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.
We're breaking up. I leave soon. He has been off with this drinking buddies every weekend for months now. Hardly even a call. He goes for days at a time. I have endured all the worry and all the rest. He just comes back when the money runs out.
I feel sad, and yes I am resentful and feel used. I'm not handling this very well.
I thought I was strong.
I haven't had a decent nights sleep for ages.
Last night I went home from work and was packing my car to leave. This was a real inconvenience to him because I had to walk in front of the tv. He called me names. I had enough.
To me, he's been staying out weekends all the time -fact. He has underhand giggly phone conversations that he thinks I don't know about -fact. I conclude from this and other things that he's been seeing someone else. I have accused him of this in the past. He just goads me, thinks its funny. It cuts me up.
Anyway last night I challenged him. I asked him where he was all weekend. After all the usual BS it's none of my business etc, he said he was in his buddies house as usual. I knew he had been in a bar. I pointed this out. I then asked who he was with. He called me paranoid etc. I asked hin to show me his phone, his calls, messages.
Amazingly, he had no problem with that!! Any yes there was a call to some Karen at 7.40am on Saturday. ????????????????
He says she is friend of his drinking buddy (I never heard of her), and was able to get vodka for them..........He didn't convince me. I felt so used. I had all kinds going through my head.
Now, I know I'm leaving and I should have walked away. Anyway, I was so shocked, distraught, disbelieving, I lost it. I hit him several times. He just goaded me. Called me names. I kept on punching. I threw his stuff out. I didn't care if it was smashed. There was shouting and screaming and name calling. It was awful.
I've had such a headache since. He's staying at my place, that I alone have paid rent for this week. (I told him it was okay not to pay the rent this week because he was trying to sort out a new place. Instead he spent all his money on....whatever....not me anyway). That was foolish of me I know, but I didn't want to be nasty in the breakup.
The resentment is overpowering me today. I am so ashamed and guilty about what I did. I'm locked away at work and I don't want to face the outside world. I can't believe what I have turned into. I feel very worthless at the moment.Not sure if I want to emigrate or just disappear. I know I am finding all this hard to cope with.
The way I feel at the moment is that I will never risk having a relationship with a man again.
I used to laugh a lot and be good company and fun to be around. I enjoyed life and always looked for the positive. This is the me I am trying to reclaim.
But lately, I seem to spend my weekends worrying and fretting and feeling abandoned. And then in the week, I look to him for reassurance (Which of course I know he cannot give). I feel resentful and agressive.
I related in a face to face that I blew up at my AW, that I felt horrable and really couldn't justify what I had done. It was one of my first few meetings and someone hooked up with me after the meeting and smiled. She was the first to offer me the "Hurt people hurt people".
The emotional side effects of this disease makes us as crazy (for me even crazier) than the A's in our lives. They have a way to cope... they ignore reality and drink. We have to use our program and learn to live our lives differently.
It's tough... be gentle with yourself. I threw my cell phone through the wall of the garage, and kicked a hole in the bedroom wall. Didn't make me feel better at all, but I just lost it. I am glad we both have a great place to vent it and level set ourselves.
I thank my HP every day for this board, this program and everyone in it.
Take care of you!
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"Good judgement comes from experience... experience comes from bad judgement" - unknown
One thing that has stuck with me from the beginning of my recovery is that "we are considered the crazy ones (due to our behavior) and those dern A's get off scot free." They are drunk aka sick. What's our excuse? That helps me so much when I feel like I'm losing it.
You have done a lot of steps here -- Step 1, Step 4 and 5, now let go and let God -- sometimes the amend we make is to change our behavior. It's in the valleys that we grow.
keep coming yours in recovery, Maria123
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If I am not for me, who will be? If I am only for myself, then who am I? If not now, when?
I can totally understand how you feel right now. I used to have the ame kind of fights with my Abf, just because he would never validate my feelings, that drove me crazy and I just snapped.
It's not your fault what you did. We are humans, and we go through so much, and we let the A's problems, feelings, lives, etc. be above our own, that is understandable to just let it all out at once.
I am so sorry you are going through this. It is such a traumatic thing to live with an A, and now you are breaking up, even more traumatic at times I would assume.
You know, you are okay. You are venting here, and talking about your feelings. It is a process to let go, and you are working on it, though it feels like the world is ending and your feelings are shame and guilt and being used. I thank you for having the courage to speak out and talk about it, that will help you work through this.
