For her, it is more dangerous for her to go to meetings than it is not. She has a greater chance of drinking if she is going to AA and crossing boundaries by behaving like 13th stepper. Once you cross one boundary, the others are not far behind. She is endangering her sobriety by going to mixed meetings.
in fact, she is so self destructive, I wonder if she isn't drinking or taking narcotics? Is she?
I assume that you are the more levelheaded one and that you have a great capacity for mercy. I too had a wife who stopped drinking and was able to function well for 10 years before her relapse.
I found out that she was addicted to heroin and crack along with drinking again. She had been hiding it from me for two years. She was a mess, Her mind started justifying all her actions and when I got hurt at work and it seemed that everything was going bad, she announced that she had found a new guy. This from a woman who had waited for me to return for two years when I left because of her drinking 10 yrs before.
The Children were shocked and didn't understand what had happened to the Mom they once knew. I was floored and waited for her to realize what she was doing. The guy she "found" was also a drinker and a coke head. She had him believing that she was a victom. All of her freinds, even the druggies thought she was a POS for what she was doing. I did as I allways did, took all the blame and waited for her to come to her senses. But at that time her mind was too far entrenched in denial.
I allready knew that our marriage was not perfect and was aware of her pyscological problems. I had seen her be an awesome wife and mother besides her issues for 10 yrs and I was, and still am, in love with her. Reguardless of why I would love her and what it said about my emotional health we had 20 years invested.
This is my point, she is too weak to do the honourable thing. Its not your fault. The hardest thing I had to face was that my wife "couldn't" love me. All the pain I had experienced through the years did not, could not be important to her. I continued to try to help her and she just sucked me dry. All of the years of praying and waiting for her to get help for her emotional issues and for her to work on a healthy relationship did not register with her. She just sought a way out. I was alone.
She told me about her new BF and mentioned he had a gun. With all her previous talk about staying together for the rest of our lives and how much she loved me and our family being turned over into this behaviuor, I continued to blame myself and sunk into such despair.
It took awhile for me to pull myself out of that hole I almost fell down into with her. Somewhere inside I had allways thought that we would work out and be there for each other when we passed away. When she lost it my world was shattered and it took time for me to realize that I was on my own. She was not strong enough and it was up to me to be strong for my children and I had to take care of myself now.
I had a marriage with some great times and some very very bad times but i am not going to waste time regreting it. I wish I had done many things differently but I still love the woman that was inside my late wife. She eventually got off the street and came home where she was in recovery but she never returned to be the woman I fell in love with. That woman was there but very muted by the effects of the addictions that had taken over. She was home for a few years untill lung cancer took her. She was surrounded by her family and in all the time she was home the past affair was not emphasized as her problem as much as what might have drove her to falling into what she did.
But what would have happenned to her if I was the one who had died? I know she would have not been able to deal with it. She would never had come out of the fog. Her unresolved guilt issues that were the main reason she drank,(or ran away), to begin with would be a wall to big for her to climb. I watched her hit bottom and she was not even trying to climb out.
She was like that story of the guy who was in the flood, When the rescuers came he would tell them ,"ItsOK God will take care of me" When the final rescuer left God showed up. He asked God why he hadn't rescued him and God said he had allready sent people to rescue him. So many of us are like that, waiting fo a miricle when its allready in front of us. When my wife was diagnosed I didn't sleep hardly at all for the next 9 mos as she needed 24 hr care. If it was me that needed that in the state my wife was in she would never forgave herself or, she would have sunk into such a shameful denial driven despair that she would have killed herself with drugs and the chilren she had invested in so much when they were young would be torn apart.
Well your story is different of course. I can't imagine what I would be doing if I were in your shoes. I commend you on your bravery and your grace you have shown your wife allready. I suggest that you extend her even more now even though by right you should be the one recieving it. Let her off the hook by removing from any responsibility for your happiness and health. Let someone capable to love and care for you take over. Take the high road and remove any power she has over you so she can deal with her sickness without using you as an excuse.
I didn't want to get into so much detail but I felt it nessesary to let you know that you are not alone in what you are experiancing. I assure you that God has not forgotten the love and humility you are expressing by coming here and seeking to restore your marriage. His angels work here on this site to both stand up for what love is supposed to be and for those of us who need to be reminded. When I was writing this I had to keep reminding myself, "The wounds of a friend are faithful, but the kisses of an enemy are decietful" I hope that you see that I am trying to be a freind.
Your in my prayers
