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~ Life With An Alcoholic Husband

QuietRagingWaters

Tag Archives: divorce

WHY I AM FAILING AT BLOGGING

01 Tuesday Dec 2020

Posted by quietragingwaters in Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

alcoholic father, alcoholic husband, alcoholic marriage, divorce, wife of an alcoholic

I’ve been married to my alcoholic husband for over 20 years.

I’m leaving him.

I’m starting a new blog.

I’m contributing on my friend’s blog.

I’m buying my own house.

Etc., etc., etc.

And so on and so forth.

Blah blah blah blah blah.

“Tomorrow morning,”(as in about four hours from now since it’s nearly 3 o’clock in the morning) I am going to….

Start getting up early.

Establish a morning routine.

Eat right.

Manage my anger.

Start moving forward with my life.

Etc., etc., etc.

And so on and so forth.

Blah blah blah blah blah.

Trying to free yourself from the shackles of an alcoholic marriage is like being given a big, beautiful pair of wings…

With you feet tethered to the ground.

You flap and you flap and you flap.

But you go no where.

I started this blog (and even a second blog, my wasn’t I ambitious) because I thought I could offer some help or support or a bit of solace in the dark lonely night to other women, younger women, “newer” (as in newer to the alcoholic marriage) woman than myself. But how do I help them when I can’t even help myself?

What can I say to these women?

After 20 years you get “used” to it. (Except you don’t.)

After 20 years, you just start living your own life. (But you don’t.)

After 20 years, you don’t even notice his drinking. (Except you do.)

How am I suppose to advise other women on saving their souls?

When I can’t even save my own?

PEACE, PROGRESS AND OTHER EXCITING NEWS

14 Saturday Nov 2020

Posted by quietragingwaters in Uncategorized

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Tags

alcoholic father, alcoholic household, alcoholic husband, alcoholic marriage, divorce, wife of alcoholic

I started this blog as a way to support other women going through the hell of living with an alcoholic husband or partner while trying to process my own painful trip through Hades.

I fear I haven’t been very successful in that I have been far from consistent in my blogging. About a year ago, I thought the issue must be that I was ready to move past being married to an alcoholic. I couldn’t really write about being married to an alcoholic, I reasoned, because I was done being defined by being married to an alcoholic. To this end, I started a new blog: WrenRWaters.com

This was to be a blog not about being married to an alcoholic but about moving beyond being married to an alcoholic.

But just as a house divided cannot stand, a writer divided cannot write. Every time I had an idea for a blog post, I would question: was this an “alcoholic husband” sort of post or more a “moving past” alcoholic husband post? In the end, it became no post.

To the rescue, as often has been the case in my years as a writer and the wife of an alcoholic, was my friend, Linda Bartee of the Immortal Alcoholic blog. (immortalalcoholic.blogspot.com) She and I are always cooking up something between us and so it came to be that I will post on her blog once a week – Monday morning – with an excerpt from my book, “The Alcoholic Husband Primer: Survival Tips For The Alcoholic’s Wife.” I first published this book in 2016 but recently re-published an updated 2nd edition.

So if you are just climbing into your boat for this trip down the Styx River, I hope you will check out Linda’s blog, immortalalcoholic.blogspot.com for some insight into the things I wished I had known in the beginning. And if you’ve been on the river for awhile now, check out my blog, WrenRWaters.com for how I finally took control of this boat called My Life and am steering it into more peaceful waters.

SOMETIMES I FORGET…

11 Tuesday Feb 2020

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Tags

alcoholic husband, alcoholic marriage, divorce, wife of alcoholic

The beast lies in wait in the tall grass of complacency.

You forget he’s there.

You move freely.

Too freely.

Because he’s always there.

Always waiting.

Always ready.

I hate him.

Ok, I hate him.

He ruined my life.

Now, I know, I know…

Life is all about how you allow someone to make you feel and life is about not allowing someone to take away your power and your life is only ruined by someone else as much as you allow them to ruin it but sometimes…

Some days…

Some nights when you have forgotten the beast that alcoholism is…

The beast that it made him…

You get caught.

The filthy claws slash though your flesh and soul.

And you wonder how you could have even POSSIBLY forgotten!

