Ksummit,

If you attend AlAnon meetings you will meet other spouses of alcoholics and the AlAnon program will help you understand alcoholism and how to stop enabling her behavior

I thought what I was doing was loving my wife and not judging her. But, that obviously didn't work. My wife has been out of rehab for a couple days. The drinks she had were to deal with the physical withdrawal, as she had been on a Librium schedule. And then yesterday, no surprise, she drank so much she was out at 3:00. As I was making the kids dinner around 6:00, I heard a crash upstairs. I found her trying to get up from the bathroom floor. This morning, she has a shiner on her left eye.

What's sad is that I wanted to attend an AlAnon meeting yesterday at 7:00... but couldn't, as I was watching her yet again, and taking care of our toddler.

I realized yesterday before any of this happened that I was not doing the right thing, and what I was doing was enabling her. I needed to be a strong, loving husband and set the boundary for myself and my family. We talked this morning, and her choices are pick a rehab and don't leave till the program is complete, or find another place to live until you do. I realize this is best for the drinking, but am still afraid after the events I started this thread with.

Anyway - I hope to come back here in a few weeks and report that things are improving. Thanks for everyone's advice.

I would get her into rehab TODAY and not take her back until she completes the program. Just let her know she has to sober up now and can't live there if she drinks. You need to do this before she kills herself. Taking lithium and drinking alcohol is a dangerous combination and she needs to be stopped.

When a person goes in to rehab, the purpose is to withdraw from alcohol. She never stays long enough to do that.

Sorry you have to deal with this. And please don't go away. Keep posting and get support here, ok?

I would make sure everyone who knows and cares about your family hears about how falling down drunk she gets.

Especially, make sure everyone knows how she got her black eye.

She could turn that around to say that you hit her and attempt to be enabled for the "Poor Me" abused little wife syndrome. Let the rehab intake counselor be aware too. If she runs into the OM at an AA meeting, she will probably spin a story about how Benedetti and abusive you are and her 13th Stepping White Knight can eagerly come to her rescue.

LTL

Please tell me you're documenting all of this somewhere.
DOCUMENT DOCUMENT DOCUMENT

Those in our circle know how drunk she is getting.

It was literally so bad, that I was not allowed to check her into rehab last Tuesday. They advised we go to the hospital before they could take her. I called a couple other rehabs and they said the same thing. It didn't happen yesterday either - too drunk. I made sure I had time off work in the morning after she slept it off, and got her checked in this morning. I am not happy with myself that I didn't just kick her out when she missed my deadline, though it would have been dragging her blacked out and locking her outside.

I know she is killing herself - from my last post to this one, she probably had less than 500 calories of food - plenty of calories from alcohol. Her hair is starting to fall out, and she is having other physical problems too. All things she knows are related to the drinking.

She wasn't taking lithium and drinking - I was saying she had detox drugs in her system after she checked out of rehab early, and as they wore off, she felt she needed alcohol (surprise!) to deal with the physical reactions.

And, she is offering up honestly to anyone who will listen that her eye is one of the reasons she needs rehab. My daughter and I were downstairs when we heard it happen. I have my alibi.

Back to OM - she has had no direct contact with him since June 20, and 1 failed attempted contact on June 27. However, I learned while talking with my wife yesterday night, as she was slowly sobering up, that her best friend is still in contact with OM, at least a few times since June 20. Her friend revealed a couple days ago to my wife that OM has called very drunk a couple times, is so depressed, suicidal, and just needs to keep in contact with friend so he can be sure and hear that my wife is doing well. I am NOT ok with this, and am going to discuss with her friend, but any strategies for what works? Friend is not my wife, all I think I can do is describe the damage it is doing and ask her not to relay info to my wife related to OM - but can I ask her to cut off communication with OM too? Also, she is married, and having her own marital struggles - I would hate for her to become OM's next victim.

