturbed and distorted thought processes that often allowed bad behaviour through highly skilled justifications. The same goes for us. How important is it? This might be a really god opportunity for you both to help your son understand the nature of the disease. Of course stealing is wrong and bad habits can form, your husband is working on breaking so many bad habits, maybe he needs a bit of forgiveness and understanding as do you.
I am right with you on the "I already feel horrible card". I have learned to be accepting of his feelings, because I do think he means it, but ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh it is so annoying to hear. Mine is only 7 months in so I'm pretty much in same boat.
Thank you for your responses. Just being able to share is helpful. I'm trying not to over react or over analyze it. When he first told me he took the money, it took awhile before I said anything because I didn't want to react in haste and anger.
He has given a sincere apology since and admitted to taking more money then he initially said.
Yes it is a flashback or reminder of his active days and it makes me ill.
He said he spoke with my son. Since I had nothing to do with it I'm not saying anything to my son unless he approaches me and wants to discuss it. I will ask him if he needs to talk and that's it.It's not my sin.
I'm not even going to warn him to hide his money. We've done all of that for years. I've apologized thousands of times for things my AH has done. I'm not doing it this time. At the moment it is out of anger and taking the blame for something I didn't do will make it worse.
I'm really trying to change. I want to learn from this and then turn it over to my HP.
