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~ Life With An Alcoholic Husband

QuietRagingWaters

Monthly Archives: October 2019

The Stuff No One Tells You (About Being Married To An Alcoholic)

28 Monday Oct 2019

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alcoholic husband, living with an alcoholic husband, married to an alcoholic

It’s Monday morning.

The Monday morning when I planned to start taking this blog – and my life – in a new direction.

The direction I have pined for for a very long time now.

But then this morning played out in such a stark, sad irony that I feel compelled to write about it.

My (to-be-ex) husband leaves very early for work. 5 am. I am not normally up when he leaves but this morning I had to finish up some things one of my kids needed for school. (Yes, they may have told me around 10 o’clock Sunday night, ha.) As he was getting his coat and things to leave for work, I stood not ten feet from him. He put on his coat, picked up his bag and…

Walked out the door.

Not so much as a “why are you up” or “have a good day” or even the most basic “good bye.” Literally nothing. No matter how many times he does this (and he’s done it before to be sure) I still can’t get my head around this kind of behavior. I mean, you have to TRY to not say good-bye to someone who is standing just feet away, right? I contemplated for a moment calling him on his behavior but then I realized, why? Obviously this is the way he WANTS to go through life so what impact will any words from me have on him?

Shortly after my (to-be-ex) husband’s behavior, I left for Starbucks. (I don’t think it takes much to see how or why it is I came to carve out my morning Starbuck’s routine and family.) There was one of the people I see regularly but hadn’t seen in awhile there. We said our pleasantries, how have you been, what are the kids up to, etc. and then as I got my coffee and went to sit down…

“It’s good to see you.”

I felt like the Gringe, in that my heart “grew three sizes.”

Has he really beaten me down so far that a simple (though sincere I’m sure) salutation from a virtual stranger can warm me?

This is the stuff no one tells you about living with an alcoholic.

People think they know.

People think it’s just the drinking. Just the drunk week-ends, trashed holidays and/or ruined family events.

But being married to an alcoholic is so much bigger than that…

Because it affects even the smallest things in your life.

I Promised

27 Sunday Oct 2019

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For so long now – for SO! LONG! “All” I have wanted is my own house!

My own house that is filled with color and over-stuffed furniture and whimsical art and…

Laughter and emotional safety and joy.

I just want my own house!

It’s a lament that has been echoing through my brain, heart and soul for years now.

And now something has happened…

Something that means I can no longer hide in my procrastination.

Something that if this doesn’t push me, I fear that nothing ever will.

My kids had friends over last night.

They got loud, as kids will do.

My husband told them to quiet down and they did.

Temporarily.

As kids will do.

My husband told them again to be quiet.

And then as he was walking away, past my daughter, he hissed in her ear,

“You guys are fucking pissing me off.”

She told me she wasn’t going to tell me “at first” because she fears me confronting him because he then yells at her for “tattling.” She was crying as she told me.

“Mom,” she sobbed, “he thought he was whispering but everyone heard.”

She was mortified.

I don’t know who this man is anymore.

He is not the man I married by a long shot.

How am I suppose to wrap my head around this kind of treatment?!

I promised her last night.

Promised, promised, promised…PROMISED her this was our last holiday season in the same house with him.

Now to make that happen.

“Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness.” (George Bernard Shaw)

It’s 2 am…

24 Thursday Oct 2019

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Sometimes I think about it.

Being with someone else.

Not now while I’m married.

When I am no longer married.

I think,

Could I?

Could I even be with another man?

I can’t imagine.

Wanting to even kiss someone.

I can’t imagine wishing someone was here when he’s away.

I can’t imagine going to Starbucks or Home Depot or the grocery store with someone.

I can’t imagine someone wanting to do those things with me.

It’s not I have “low self-esteem” or that I am bitter.

I’m just so dead inside.

Who Really Threw Away The 40 Years?