Friend is not sharing the communication to enable my wife - she was surprised about my wife's affair with him too, and thought they were "just friends". But, she is a very naive person. I know she will be upset that she just gave "communication" about OM, and didn't think how it could impact wife and me. I also am afraid she might blindly tell OM about where my wife is in rehab, opening lots of bad possibilities, maybe even a visit to the onsite AA meeting. Maybe I'm underestimating the friend, but I don't want to leave that to chance.

As far as documenting, I have documented a lot, primarily in relation to the contact with OM and things my wife said or did during the time she was seeing him. Should I continue that now? When something comes up in conversation, I do document, but haven't been keeping a daily diary.

Sir,

You really need to visit Alanon.

Sir,

This (highlighted in bold) happened to me. OM became suicidal and "needed" to talk to my ww and tell her goodbye (before he killed himself) and that just re-established contact.

As for your wife's friend, of course you cant ask her to cut off contact with OM. She is a grown up free to do what she wants.

As for documentation, you need to be documenting her behavior with alcohol.
At this point, you may need to soon seek custody of your children through the courts because she is a train wreck and the last thing you need is for her to kill one of your children.

Also, you can bring your kids to the Alanon meeting.
Some of the meetings actually offer childcare; however, they will let you bring your kids in.

When will you be going to AlAnon?

Why hasn't she changed all her contact information? He will continue to call drunk.

Thanks Jedi_Knight -

I have scoped out the AlAnon meetings near me and put them on my calendar. With all the stupidity that has happened in the past 1.5 weeks, I still haven't gotten a chance to attend one. I will as soon as I am able - it will be an easier possibility now.

I certainly can share with friend and ask her not to pass on messages, though? And, reading through some other threads, I can't be positive if WW has sent proxy messages through my friend to OM. Need to do more recon.

Friend is the one getting the calls, not my wife. He has not called or texted her directly since my wife sent him a no contact email. I am reasonably sure there has been no physical contact since then too, as my wife covered her A fog with a drinking fog.

I want to go to the AlAnon meeting that is occurring tonight, but have a potentially late night at work. If I get off at a regular time, I will go tonight.

This friend doesn't sound like a friend of your marriage if she's trying to help reignite the affair. I would cut this friend out if she's going to help destroy your marriage.

I've known her for a long time, and I don't think friend is trying to reignite the affair. I do intend to discuss friends interactions with OM and why she passed on the information she did. I want to understand her explanations and see if I change my mind about her motivations.

Her motivations don't matter. What matters is that your wife CANNOT have any contact with the OM, including hearing updates about him from her friend. You can tell the friend this, and tell her that if it happens again you will cutting off contact with her. That you value the friendship but you value your wife and marriage more.

I agree that my wife cannot have proxy contact with him in any way - no different than direct contact. I am going to talk to friend tonight, and ask that she not share anything she knows of him to her, and find out if there were any messages passed on to him. I will remind her that hearing anything real about OM will trigger feelings in my wife, something detrimental to our recovery.

Went to AlAnon last night... heard a lot of relatable things. It seems the point of AlAnon is to get you to stop enabling, look at your own life & motivations, and set boundaries. I want to learn as much as I can, and see how this could help.

It was a little unnerving being in a room with 17 women and being the only man!

How'd it go with talking to the friend?

She was very open to sharing what was going on. She said that OM is calling her weekly asking for updates and asking her to pass on that he misses my wife. Friend has only talked to wife about it once, as she felt overwhelmed carrying his depression, suicidal thoughts, etc, and thought the insight that OM "didn't get the concept of marriage" would be helpful to my wife.

I told her I couldn't tell her not to contact OM, but I needed her NOT to pass any info about OM to my wife, and equally protect my wife with info she passed to OM - like that she is in rehab now, and where she is. Any time she passes on info like she did, she is triggering the emotions again, making withdrawal/recovery harder. I told her I wanted to tell her and her husband my full story of what happened Saturday and what I know about A, and they were open to it. I think she is in the dark about a lot of details, and I think she can help if she knows more.

She told me some of the details of what OM and her have discussed, and one thing set of flags for me for her own relationship - OM is now starting to invite friend to meet him and have drinks, and is talking about things with her on the phone that I know that she is having troubles with her husband. She has rebuffed him so far.