Just wondering if any of the FWH while in the affair ever thought that they had messed up soooo bad that there wasn't any chance in h3ll that BS would let them come back to the marriage?

What turned that feeling around?

Thanks

I don't know if this helps mitzie, but I'll first give you the answer, then tell the story from what time I was wayward.

What turned the feeling around? Total humility that I belonged home, and I had no idea what I was doing, and admitting it to myself.

Way back in 1986, I left my wife because she would not, could not, stop drinking. She was out of control, and the taking of my daughter was gonna happen as soon as I got myself together. It had been three years, seeing her through a bout with cervical cancer that almost took our daughter, and prevented furthur children, but when those pressures were gone, her drinking just got worse.

So I left, she would not go to AA, God had saved her and she would not look at herself as an alcoholic...blah blah well thats a whole different story. The point is, I left without planning to be with anyone, but I did get involved with someone after 6 months, and I was still married, so I was a stinkin wayward.


It was two years after I left that the OW told me she was tired of my fence sitting. We had had to many fights, the affair was dead, along with any fantasy that being "in love" felt like. I was faced with the reality that I was going nowhere, and that I had someone who had stopped drinking for 1 1/2 years with my children,(I left her after she was pregnant with second child and she would not stop drinking) waiting for me at home.

I read a book by "Scott Peck" The road less traveled. He was a catholic priest turned therapist who had done extensive study on the human condition. He found that in his experiance, children who came from homes with one or more parents who stood by them and suffered with them were much more emotionally healthy than those that came from homes with money, or should i say when the children knew they were loved no matter what the situation was.

What was important was that they knew they had parents that loved them, and would ever leave them, no matter what.

I wanted more than anything to be a father to them, a good father, and I realized that being home, and loving thier Mom, was the best thing all around for all of us. I slowly but sceptically worked on coming back, even got my wife to admit to going to AA if the drinking came back, and eventually recommitted to the marriage.

I want to point out that I had to seek forgiveness from my wife also, but she was willing, and for quite a long time, celibrated that our marrige could go thru anything after enduring that. This too of course took time.

Now reading a little from some of your posts, I see WH has a drinking problem. I came to MB because I wanted to understand what had happened to me and what had happened to my marriage after I lost my wife to lung cancer a while ago. I should say drinking because that was the major contributor to her physically that allowed her to smoke, party, and fall into that pit.

I did a search on google reguarding alcoholism, spousal depression, marriages and results and I found DR Hs words about drug abuse.

To paraphrase " If there is alcohol involved, I suggest that problem be dealt with prior to marriage counselling. In my experience the alcoholic spouse is in love with drinking, and cannot even start to work on thier marriage. Stopping drinking they can start to work on many problems as well as thier marriage, but stopping drinking only gives them the ability to start that. Stopping drinking alone is not the cure."

This made so much sense to me. I knew it was true. My wife could not break free from drinking or any of the other problems she faced. She would never seek any counseling for the simple fact of why she drank, or even admit she had a problem and she had to avoid triggers.

Of course behind the drinking was more issues, and those were ignored also.

I like your sig line about power. Its so very true.

I don't know much about you, but I know about dealing with alcohol and depression, and trying to love someone out of it. I tried and failed, I hope your WH is in treatment, and is going through therapy, and is doing what he needs to love himself instead of the pit of the drink.

Just remember it is his choice, just like it is returning home and facing the music.

Please take care of yourself

Thank you CP.

No, my Wh is not in any treatment. As a matter of fact the OW is an alcoholic herself.

This makes it much harder for me,I know.

She is pressuring him to file for D. So far he hasn't. They have only been together 2 months...He is moving to apt across parking lot from her on the 2nd, it is 2 blocks from the bar where they drink. I also think he is using drugs.

This makes it harder for me, I know.

I am going into dark Plan B on the 2nd. If you could, could you help me write a Plan B letter. I have no idea where to start. I understand MelodyLane has some experience with alcoholism also, perhaps she can help me also?

Thank you so very much. Your thoughts were very insightful.

Yes, Mel has experience with alcoholism, She used to drink a long time ago, and will be the first to tell you she got the,"Me or the bottle" speech and straightened herself out.

Its a blessing for us isn't it?

I would love to help you with a plan B letter, but many others are probably more qualified, and I will have to read your thread also first. Give me a little time for that ok?

As far as the alcohol issue and his new drinking buddy skanko, well that is something I can talk about right now, and share with you that I went though the same thing inside, but the circumstances were different.

For whatever reason, and I believe it is mostly fear and denial, some people think they find peace in drinking, and become addicted. The definition of an alcoholic and the place alcohol has in thier life has much of the same characteristics as an addictive personality. That stuff is beyond me because I too have been told I have one, but the only thing I ever struggled with was ciggarettes.

I had my bout with street drugs in my teens, and I could allways take or leave drinking, but when it came time to leave that crap behind I could see past drugs, and see what a lie they were, and not even a luxury. Whenever I was seeking them was when I was in pain emotionally, and wanted an escape. I don't respect myself when I run away, so if I wanted to respect myself I had to earn also. The biggest obstacle was my own shame, and some people can not see past that easily, for themselves, and wallow in a cycle. One that many do at different levels of addiction, and alcohol, for one, is supported by many.

I was lucky to get out alive at 17, and I knew it, as I saw so many young people my age struggle with the culture.

