Tag Archives: alcoholic husband

There Is No Bottom

12 Friday Oct 2018

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I’m not a huge fan of Alcoholics Annoymous though I always do qualify that by saying,

“But if it works for someone, then that is great.”

My issues with AA stem from the fact that its doctrine seems to put forth this idealogy that alcoholism is somehow this “simple” issue that has their one and only “simple” solution.

Turn your drinking over to (your version) of God. They couch God in the euphamism of “your high power” but don’t be fooled. AA is a faith based program.

Never drink again.

Attend AA meetings indefinitely.

One other, in my opinion, myth AA perpetuates is this idea of “rock bottom.” As in the alcoholic has to hit “rock bottom” before he will be able to stop drinking.

Of course for some alcoholics, there will be a cataclysmic event that so shocks and scares them that they turn to a life of sobriety and never look back.

They kill someone in a car accident.

They almost kill someone.

They pass out only to wake up with no idea where they are or how they got there.

They experience blackouts that cause them to lose days of their lives.

Jail time.

Yes, these can happen.

Of course they can.

Alcoholism takes all forms.

BUT…

The truth is the majority of alcoholics never hit the proverbial rock bottom.

They just free fall indefinitely until they get tired of falling.

Or never stop falling.

For most, alcoholism is a chasm with no bottom.

And guess what?

It’s the exact same for the wives of alcoholics!!

We don’t finaly decide to leave because there is one big, overwhelming event or tragedy that jars out of our troubled complacency: we decide to leave because the daily living of little tragedies (peppered with the classic-alcoholic events like ruined holidays and drunken family vacations) finally becomes too much.

I know I buried my lead here, but I am leaving.

I didn’t lead with my lead because I felt the need to explain.

I have said I needed to leave before.

I have written about my “decision” to leave and then wrote no more of any effort.

It’s not because I “lied” or was posturing.

It wasn’t an idle threat launched in the world blogging.

It’s because this is the very difficult and convulted emotinonal trajectory of leaving an alcoholic husband.

We make the decision over and over again until we finally make the decision.

I have chosen the date.

June 14, 2019.

There are things I need to get in place (i.e. finances. aka money!) and while June 7, 2019 is doable it will also be a hustle.

The biggest obstacle women face in leaving their alcoholic husbands is making the definitive decision to leave.

I have made the decision.

I am tired of falling.

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My Heart Is Broken

19 Sunday Aug 2018

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We went on a “day trip” yesterday to hike in the mountains.

We used to do this sort of thing as a family “all the time.”

I don’t know when we stopped.

Not all at once.

Just one day we didn’t.

Until another day we didn’t.

Until we just didn’t.

But yesterday we tried.

I don’t know why.

It was a disaster though I suspect not a disaster that anyone else noticed.

(Or did they?)

I felt like the only sober person at a party of drunks.

My family is short with one another, they snipe at one another and there seems to be a constant flow of ridicule.

No one can answer one another nicely or with a nice tone.

It seems no matter what anyone has to say to another, their voice is laced with hostility.

I suspect much of it is just “habit” now.

It’s my husband’s fault.

Yes, it is.

An alcoholic in the household is the proverbial bad apple.

No one is rubbing off on him.

He’s rubbing off on all of us.

It’s Not Too Late

26 Thursday Jul 2018

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I’ve never heard any woman who left her alcoholic husband say,

“I left too early.”

Or even,

“I left at just the right time.”

Every single woman I have ever spoken to who has left her alcoholic husband said,

“I should have left sooner.”

Every.

Single.

Woman.

And yet, I will dare to say they all probably did leave at exactly the right time because sooner, earlier it didn’t yet make sense to them. It couldn’t make sense earlier.

I don’t think any woman can understand – or even believe – how bad the alcoholism is going to progress. It seems unfathomable when her husband is “just” drinking a little too much during the week or “only” getting drunk on the week-ends. It seems incomprehensible that her husband, albeit drinking compulsively, is ever going to be the angry, hostile, combative, detached, abusive man she hears of from other wives. It’s not we doubt these woman who’s hell has progessed beyond ours. It’s just…

Have you ever seen the Wheaten Terrier dog breed?

As a puppy, the dog’s coat is a deep reddish brown.

That turns WHITE as the animal matures.

My friend had one and I told her if I hadn’t seen it as a puppy, I would have never believed it! I couldn’t imagine how that deep, dark colored coat would eventually grow in white.

Living with an alcholic husband is sort of like that.

You can’t imagine the animal your husband’s drinking is will become the beast others must battle.

But it does.

And so if and when we decide to leave, we can think we left “too late” or we should have left “earlier.”

I certainly have been feeling this but then I was talking to a friend Monday morning and we were re-capping our week-ends. She said she had a really nice week-end as both her college-age kids were home with their girlfriends and they all “sat around” all week-end watching movies, playing board games, etc.

