Anyhow, I will write a "Therapy Update" later today, but this morning I just want to check in.
When I talk to my friends, they usually ask "How's Mr. M?" or "What's new with Mr. M?" which seems strange to me.
I have not talked to him in almost 2 months and cannot talk to him for another coupla weeks. So although I am sure there is plenty of new stuff with him, I have no idea about any of it!
Now is this an embarrassing statement about how much I constantly talk about and obsess on Mr. M and my alcoholic marriage?
Or is it that my friends don't know what else to talk to me about?
I'm not sure... but I know that at some of the best Al-Anon meetings, some of the healthiest long-timers, will not talk about their "Qualifier" at all... their shares will all be about themselves.
Now THERE'S a novel concept!
Who am I if I am not Mr. M's hurt, betrayed, abandoned wife?
Right now - honest truth? - probably no one.
Which is exactly WHY I need to divorce him.
Then I am just me.
No blaming, no accusing, no focus and obsession with him.
No alcoholic marriage.
Just me alone with me and my successes and accomplishments or lack thereof.
Huh... maybe I'll try that one week... a whole week of posts only about ME... no kids, no Mr. M... just me and my stuff.
You might just find a lot of blank pages!
HA!
I am a Christian wife of an alcoholic also. I've been in it for 18 years. I have arrived at the end of my hope just like you. I read your blog and thought, "Wow, she's reading my mail". I don't think I have the courage to say all the things you've said, and you are a lot funnier than I am as well. I think the lovely, fun, giving, loving, happy young woman I used to be, has died. She has been replaced with a depressed, unhappy, overworked, workaholic, who has numbed her soul, so she doesn't feel the pain. Hell, she doesn't feel anything anymore. She just tries to be civil and let the kids feel like they still have a family. She has been known to say, "Well, it's not the ideal family, but it is our family." The only thing I have ever wanted in life, was to have a good and happy family that served God, and lived our lives to help others and to please God. The reason I have stayed so long, is because I believed that God told me He would bring total restoration to my family. I have had so many promises from Him in regards to it. I have not wanted to give up or to let the devil take my husband. It has recently occurred to me though, that my husband has made an alliance with the devil. He has agreed with his plan for his life, so how can I fight for him, if he is not wanting to be free? Tonight for the first time, I think I actually confessed to God that I hate him for destroying our marriage and our family. I am having a lapse in my faith "believing he can be sober" mode. I don't think he can as long as his life is all about his love affair with alcohol, which by the way, is what our Bible calls idolatry. I guess I am just grieving the inevitable. He has been to at least 5 or 6 rehab centers over the last 18 years. I used to beg him to go, make all the arrangements, etc, but I no longer even try to encourage him to go. It hasn't helped him for long. He actually becomes hyper-spiritual when he does go to a Christian one, and then I have some hope, thinking he's got a relationship with God now, so he's off to a good start, of not putting himself first, but putting God first in his life. It has not lasted, so now, I don't even bother. It's like we live in our house with our youngest son, 17, and our daughter, 25, who has just recently returned home to get her own life straightened out, not from drugs, just from living out of control all her life, and trying now to pick up the pieces and regain some control of her own life.
ReplyDeleteI too am considering a divorce. Wow, there, I said it!! I have considered detaching from him and staying put, but it is so painful to watch him destroy himself and to not have him give 2 hoots about me or his children. I find myself so depressed when he is here. I, like you, fantasize and plan about moving into a townhouse and starting over; not living in this house where all of our family memories are, but starting over. I am saving my money so that I can leave him. I don't know what else to do. I've given him the best years of my life.