19 Saturday Oct 2019

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alcoholic husband, alcoholic relapse, married to an alcoholic, wife of an alcoholic

There is a regular group of us who gather at Starbucks.

We weren’t friends first who decided to meet at Starbucks.

We were five or six individuals who found ourselves regularly in the same place.

Friendships like this are kind of odd because we are as sincere and honest with one another as with any friend and yet, who we are outside our morning get-togethers is relatively unknown. Oh, we know about each other’s kids or grandkids, pets or new car, each other’s political views and yet, at the same time, we know very little about each other. Our personal lives – the nitty gritty stuff – doesn’t really enter into our morning gatherings.

Except when it has to.

When something so large, so all-encompassing occurs in one of our lives that it can’t help but sneak in.

Amongst the group is a man, in his late 60’s. “Jim.”

By all accounts, Jim is a devoted father, husband and recently new grandpa.

He and his wife are financially comfortable and have good relationships with their children. They are active in the community. All and all, they seem to have carved out a nice life for themselves and their family.

Jim is also a recovered alcoholic who suffers from depression. (But then what alcoholic doesn’t have a comorbidity of depression?)

He mentioned this once to me, a rare moment when it was just him and I having coffee, though I’m sure everyone else knows as well.

That was a long time ago, he told me.

He got the appropriate help, pursued the necessary sobriety.

He seemed neither asahmed nor “proud” (in that annoying way some recoverying alcoholics can be) of his past. In fact, it seemed like he had exatly the “right” attitude about his drinking and recovery. He owned it without wearing it.

A success story in the alcoholic recovery areana.

Recently he told us that his wife of 40 years had left him!

I literally did not think I heard him correctly.

I told him somethig along the lines of,

“I thought you said your wife moved out.”

He said,

“I did. She did.”

I couldn’t believe it.

He said that was the reaction of all his friends.

He didn’t go into details but he did say that they were in counseling and he “just needed” to “keep the drinking under control.”

I know alcoholic double-speak when I hear it.

He started drinking again.

This man is so gentle, so kind, so nice that it’s hard to reconcile the limited snapshot I have of him with what I know the big picture of alcoholism is.

But I can do it.

I understand.

I dobut those who interact with my husband outside of our home would ever guess who he is behind closed doors.

I told Jim I noticed he still wears his wedding ring.

He said he is hopeful and optimistic he and his wife will get through this. He said,

“I don’t think she is going to throw away 40 years.”

Wow.

I smiled politely but inside I raged.

There was SO MUCH I wanted to say.

It’s the rare – if any! – alcoholic who REALLY! GETS! What it’s like to be married to them!

I wanted to say to him,

“You know, when you’re an alcoholic who got sober but then falls off the wagon, it’s not ‘starting over’ in your wife’s eyes.”

I wanted to say,

“All that pain of the years ago, it wasn’t erased by your sobriety. It may have been tempered but it wasn’t erased. She may have chosen to not feel it but it’s still there.”

I wanted to say,

“This is not a new chapter to her. This is another chapter of the same, old tired book that she thought she was done with.”

I wanted to say,

“She’s not throwing away 40 years. You did.”

“One drink at a time.”

I Find You Sit In Your Car Alot…

07 Monday Oct 2019

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when you’re married to an alcoholic.

At least I do.

I used to sit in there and cry.

Sometimes I would leave the house, get in my car and drive around the corner before I let myself cry.

Other times it would be when I was coming home from somewhere and I’d sit in my car and cry before going into my house.

I seem to not do that anymore.

The crying in my car.

Have my tears all dried up?

I don’t know but I still sit in my car.

Often.

Last night it was after I had gone to the grocery store.

I just sat there in the dark parking lot.

Eating chips and onion dip.

Yep, I am a car eater.  (As in I eat alone in my car, not I eat cars.)

It is 100% emotional eating.

I don’t need a shrink to tell me there is nothing healthy – emotionally or physically –  about sitting alone in your car, in a dark parking lot, eating copious amounts of potato chips and dip.  I suppose a well-lite parking lot wouldn’t be any better.