All I want (ALL!! I WANT!!) is a home that is pleasant and cozy and roomy and nice and comfortable and safe. But as my children get older and older (one is off to college next year!) I found myself thinking it’s “too late.” I “should have” given that to my kids sooner. But hearing about my friend’s week-end made me see…

It’s never too late to enjoy your life!

It’s One Of Those Nights (Mornings)

16 Saturday Jun 2018

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It’s 3 am.

I have a glass of white, a bottle of diet coke and an ice cream sandwich.

I have my brand new “Passion Planner,” which if you don’t know what it is, you’re probably not the planner/notebook/calendar junkie I am. I could recite all sorts of acolydes and praise for the Passion Planner – and I’m sure all justified – but the truth is it’s just one more (planner) desperate attempt by a desperate woman to some how gain control of her life. Her Self.

I’ve cried this early morning hour for the loved ones I’ve lost and miss.

And for the life I lost and miss.

We have a wedding to go to in the normal-morning hours and when I tried on the outfit I plan to wear, all I could think was,

I’m as big as a house.

I’ve “let myself go.”

I have.

I’m one of those women.

I blame his drinking for that too.

I blame this whole hot-mess-of-a-life I am living on his drinking.

I do.

And I don’t think I am wrong.

But I do know regardless of who or what’s to blame, I am responsible.

Responsible for fixing in my life what his drinking has destroyed.

I just wish I had a better idea of how to do that exactly.

Time To Triple The-F Down

11 Monday Jun 2018

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I can’t get enough of this guy Gary Vee because he is so spot on!

I was watching this video and thought,

“I wonder what he would say if I told him how my marriage was killing me?”

And while obviously I can’t literally answer for him, I’ve watched enough of his videos now to think his answer might go something like this:

“Fuck him! Get the fuck out! Look, I’m not just some cold-hearted bastard but it all comes down to this: your life or your marriage. And if you spouse is dragging you down. If he’s making it so you can’t live your life, that you are WASTING this one opportunity you have at this thing called living, then you have to make the hard choices, the tough decisons.”

Yep, that’s what I think he would say.

It’s Been A Long Time Coming But I’ve Arrived!

29 Tuesday May 2018

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I love this guy.

And in this video, he actually mentions the demographic that I am part of!

Go figure.

I have to tell you, I am STOKED!

It’s taken a long time for me to get here, but I am HERE!!

I spent the day repeating the mantra I took from one of Gary Vee’s videos:

I am a human being!!

I made it!

To human being-ness!

It is flippin’ crazy when you really think about it.

As Gary Vee says, it’s winning the Universe’s Lotto!

And so when I came home tonight and my husband found a reason to yell and curse, I didn’t care!

But in the right way!

It wasn’t I didn’t care in that white-knuckling it sort of way where you are actually seething with anger.

No, I didn’t care as in that anger was NOT going to touch MY life.

It’s been a long journey but I am here!

At My Life.

And I’m unpacking my bags because I plan to stay for the duration.

This Blog Is No Longer About His Drinking

29 Tuesday May 2018

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When your husband is an alcoholic, it will make you feel miserable, hopeless, overwhelmed, irritable, depressed, angry, hostile, lonely.

Until you decide it doesn’t.

This is not to say you shouldn’t feel those things.

In fact, I think you have to.

You have to go through the storm.

But keep going.

Every morning for the past two, three, four, five years – I lost track – I would wake up hopeful and optimisitc.

The day before me was going to be The Day I changed.

I wouldn’t suffocate my feelings with food.

I wouldn’t yell at my kids.

I wouldn’t hate my life.

And every night when I went to bed, I felt I had failed.

I ate too much.

I yelled a lot.

I spent the day cursing my life and myself.

But I never gave up.

I didn’t even realize it but I never gave up.

I’d wake up the next morning with the same hope and optimism.

And yes, I’d go to bed with the same sense of defeat and failure.

But in between, I was reading and writing, journaling and “googling.”

I was finding other people – writers, speakers, sages – and I was listeing to their words. Reading their teachings.

Then yesterday I came upon this fella “Gary Vee” and the things he said and the way he said them just clicked.

It didn’t have to be him.

(He’d probably agree.)

But now I see, it was going to be someone because I never quit.

Even when I felt like I was quitting, I actually never quit.

I’m kind a proud of myself for that.

I think you have to feel the anger and hostility, the regret and despair but you feel them so you can move beyond them.

One day, in the words of Gary Vee, you have to say “fuck him!”

My life is no longer about him, his drinking or even the fall out of his drinking. That is all his to own.

My life – and this blog – is now about Me.

The Irony (And A Little Keith Urban)

13 Friday Apr 2018

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You know how you hear a song and most of the lyrics apply to you or a situation you’re in. Or the lyrics apply but only in a way you understand, not necessarily in the way the song writer intended? Rarely does a song represent your feelings 100% or in exactly the same way as it was written.