I understand how you feel and where you are at, my sister. Bless you. I pray that you will make the right decision. Don't let any person who hasn't walked where you've been for the last 20 years try to make you feel like you haven't done enough to help Mr. M. No one knows how alone we, Christian wives feel, when we are advised by some Pastors to leave our alcoholic husbands, and we are told that we are enabling them and co-dependent if we stay and try to hold our family's together, and other Pastors will say that we married him, so that we must honor that vow, until death do us part, for better or for worse. Goodness, if we were heathen's, we would just leave already, and not beat ourselves up for loving and alternately hating ourselves for loving the addict, not to mention, berating ourselves for being either an enabler/codependent, or for fantasizing about having a happy life, where we aren't subject to abuse and neglect, at the risk of breaking our vows and displeasing God. It is amazing that we are still even somewhat sane!!!!
I don't know WHY I am only just now seeing these comments. So weird and sad.
DeleteI know SO much time has elapsed and SO many things have probably changed and yet I bet we'd be surprised by how many things have NOT changed.
Christian Kaos - Your comment was eloquently put. Where are you today? Did you leave? Or are you still there? Is your husband sober? Dead? In jail? Crazy? (As the Big Book of AA tells us they will eventually be if they keep drinking.)
Well, I did end up divorced - not of my own choice - in the end and 3 months into the divorce my alcoholic husband found himself another to rescue him. It's been painful to see because he is on his best behaviour and I can tell he is not treating her in any way like he did me in our years together. I can feel he has changed somewhat - so I ask was it me in the end and my bitterness and the sheer weariness with it all that aggravated the situation and created the 'dance' of negative behaviour?
ReplyDeleteAnd yet, so crazy am I that I regret not fighting the divorce now and wondering if our marriage could have been restored. It feels like I can't even remember a lot of the bad times - why is that? Or is it all an illusion and the cracks will show in their relationship?
New Day - Sorry to reply SOOOO long later. I never SAW these comments for some reason.
DeleteIt wasn't you.
And yet, it WAS you.
Our Alcoholics kill the fun and joy in us and then blame us for having no fun and joy. And yet, we stay with them and allow our fun and joy to die and we "LIKE" parenting them and controlling them and being "better" than them; it gives us worth and contributes to our image of ourselves. We are BOTH part of the problem and pattern.
If it is any consolation, if you would've stayed, it would still likely be the same, NOT be restored. I have stayed and stayed and have been through more agony and more relapses and more separations that I care to remember. "Same crap, different day" as they say.
How are you doing today???
Newday,
ReplyDeleteI do not know him or how long you were married, but I do know that you probably wanted him to fight for you. Women are made that way. We want to be the beauty and to have our handsome prince be willing to fight for our love and to protect us. (Read the book, Wild at Heart) When they just move on after 3 months, without even a fight, well, that tells me that he will demonstrate the same level of commitment/persistence in his new relationship. Stop beating yourself up because you were not the one who damaged and broke the trust of your relationship. He was. It was not up to you to restore the trust. If his drinking and his lying were what caused the trust to be broken, then, he was the only one who could fix it. If he chose not to fix it and to blame you for it, then there is a big probability that when the newness wears off of this relationship, and he breaks trust with his new woman, that he won't be willing to take responsibility for that one either. If he has really changed, then good for him, but if he hasn't, then history will repeat itself. As for your bitterness and weariness, I'm sure it did contribute to becoming inconvenient for his lifestyle, but you did nothing wrong. It is a natural reaction to be upset when your husband does not value you more than a drink. Do not look back!! Remember the things you always wanted when you first came to know him. Remember what your hopes and dreams were and what brought you joy. DO NOT BE CAUGHT UP IN REGRET, because you cannot change him, and neither can SHE. Remember you were not the one who caused the pain, the distrust, the bitterness and the weariness!! What's done is done. God will bless you and take care of you if you will rely on him. If you don't, then you are apt to make the same mistakes all over again, and make a circle back around in the wilderness. Please do not let yourself go back there and torment yourself any longer. Just the fact that you are asking if this was your fault tells me that you are wanting to take responsibility for him breaking the trust of the relationship, and that you are wanting to go back there, and the fact that he is not even bothered by what he did to you, but replacing you, tells me that he hasn't changed. He may be able to "be on his best behavior, but his true colors will always come through".
Moogiegurl - thanks for jumping in there <3
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