I know very well about the other woman thing. It is a horrible, sinking feeling to think about them confiding with someone else, or etc.... which happened all of this year with my AH. Someone told me that the truth is they need someone to make them feel better, and also to drink with. It has nothing to do with us or our relationships. He knows you are a good person and deserve so much more than he is able to give in the throes of his sickness. And all the crisis that this disease throws at you is too much for anyone to take.
As far as getting physical with him, don't feel bad. This disease makes anyone crazy enough to strike out. I have done it a few times, and usually AH was too drunk to have it even phase him. The last time I did something physical I PUSHED him as hard as I could (he was standing by the toilet) and he fell into the tub, hitting his head on the tile of the shower as he fell. I was horrified right away, thinking that blow to the head from the tile could have killed him! He was that limp and unresponsive, that drunk. After that I just tried to walk away. But it is amazing how you can be enraged by their behavior as fast as lightning, and then you are out of control. So hard not to walk away and do the right thing.
Maybe it is a good thing you are going separate ways for now. It may not be forever. He can work out his problems and perhaps seek recovery - and you can work on your recovery, and have some peace and quiet for a time, and find some joy again.
Annmarie, you are such a good person. Please stay strong and post - we need you here. Take care of yourself.
I am pretty new to this site, but began looking for help a little over a year ago now. What made me seek help was my behavior. In the summer of 2005, I was out with a girlfriend, having a couple of drinks. The A was at home getting pickeled. As my girlfriend and I had a few, I began to dwell on all the things that had happened, all the wrong things my AH had done. I began to get angry. I had a few more drinks. I ended up getting bombed and pissed. When I got home, the A was in bed. I woke him up. I was mad as hell and felt that he needed to know right then and there all the ways he had hurt me. I said mean and cruel things. The next day I felt so bad for my behavior. I couldn't justify it by saying that I only said those things because I was hurting inside. It was wrong, plain and simple. I felt so guilty for laying out this hurt. Then I realized that I had behaved just like my AH. It was then that I knew I needed help in dealing with the ways I had been affected. I realized that I could not beat myself up over this, instead I had to find out WHY I had done it and take steps to make sure I didn't do it again.
It is easy to lash out when you've had enough. Don't be too hard on yourself.
Try and remember the most awful thing about addiction is love has absolutely nothing to do with it......I in my heart of hearts I beleive no one would want to live the life of an addict it is hell...however something is greater than the addict no matter what the drug of choice....and they are just not strong enough.....
I understand you pain of worthlessness, I am not going to tell you that your life will be better tomorrow or the next day....I am however, going to say it becomes managable we find a way each and every day to muttle thru it all....and if that is what it takes for now then it's ok......it's ok to cry, scream, sleep, lock yourself in your room whatever it takes for now....one day at a time, one minute at a time.....
(((Annemarie))) boy that's tough to get to that space where we react. I remember the day my family were on the way to our house from the airport, and my husb came home blotto. I was EVIL. I let him know it all (even though he no longer had the power of understanding). Then I imagined our neighbors hearing us, and I realized they would think I was the mental one. I was.
One of the benefits of staying in AlAnon is behaving as I would like to be seen. Keep coming back!
The insanity of alcoholism goes far beyond the alcoholic, which is why it is called a family disease.... You are hard on yourself, because you expect yourself to be sane, rational, and unaffected by this disease..... I was the same way, for a long time, and simply could not see how much damage my wife's alcoholism had done to me.... I had become sick, and had definitely become someone I was not proud of - heck, I barely recognized myself!! In time, you will recover, and you will become you again..... Try to be gentle on yourself - you have been living in crisis for several months (years?) now, and it finally came to a head for you.... You have tried to carry an "uncarry-able" burden for most of this time, and it finally broke you....
There is an old saying in Al-Anon, that "I did the best I could with what I knew at the time". Your post reminded me of that saying. You are not bad, and you are not wrong... what you are, is human. Learn from it, and move on. Keep posting, keep working on you, and become the person that YOU want to be.
Take care of you...
Tom
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"He is either gonna drink, or he won't.... what are YOU gonna do?"
"What you think of me is none of my business"
"If you knew the answer to what you are worrying about, would it REALLY change anything?"
yours in recovery,