How you could have for one single, solitary, no matter how brief, moment taken your eyes off that grass.

How you could have possibly let yourself get close to that grass.

Where the beast will always be.

Feeling The Feelings

01 Friday Nov 2019

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alcoholic father, alcoholic household, alcoholic husband, divorce, living in an alcoholic marriage, wife of alcoholic

You can’t swing a metaphysical cat without hitting a writer, speaker, sage or motivational guru who will tell you that before anything – before the great job offer or the new dream house or the sports car in the driveway – comes into your life, you have to first feel the emotions of that thing. Everyone on the forefront of this whole metaphysical movement knows that the emotions are the horse and the manifestation the cart. Of course, the majority of us put the cart before the horse, declaring once that new job is here, the house is ours and/or the kazillion horse power of Italian engineering is puring under our buns, then we will be happy and satisfied.

But it’s the other way around the sages/gurus/random bloggers say.

Feel the feelings first.

Feel the joy.

The satisfaction.

The happiness of leaving your dream house to drive your dream car to the office of your dream job.

But recently, I realized something rather powerful.

Feeling the feelings ALSO allows you to bring forward the doubts, hesitaitons and limiting beliefs you may be having about achieving that trifecta of life’s success.

I started thinking about the day I move into my own house.

I was mentally watching the movers pack up my share of stuff and load it onto a truck.

I was bringing all the excitment and happiness and relief I will no doubt feel.

And then I got to the backyard.

We have one of those nice, big wooden playsets that my kids “grew up” on. That would move with me because there are young nieces and nephews in the family who will be visiting at my new house. As my mind saw it being dis-assembled and loaded onto the moving truck, I was suddenly struck by such sadness and grief. This house, that I hate so much, that I curse on a nearly daily basis, that I dream of leaving one day is the house where my children grew up. The house where all their holiday and summer and daily memories were created. Sure, they aren’t truly grown up and out of the house but they are teenagers. The new house, my house, will not be the house of their childhood.

It’s not reason to stay.

I know that.

But it was powerful (and important. Maybe even vital!) for me to feel that un-realized grief and loss. Is that was has been inadvertently holding me back?

It seems it would be (should be?) easy to end a marriage to someone who has a drinking problem, screams obscenities at you and spends his days checked out.

But it’s not.

Far from it.

So while I know that I need to dwell in the good feelings, the happy feelings, the feelings of success and contentment, I don’t think it’s a bad thing to occasionally let myself feel the feelings of loss. Pain. Grief.

So I can move past them.

I Thought The Resentment Would Go Away

20 Wednesday Mar 2019

Posted by quietragingwaters in Uncategorized

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Tags

alcoholic husband, divorce, wife of alcoholic

Now that I am truly committed to leaving my marriage, I thought the resentment I have toward my (to-be-x) husband would go away. Disappear. Leave me alone. I thought it would do so just sort of “naturally.” Automatically.

I thought very, very wrong.

Yesterday my kids were fighting.

A HUGE trigger for me.

One (ONE!) of the problems in an alcoholic family is that normal, to-be-expected, conflicts or incidents take on a beyond-normal signifigance. Kids fight. Especially teenagers. But because our household is so fraught with tension and unrest, my children fighting is a dangerous trigger for me.

And yesterday that trigger was pulled.

I started yelling and it was like I couldn’t stop. The laundry. The dirty dishes everywhere. The coats on the floor. The trash left on the counter. All of the “usuals” and then some I didn’t even know was brewing within me came spewing out. In my head, I kept telling myself, “Stop. Just stop.” But I didn’t.

Couldn’t?

I won’t say I couldn’t.

I will it was more like a release I wasn’t interested in arresting.

I’m not proud or even “ok” with my outburst.

I am deeply saddened.

I thought that was all behind me.

But I see so clearly now that resentment doesn’t simply go away – even if the cause of the resentment is removed. It is going to take work on my part.

There is no way (or need) to make a complete list of all the ways the alcoholic husband creates resentment in his wife. The loss is so extensive. Everything a woman thought her life was going to be is destroyed by an alcoholic husband.

That depth of resentment does not just “disappear.”

