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I just don't know what my plan is anymore. How about Plan B until she gets her alcoholism under control? Please listen to this clip. Radio clip on alcoholic
FWW/BW (me) WH 2nd M for both Blended Family with 7 kids between us Too much hurt and pain on both sides that my brain hurts just thinking about it all.
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Your "plan" must be to set standards of behavior for her, since she obviously has zero ability to self-regulate.
1) She must quit her job. 2) She must enroll in, and complete, an alcohol rehab program. Given her level of involvement and addiction, it is probably going to have to be a residential program.
Once those two things are done, THEN you and she can start considering how your marriage may proceed.
I think you should also do some self-examination, my friend (while she's attending to the above). The healthiest marital states are those in which both parties WANT to be married to the other. Someone as desperately NEEDING to be married to an abusive, cheating alcoholic (as you present yourself to be) should figure out why, and FIX IT!
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FWW/BW (me) WH 2nd M for both Blended Family with 7 kids between us Too much hurt and pain on both sides that my brain hurts just thinking about it all.
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I just don't know what my plan is anymore. How about Plan B until she gets her alcoholism under control? Please listen to this clip. Radio clip on alcoholic Do as Mel suggests and set firm conditions. Pack her bags, set them by the door and tell her if she wants to be a drunk and a cheat, she's out the door and on her own. If she's insistent on being a loser, you need to Plan B her and allow her to enjoy her own bad choices to the full. You did not make these choices, and should not be living this way up all night and in fear of whats going to happen next. Unless she gets on board with your conditions, she needs to follow her own lousy path on her own. She knows where you are when she's willing to meet your conditions.
What would you do if you were not afraid?
"Fear is the little death. Fear is the mind-killer" Frank Herbert.
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I'm telling her that she needs to go and stay with her mom to start making some serious choices and make some decisions. They live 3+ hours away. I want her Mom to come pick her up and do exactly what she did for her son to her daughter, my wife. Her unwillingness to 1. admit a problem with drinking and 2. stay away from other guy is stymying any chance we have to work on things. You put your tippy toe in the water but did not go far enough. Staying with her mom and asking a falling down drunk to make "serious choices" is insane. What if she makes a "serious choice" to continue her affair and stay drunk? You need to give her CONDITIONS. Here are the conditions you give her: 1. do not ever drink again 2. enter a program of recovery for alcoholics [if it is AA, then she should only go to female only meetings and have a female sponsor] 3. never set foot in a bar again 4. affair proof the marriage Asking a falling down drunk to "make decisions" is crazy. You need to lead your falling down drunk out of the ditch and meaningless language will not achieve that goal. Be SPECIFIC and be FIRM. So what happened to this plan that Melody gave you back on 06-17-12?
FWW/BW (me) WH 2nd M for both Blended Family with 7 kids between us Too much hurt and pain on both sides that my brain hurts just thinking about it all.
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At this point, my wife has been gone for 24 hours. And counting. She drank last night and did not want to drive home. I know she's at her boyfriend's house who has never met our 2 boys. I have things to do. Work-wise and others today. Do I go over and knock on his door and drop off the boys and start forcing some responsibility on their shallow, non-reality based relationship? Or do I find someone else (Hard at this point on such short notice) to watch my boys while I go to work?
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Tell your employer you have a family emergency.
Be honest. Its what I did with my boss.
My bosses expect you to come in when you're half dead with flu, but were cool with this.
Most people react with such horror to adultery that even the hardest boss in the world gives you some slack.
Betrayed people are traumatised people and are going to have some off days.
Its best to tell people why.
What would you do if you were not afraid?
"Fear is the little death. Fear is the mind-killer" Frank Herbert.
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At this point, my wife has been gone for 24 hours. And counting. She drank last night and did not want to drive home. I know she's at her boyfriend's house who has never met our 2 boys. I have things to do. Work-wise and others today. Do I go over and knock on his door and drop off the boys and start forcing some responsibility on their shallow, non-reality based relationship? Or do I find someone else (Hard at this point on such short notice) to watch my boys while I go to work? Have you exposed yet? Do you have family support? Why not take her parents with you to OMs house?
What would you do if you were not afraid?
"Fear is the little death. Fear is the mind-killer" Frank Herbert.
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You also have to start seriously documenting this behavior of WW's. I've asked another poster to stop in here and give you his advice.
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At this point, my wife has been gone for 24 hours. And counting. She drank last night and did not want to drive home. I know she's at her boyfriend's house who has never met our 2 boys. I have things to do. Work-wise and others today. Do I go over and knock on his door and drop off the boys and start forcing some responsibility on their shallow, non-reality based relationship? Or do I find someone else (Hard at this point on such short notice) to watch my boys while I go to work? You need to protect your boys and do not let OM around them. At the very least have you done a background check? Have you exposed this? Let everyone know what she's doing. Are you documenting all this? DOCUMENT DOCUMENT DOCUMENT
FWW/BW (me) WH 2nd M for both Blended Family with 7 kids between us Too much hurt and pain on both sides that my brain hurts just thinking about it all.
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Do NOT take the kids over there. Yuck. If anything, get legal help to block her from access. She's acting brazen and obviously thinks you're just going to roll with her crazy. She has an alcohol problem and is a danger to your kids.
Start locking things down. Get her out of there! Let everyone you know what she's been doing (exposure) and ask them to intervene for her safety and the safety of the kids.
Your name is engine kid. You've got to be the engine in your family now. You've probably spent the last few weeks trying to reason and negotiate with her, assuming your rational wife is in there somewhere. She's not. She left and you need to get tough as nails to combat this.