So the point, I thought if I could help myself, I could support anyone who would listen quit drugs if they wanted to. Even if they just realized how dangerous they were. I didn't look at the alcoholic as a person with a generic disease. I looked at them as people who made a bad choice and needed to tough out and stop drinking, and find out why they were drawn to it. Then hate what was robbing them so much when they saw it they would protect themselves from triggers, people, and the thought process that sucked them in. Everyone is different, has different challanges that they must conquer themselves, with the proper support from friends.

So by the time I was 20 any kind of drug or exessive drinking was in my past. If I was offered I would say "no thanks, been there, done that, and its not for me". If pushed I would share my opinion and challange what they called "Freedom of choice" and tell them it was all in thier heads, they were slaves. That was my stand, I was proud of it, and the best things were the life we had already, and the respect of it.

Pretty liberal though huh? I gave people a chance instead of complete comdemation, and they had to earn it too, but I believed in people changing, because I had once myself.

I never thought that my wife, who drank to much, would continue to drink or struggle so much all her life. I thought I could help her, but the only time she stopped drinking is when I was gone for 6 months after I gave up helping. For ten years after we reconciled she still struggled with inner emotional issues she would not admit having, and then fell back into drinking, never getting control over her emotions, but instead giving into them.

Its called enabling, when you give someone understanding in something that deserves no understanding. In effect you give the "disease", if you want to call it that, a place in reality that it doesn't deserve, and you solidify that by letting it exist in both your worlds, and the world you share.

The only way to end it, even if it is just for Him/Her, is to refuse to allow it between you, and to force a choice, and stand by it.

It was easier when I was 27, with a chance that I could have some kind of life without her and the children. At 43, with my health and options of school and carreer spent, my children bonded to both of us and not understanding what happened to thier Mom, well I fell so low, it was just a game of damage control. The future I thought was coming for us and had drove me along with giving me a purpose was gone, all I could do was continue to be as stable as I could for my kids. They saw us both crumble, and they suffered too. I didn't have the strength to give up and let her go, I knew she was in a real mess this time. She hid a minor heroin addiction from me for two years. When the nature of the drug encourgaged her to do whatever she felt, it was onto crack, and eventually it all ecellerated into leaving me for a guy who, you guessed it, drank and did coke on a regular basis.

You see it wasn't that I didn't see she was treating me like crap, or that I didn't deserve it. Even the addicts she knew thought she was being a sleaze, and they were messed up too. It was the whole thing, the kids and what was going to happen to them, that I was Dad who allways came through, and most of all, I had hoped she would have seen she hit bottom and finally get some real help. At the time is felt like the only thing I could do, and should do for this majorly messed up women, who the aliens had possesed.

Sympathy for the Devil. She had a self-righteos bitter streak and between the alcohol, heroin, and her new boyfreind she felt no pain being inflicted on anyone else, or viewed what she was doing was wrong in any way, or would hurt her somehow also. She didn't negoiate the heroin very well. It took away her fears, even the ones that were there to protect her. She was a selfish nasty lunatic who thought she had a right to feel sorry for herself. Gone was the women who struggled but held herself up to be a great Wife and Mom. Gone was the woman who wanted and lived for those things. Now there was a self-righteous adult acting like a teen-age bad-azz girl.

I went though this for a couple years, them she came home because coke-head wouldn't put up with her heroin addiction, (How noble and upright he was huh?), and we got her into methadone treatment. A couple years after that got her off booze. A year after that got her to slow down on the benzos. A year after that she got cancer and died 7 mos later.

A lot of drugs for someone who from 1990 til 2000 would be afraid to take an aspirin huh?

So how did it effect me? Guilt still even though I did the best I could. I will allways have that thought, if I had only...and it will drag me down just where it wants to also. if I let it. That was my late wifes thing, not mine. The best thing I ever did for her, because of how she was, was make her handle her own crap. Me falling apart well, she had no pity on me while she was high, it was all about how she saw it, and she thought she knew it all.

You must realize this about your WH also. It is allways the people who are in the family of alcoholics or addicts that suffer at the hand of addict. They don't care much about what you feel or think, they are in love with the drug, the fantasy, and will do anything to protect that bullchit. It is what it is. All the wishful thinking and good intentions we have when we sacrifice ourselves to the Gods they now worship, is lost on them. Yes thier loss, but it is ours too, and they don't mourn for us.

You are young still and so are your boys. I know how deep the depression can get but I promise you it gets better. I knew a sister of a friend who was 16 and when I consoled her about something she said "I'm young, I'll adjust". Man at 53 I can understand how youth helps in those things, but now my life has solidified in the real important things also. I remember feeling younger at 30 then I did at 22 back then. Age is a state of mind, and as time moves forward you will recover, and it will be an even better life because you will put this behind, recovered marriage or not.


As far as WH goes? Part of the plan B letter will have to be AA.

You get yourself to Alanon, they are great support for familys of alcoholics.

OK gonna read your thread tommorow. Hope my story helped you see you are not alone, and that you loved not in vain. God sees it. I know your Kids will se it too. Mine did, and are still.

mitzie,

By the way, this is the name of one of our cats - an adorable cat!

I have never been a wayward husband. A few times tho when I was younger and had higher testosterone I wondered if I was being stupid by not being. I persevered and now am age 68, still married to my wonderful wife.

If I had strayed my W would never have let me back in the M. I know that. She always has had very high standards for herself and our M. I firmly belive that once you violate the marital vows and trust, it would take two very special people to overcome that, if at all.

Tom

This, more than anything else, may be the attraction. The fact that she feeds the addiction and the behavior of the addiction. She enables his drunken behavior, AND participates.

This is "attractive" because substance addiction is a total human dysfunction, only the simplest human needs will be met, and after that, it's all feeding the addiction.