Hello Susie,
Welcome to Miracles in Progress. Alanon is a good place to find others that have been through the same things you have with an alcoholic in the family. I agree with Betty that we have developed negative coping skills that Alanon can help us change. Things can be very subtle when we are talking about feelings and actions. Your husband might not ever talk to you about the past. That does not mean he does not regret the things he has put you through or that he cares less for you. Sometimes we rely to much on other people to determine our own worth and that can be unhealthy. You are not alone.

My A is an ex-bf, and he has only been sober for a little over two months. When I was with him, I felt like I was competing with his drinking that of course was more important. I have been through the hospital stays and the sickness of the disease. For me, I had to rebuild my life by myself that took almost 2 years. Even though I still talk to my ex-bf, I don't bring up the past anymore because we cannot change it. I have been in counseling before but I think the support from a program like Alanon is something different. Glad you are here, keep coming back!

Keep coming back. With all the focus they steal, this is a place to nourish you.

Welcome to MIP Susieb,

This is a great place to learn and to find others who share in our experiences.

My husband is now two and a half years sober. When he was drinking and I was working hard to survive as well as trying to hold our marriage together I remember thinking to myself 'oh boy, he better appreciate me when we get through this mess.' That desire for appreciation is natural I think, it matters in healthy relationships so why not ours? However, in the context of an unhealthy relationship I think that my wanting to feel needed and appreciated is one of the things that kept me hooked. I learnt to cope. I coped quite well really. But might it have been healthier for us both if I hadn't tried to put up with so much rubbish? I was part of the problem by staying for so long I think. Who knew!!

Anyway, before my husband quit alcohol I kind of stopped looking to him for validation and I started to (a) place more value my own opinions about myself, (b) have a minimum benchmark of what I thought I deserved from someone if they wanted to call me their wife (like good manners, a bit of appreciation - just normal stuff really! and (c) consider what I would was able to give to my marriage as well. For example I think that alcoholism carries with it a lot of shame and I don't really want to be the one to be reminding my husband of how ghastly it all was (although I'd be lying if I didn't say that I'd probably love it if he could apologise sometime!). At the end of the day it comes down to a balance and awareness of what I need to be happy and what I'm prepared to negotiate on.

So how have I been building up my own self-esteem? I have learnt to quilt (because I thought that I couldn't sew!!), completed a creative writing course, started painting again and now I'm on a one year Post Grad course at university. Whilst attending Uni I found myself some lovely digs to live in, I've made new friends and I'm learning a lot! A a result I feel good about myself. From time to time my husband says that he is proud of me and whilst that feels nice, it is not nearly as important for me as the pride that I take in myself. I think that my husband is lucky to have me and finally I am getting glimpses of some of his assets as well.

I hope this makes some sense - it has turned out much longer than I expected!! By the way, I learnt all this through Al Anon - not in a prescriptive way, but just by shifting my focus onto me for a while. It felt a little selfish to begin with, but to be honest it is what I needed to do in order to start giving again. It worked for me!!

Just another viewpoint. I had hoped that when my husband got sober, he would be able to acknowledge what he had put me through and how destructive his addiction had been.  But he kept trying the same kind of denial he'd had when he was drinking.  Like "Well, I stopped drinking, it was kind of a problem for me, that's why I did it."  No acknowledgement of the many ways it had been painful for me - the lying, stealing, hiding, not showing up for things, belligerence to me and other people, lack of trust, chaos, unreliability.  We were seeing a counselor and the counselor got him to agree to write out an acknowledgement because he couldn't bring himself to say it out loud.  He took months before he would write it and finally he typed it and it said, "Dear Mattie, Sorry.  [Name]"  That's all, that was the whole thing.  It took him months just to type the word "Sorry."  Well, this wasn't what I meant by acknowledgement, but then it was "Why can't you let it go, what's your problem, you are so sensitive, you should get help for your oversensitive brain" - the same stuff he was saying when he was drinking.

Basically I felt in his case it was a dangerous denial of the real state of his drinking.  His attitude was "Well, my drinking was a problem because people were on my case and I got a stupid DUI because the stupid state wants to stop people having fun."  And his refusal to acknowledge the real harm was part and parcel of him never facing the fact that he caused a huge amount of turmoil. And the turmoil was of his own making, not because other people and the state were just oversensitive.  He never owned up to that.

In fact he did start drinking again not long after.  And I think his refusal to acknowledge the problems were a symptom of the fact that his recovery was never very strong.  If he had acknowledged those problems, I would have been willing to work on putting our relationship back together.  As it was, I stayed with him until it was more than clear that his drinking was not going to go away.  But I never really relaxed, and in retrospect that was realistic on my part.

My guess if that if they really understand and change, it will be apparent in their actions.  If not, that will also be apparent.

Just a thought--do with it what you will. 1. You are not being selfish in recognizing your own needs and feelings. 2. When I start to feel resentful about "the past" I wonder what it is in the present moment that is triggering it. Are their or my behaviors from the past reasserting themselves? Has my relationship partner ignored me, made me feel less than, done something that reminds me of them or someone else in the past? What is my role in the triggering or current response? For instance, just recently I felt like Inwas being ghosted by a friend, which triggers abandonment issues for me. I had a choice--give the situation and her more time to respond to my reaching out; reach out and ask what I'd done wrong; reach out and complain about the lack of communication; insert any of many other alternatives. I considered the possible (and likelihood of) repercussions of each option. Then I set my plan--I would only reach out X more times in a neutral way, suggesting coffee breaks or something normal for us. Then I stopped. Soon after I stopped, she reached out to me. Turned out (and yes, this was among the many scenarios I'd run in my head) that she had been in her own I-need-a-break-from-everyone path. When we got together, I shared my concern that I wondered if she was ghosting me but that I understood where she'd been and her need. She apologized (which I didn't need but which was nice) and said she understood how and why I interpreted silence the way I do. Anyway, a long way to suggest that you may want to look at what in the present is causing you to feel resentful. Address the present. Hope that the past is eventually addressed as well.

Thanks so much for your kind words...they really helped.  I'm learning that part of this selfishness and lack of emotion is just part of his personality.