But sometimes a song does.

Sometimes it’s 100% spot on.

Like Keith Urban’s “The Fighter.”

I think of myself, my life years down the road and the words, the emotions, the meaning in this song fits so completely.

Which, ironically, is one of the thing that holds me back.

The knowledge (knoweledge!) that I could leave my husband and have a whole new life, complete with a healthy, happy and fulfilling relationship.

I think the outside world would be surprised, shocked, (angered even?) by the idea that a woman could regret her own happiness at the expense of her “no good drunk-ass husband’s” pain. But it’s true.

And I think as the wives of alcoholics, we have to really understand this and how it can play out in the efforts we make – or don’t make – to reclaim our lives. No one wants to leave someone behind to die – be it physically, emotionally, mentally or spiritually. Even if the “leaving behind” is simply moving forward with our own lives but not necessarily divorcing our husbands.

Of course the fallacy and real tragedy is that even if we are to deny our own happiness, our own potential, our own chance at living a fascinating, creative and interesting life in the name of protecting our husbands from their own pain, we aren’t protecting them at all. We aren’t taking away their pain or insulating them from it. We’re just perpetuating and creating more pain for ourselves.

I can’t be a life preserver for his life.

He’s still going to drown.

And I’ll drown with him.

Why I Finally Feel Ready To Leave

03 Monday Jul 2017

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People in the “outside” world seem to be befuddled by the fact that the wives of alcoholics don’t simply run for the door the first time they trip over a pile of “empties.” They think drinking problem = marriage dissolution. No questions asked. No doubt. No remorse or hesitation. If only it was that simple.

Or easy.

Or painless.

No, leaving our alcoholic husbands is never simply, easy and certainly not painless though that seems to befuddle the outside world as well. Why would we grieve leaving some “no-good drunk” of a husband?

Well, for lots of reasons I won’t go into right now. What I will go into is why I finally (finally?) feel ready to leave. Ironically, it has nothing to do with his drinking, per say.

I asked my husband if he wanted to take a vacation this summer.

“We can’t afford it.”

“Who is going to watch the dog?”

“I don’t know if I can get off work.”

No sooner did he finish his last objection thent I realized,

“Oh my God! I have been listening to these excuses for 20 years!”

Everything – EVERY! THING! I have ever – EVER! – presented to my husband in terms of our lives, direction we might take, dreams we might pursue, adventures we might create has always – ALWAYS – been met with the same – SAME – reasons why we CAN’T.

First and foremost is the steadfast,

“We can’t afford it.”

I don’t care if I was suggesting planting a willow tree in the backyard or taking an overnight trip to the lake.

“We can’t affort that.”

It’s his go-to, his safety, his stand-by.

Then, depending on the situation, he has his alternates.

The dog is a popular one for any sort of trip.

“What are we going to do with the dog?”

When I suggested we be foster parents (this was LONG ago, when I would even dare suggest such an idea), I guess since money is hardly an issue there, he had to pull out the,

“We don’t have room for that.”

There is also his all encompassing,

“That will never work.”

So when he said we “can’t afford” a vacation this summer, it hardly seemded the sort of thing that would cause a deep revelation within me. But that’s the thing with “revelations;” they may seem sudden, like a volcano erupting, but really they have been a long time coming. Like a volcano after all. The energy brewing and percolating beneath the surface, “undetected” until the day…

And so last night when my husband began with his litany of “can’ts,” it hit me,

“He will never want to do anything.”

His excuses are just that. Excuses. The real “excuse” is he doesn’t want to or can’t leave his comfort zone. He wants to work, come home, drink only to wake up and do it all again the next day. Now I by no means think he’s happy or fulfilled. No, I know he is quite unhappy but he’s not going to challenge that. He’s not going to work to Be happy. He’s just going to sit in our house, worrying and yelling about about money until the day he dies.

And THAT is why I finally feel ready to leave.

Because I want to LIVE…

Until the day I die.

I Used To Hate Him For…

28 Wednesday Jun 2017

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his drinking.

I used to hate him for the beer bottles littering my house.

I used to hate him for his snoring as he laid passed out in the living room.

I used to hate him for the way he would scream and curse at me.

I used to hate him for the dirty dishes and trash he left laying around.

I used to hate him for being emotionally unavailable.

I used to hate him for never fully participating in our family life.

I used to hate him for the way he drove.

I used to hate him for being such a pessimist.

I used to hate him for his anger.

I used to hate him for turning the smallest incident into a verbal assault.

I used to hate him for his refusal (or inability?) to communicate with me.

I used to hate him for his constant harping about money.

I used to hate him for the suppressive pall he cast over our home.

I used to hate him for everything our marriage was not because of his drinking.

Now I just hate him…

For making me hate myself.