My car is both my sanctuary and my hell.

It insulates me from the realities of my life, temporarily anyway, when I just can’t seem to face them.

But it also invites out my demons.

Chips, soda, cheese danish from 7-11 that probably sat in a warehouse for months before making its way to the convienence store shelf.  Why don’t we ever self-medicate with fruit or vegetables?  Maybe a little “binge” eating of cucumbers and humus.

There is a fine line between seeking solace and hiding.

I cross it regularly in my car.

If Someone Had Tried To Tell Me…

04 Friday Oct 2019

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all the various and un-thought-of ways an alcoholic husband destroys his marriage, I probably wouldn’t have believed what they were saying.  I mean, afterall, isn’t there only one “real” problem when you are married to an alcoholic?  He drinks too much.  And if he stopped drinking, then there would be no more problem, right?

If only.

I had very little (zero!) experience or association with any sort of alcoholic before I married my husband.  (And in being married to an alcoholic, I have come to realize how rare a gift my innocence was.)  Alcoholics were people who drank too much.  And they needed to stop drinking too much.  What else would there be to that equation?

A lot more of course.

Because alcoholism poisons the whole person, it in turns poisons all who he (or she) has a relationship with.  It doesn’t matter if he’s not drinking one day.  It doesn’t matter if he’s on a bender.  Alcoholism is like the pesky kid sister who is always around, always there whinning to be included or she’s going to tell mom.  Problem is, pesky little sisters grow up.  The alcoholic beast grows – but only in strength and magnitude.

I had lunch with a friend the other day.  She commented that for her birthday the day before, her husband had taken the day off and they went hiking.

I nearly gasped.

Not so much because my husband would never take the day off to spend my birthday with me but because I can’t even imagine wanting him to!  I sat there thinking, there must have been a day when I wanted to be with him, right?  There MUST have been.

THAT’S how much the alcoholic destroys those who love (or loved or try to love) the alcoholic.  I don’t simply no longer want to spend time with my husband; I can’t even REMEMBER when it was that I did.  But you want to hear something even worse?

I can’t imagine EVER wanting to spend time with any man.  By the time I get out of this marriage, I feel like all I will possible want is my own little cottage, my books and journals and solitary days waiting for the grandchildren to start being born.

I’m not sad about it though.

I’m actually looking forward to it.

Quite a bit.

I Used To Think I Would Never Have An Affair

01 Tuesday Oct 2019

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Before I was married – and right up to just a few years ago – I felt I would never, ever have an affair.  In fact, I didn’t understand how people could have affairs.  I mean, how do you do That with someone else and NOT be thinking about your spouse?  The betrayal?  The consequences should you be discovered?  The pain you are causing for what can only be considered purely selfish reasons?

Then this marriage of mine happened but I still wasn’t convinced.  Sex is just so…intimate.  I mean, even in a bad marriage, an unhappy marriage, a dead marriage, how could you…I mean it’s not like I’m 25 (or 35 or even 45) and especially excited about the idea of frolicking all naked between the sheets.

But I’ve had some old friends, old boyfriends, old crushes, old “flames” (ok, actually one of each) contact me and each made it clear that…

And I was tempted.  Especially by the old crush! I mean, the chance to finally…that guy I secretly pined away for all those precious years back.

But besides feeling old and out-of-shape and like the poster child for “she let herself go,” there is something else that just won’t let me venture down that ill-trodded path.

And it has nothing to do with my husband.

It’s my children.

I thought about could I…would I…should I.

And then I thought about my children.

And what if they found out?  I would be beyond embarrassed.  Beyond horrified.  Beyond humiliated.  Oh, of course my children would forgive me.  They’d put it “out of their minds” and maybe even one day, as fully grown adults, understand.

But I would never forgive me.

I could never put it out of my mind.

I have lost so much of Me to this marriage.

I won’t lose the respect of my children.

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