This is war. You be the engine driving this thing. Get her outta the driver's seat. Your life is changing quickly and in very out of control ways. You can get on top of this but you cannot count on her help in any way. She has lost her mind. Literally.
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Pack her stuff up and leave it on the porch. Change the locks. Get her off any joint accounts and credit cards. This nut of yours needs TOUGH love. You are not dealing with a rational person.
She has a boyfriend? Disgusting. Get a lawyer and get her out of there. She is going to wreak more and more havoc unless you put a stop to it NOW.
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My wife cheated on me. Twice. What do i do now? I love her deeply still. My wife and I have been together for 11 years. Married since 2006. We have 2 boys, 5 and 3 1/2 years old. We have also had 2 other pregnancies that were terminated early in our relationship. My wife had a abusive, (Verbally and physically) alcoholic father growing up and had a rough childhood. She was also raped by a family member at 11 years old.
We have mountains of bills, pressures from work and the craziness of 2 boys. My wife has a problem with drinking. She currently has her license revoked for a drunken DUI crash that could have very well killed her. Upon much discussion, she has recently started bartending again, something she is exceptional at. The first guy was supposedly a one time deal and alcohol was involved. (I caught her, she didn't fess up to the affair) We went to some counseling sessions and seemed to work. That's where the rape issue surfaced. Abruptly the sessions stopped. This second BOY is 8 years her junior, a cop and frequents her bar. Again, I caught her. She admits to having full sex with him twice. The thing that is disturbing is that this time, she says she has feelings for him. She claims that he fusses over her and appreciates all the things I "hate" about her. I will die for this woman. SHe means everything to me. She is willing to go back to the original counselor but I'm afraid it's only to figure out a way to justify getting rid of me. She says otherwise, but I'm scared. can't sleep. No appetite. Sick SInce this devastating event happened, she has agreed to go back to our original therapist. I fully believe our busy work lives, lack of seeing each other and her alcohol problem have led to these events. Working at bars will stop once summer is over, there's an internship that's starting that will be very time consuming. Interestingly enough, my wife is in school for addictions counseling for adolescents. The internship will be with juvenile detention center kids. What scares me about the counseling is that she says she needs to go to "figure things out." She maintains she loves me still but I fear that she may be going to counseling this time to cut ties. I hope the therapist will see the glaring alcohol problem and begin the steps to recovery. I appreciate all the fantastic advice, but right now I truly believe that I can move on from this and have told her time and time again that once her career is firmly in place, our lives will be more in synch and far less hectic. I'm in a bad place, but not willing to give up yet, just very, very scared.
I've been reading up on the relationships between depression, alcoholism and infidelity and I'm coming to the conclusion that's what's going on here. If that's true, she needs my help more than anything. Two of these are diseases. I wouldn't walk away from our marriage if she were say, a diabetic or had cancer. The big issue here is that she needs to cold-turkey cut this clown from her life to focus on us and at least give it a shot. Which she has said she's willing to do. He's a giant monkey wrench in the plans to move forward. I'm sorry. Your wife is an Adult child of An alcoholic and an alcoholic. Dr Harley encourages spouses of alcoholics to join a support group such as Al-Anon, of which I am a member. In your post you speak of how much your wife needs you. I understand. I bent over. Backwards for my wife. But YOU ARE NOT IN CONTROL. Your wife is sleeping around and you are talking about helping her? You can help her by allowing her to face the natural consequences of her alcoholism and adultery. Did you help pay for a lawyer when she got a DUI ? When we get a DUI there are 2 ways of looking at it: we can (1) say the cop didn't follow procedure, wasn't that drunk, got screwed by the court etc OR (2) admit we have a serious problem and address it. Same for affairs. We change our behavior and stop screwing other people or we just keep doing it. Your wife chooses not to be responsible. Plan A or B won't work if your wife is an alcoholic and loosing control of her life to the drink; I would encourage you to call the Marriage Builder radio show and ask Dr Harley what he would recommend
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At this point, my wife has been gone for 24 hours. And counting. She drank last night and did not want to drive home. I know she's at her boyfriend's house who has never met our 2 boys. I have things to do. Work-wise and others today. Do I go over and knock on his door and drop off the boys and start forcing some responsibility on their shallow, non-reality based relationship? Or do I find someone else (Hard at this point on such short notice) to watch my boys while I go to work? ABSOLUTELY NOT. You do not leave children under the care and custody of alcoholics drinking. She has a DUI. She is irresponsible. She could drive drunk and kill your kids. You need to focus on your kids. I understand that this is a time of despair for you. I strongly encourage you to attend an al-anon meeting. Step 1 of the 12 Steps is admitting that you have no control. Dropping your kids off with these drunks will not magically turn them into responsible people.
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Step 1 of the 12 Steps is admitting that you have no control. Dropping your kids off with these drunks will not magically turn them into responsible people. Repeated for emphasis. It's her decision to be an addict. there's nothing you can do about it. Only she can. It should be your decision to protect the kids and cut her out if need be. If she likes the addiction lifestyle so much, let her enjoy it on her own.
What would you do if you were not afraid?
"Fear is the little death. Fear is the mind-killer" Frank Herbert.
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I would encourage you to keep a journal of these times. For exmple, "on 7/1 wife did not come home. She said she was drunk and spending the night at her boyfriends house. "
I just went through this. The biggest question now is who is going to be there for your kids? Their mom is a drunk that likes to party instead of parent. Can you care for your kids? Or do you want them to grow up around a drunk that has different boyfriends? This is a serious decision you need to make: Who comes first right now, your innocent kids or your drunk adulteress wife?
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