Trying Not To Hate Him

14 Thursday Mar 2019

Posted by quietragingwaters in Uncategorized

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Tags

alcoholic husband, alcoholic marriage, divorce

As I become more and more invested in my journey out, I feel myself becoming even more critical of my (to-be-ex)husband’s behavior – both past and present. I don’t want to be critical of him. I don’t want to evaluate his behavior, think of how he has and does treat me. The whole point of leaving is to purge all that from my life and soul.

So why now?

Now that I am resolved and determined, why do I feel a new anger and resentment toward him.

I don’t know really but I can’t let myself hate him.

I can’t let myself spiral down into those thoughts.

If you read anything (and I read “everything”) about the metaphysical, you’ll know that the energy you put out into the Universe is the energy you get back. We have to be careful of our thoughts. We have to keep useless, negative emotions in check.

I know that.

I want to put all the resentment behind me.

Not for him, obviously.

For me.

So I have to try hard…

Not to hate him.

For his selfishness.

His verbal abuse.

His cruel coldness.

It’s the only way out.

Did I Forget To Mention This?

27 Tuesday Jun 2017

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Tags

alcoholic husband, divorce, save your marriage, tips for saving your marriage, wife of alcoholic

I have a new book out.

It’s probably not what you would expect me to write.

I didn’t expect to write it myself.

A book for “them?”

It just kind of happened.

I was thinking about what I wanted, needed – longed for – from my husband.

And then wondered if there were any men who were interested in hearing what their wives want, need, long for from them.

It’s not a fluffy, feel good book.

I hope the guys get that.

But I hope they also get that for most wives of alcoholics, we hold onto the love and the hope for a long, long time. Maybe too long in all honesty. That can be bad news for us..

But good news for the men who want to hear it.

Is Brad Pitt An Alcoholic?

27 Tuesday Sep 2016

Posted by quietragingwaters in Uncategorized

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

alcoholic, alcoholic husband, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, divorce

In case you have been living under a rock, travelling to the planet Zortex or just all around completely disconnected from the world at large – Angelina Jolie abruptly – and from all accounts without any warning to her husband – filed for divorce.

In other words, Brad Pitt – that hunky hunk of man, that movie star mogul, that dreamy dream boat – was dumped.

The world is abuzz (word has it even on Zortex) with “what went wrong?” Because after all, two people that are insanely beautiful, with unimaginable wealth and world-wide status couldn’t possibly have any of the mundane, pedistrian marital problems us mere mortals (and Zortexeans too perhaps) have.  Right?  I mean he’s so cute and so famous and he loves children and he says deep, meaningful artistic things about his marriage and his wife and life.  HOW could they possibly be divorcing?  HOW could she have possibly DUMPED him?

Well one theory in the running is that he is an alcoholic.

I certainly have no way of knowing if Brad Pitt is an alcoholic but I find what information there is circulating about the separation interesting:

A. Angie (yeah, she and I are on a first name/nick name basis) is reportedly to have filed for the “health” of her family and to “protect” them.

B.  It seems universally accepted that there was some “final” incident or episode that caused Angie to “suddenly” file for divorce.

C. From all reports, it seems Brad Pitt “never” saw it coming.

D.  And finally, Angie is rumored to be blocking all calls and texts from Brad.

Again, I have absolutely no idea if Brad Pitt is an alcoholic but it’s interesting that the circumstances surrounding the separation are pretty much exactly what leaving an alcoholic husband would look like.

It seems “all of a sudden” when in fact any woman married to an alcoholic deals with the situation for many, many years before finally leaving.

It is most likely how the marriage is affecting her children that will be the catalyst for a woman finally leaving her alcoholic husband.

It will seem “all of a sudden” to the alcoholic because after all, he has been on the outside of his drinking and accompanying behavior all those years.

And finally, it is hard, hard, hard emotionally for most women to leave their alcoholic husbands.  Often there is still love there, along with profound grief and saddness.  Women most often leave their alcoholic husbands out of need not desire and so blocking contact from the alcoholic is necessary not because the wife is a cold, heartless bitch but because she knows that her emotions are too fragile, too vulnerable to allow contact with him.

Again, I have no idea if Brad Pitt is an alcoholic but if he is, I dare say this is exactly what leaving him would look like.

 

 

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