Well, I have been reading posts here for a while and am looking for some feedback as to how I handled or should I say mishandled a touchy issue with my husband. I have an appointment scheduled with Dr, Harley next week, but could sure use some interim advice. <BR>I'll try to keep this short. I'm 43, my husband is 50, we've been married for 12 years and have two boys 5 and 10. During most of my marriage, my husband has had a very serious drinking problem. I have no doubt that he is an alcoholic. He neglected us pretty terribly. I put up with it for a really long, long time, but last fall I decided to file for divorce. To make a long story short, I decided to give the marriage another shot and my husband did successfully quit drinking for about 6 months. During that time, things improved incredibly. I can't say I fell back in love with him, but family life was much, much better and I was hopeful about the future. I was worried though, because my husband has always refused to attend AA on a regular basis. Anyway, the inevitable happenned and the last two -3 months he has had drinking episodes. I discussed each one with him and each time a promise was made that that was the "last" time. The other night it happenned again and this time I wrote a letter to him with a lot of info from this site. I basically spelled out two options, get regular alcohol counseling followed up by some marital counseling or divorce. I felt I had to be drastic to get the point across but I'm afraid the whole thing backfired. He is extremely angry with me and sees me as a perfectionistic controlling woman who is using any excuse to leave the marriage. He really acts like he hates me and leaves me and the kids for hours and hours without any explanation (just like the old days). I hate conflict and now I almost feel like apologizing or doing anything to bring back peace. I probably should not have brought up the "D" word. He has always refused to leave or give me a divorce anyway. Anyway, looks like I blew it. Any thoughts as to how I could have done this better or how I can handle things now? Thanks.<BR>

Campbell,<P> Since you have been married for 12 years and have put up with your husbands drinking for years,its very understandable why you have come to a breaking point. Its would be very very difficult to put up with feeling so neglected through the years and trying to be happy. Your husband really needs to deal with his problem, its not only destroying your marriage, its destroying your husband.<P> I can only sugest what I myself would do if I were in your shoes. I would make it very clear to my husband that I have had enough, and if he cares for me and the kids at all then he needs to face his problem and get help. Because it is destroying the family,marriage..and everything eles in its path.I feel I would have to start with a separation..only if he was unwilling to get treatment and stick with it until he has beat it.I dont know if a separation would get your husband to deal with his problem or not. Its may help you deal with things better. Try not to feel guilty because of your husbands anger towards you for mentioning a Divorse. You have put up with it for too long. You only want a happy family, and you dont need to apoligize for that....Violet1<p>[This message has been edited by violet1 (edited July 09, 1999).]

Campbell:<BR>I'm at the same place in my marriage as you are. I have said I want a divorce as well, and my H tells me I am selfish and only think of myself, that I have serious emotional problems, and all he has done was be commited to the marriage and family! He says he won't leave, and if a divorce is what I want then go ahead but prepare for a big fight. <BR> The truth is that a divorce is really the last thing I want. I feel that it is a lose/lose situation. I just really want him to realize that I can't put up with the everyday moods of the alchololic. The drinking hasn't been the one factor that has ruined the marriage.......but it does make him unable to accept any responsibility for the reasons why the marriage isn't working. He doesn't communicate about problems, he just says if I don't like it, then leave. He's very negetive about life in general and critisizes everything and everyone. He has this great ability to take any situation and turn it around and blame things on me. He kicked me out of the bedroom 5 months ago, and on several occasions he would say how he much prefers sleeping by himself. Over the weekend, I was telling him how I felt and he said, "What about him and how he feels", then told me what a cold-hearted woman I am who won't even sleep in the same bed with her husband! I have to remind him that it was him who kicked me out. And then he'll say how screwed up I am and how selfish I am, and turn everything around on me. It's such a waste of time to even bother talking about the problems because he is so closed - minded about them all. Nothing is ever his fault, and then he pours another drink.<BR> I'm not sure that giving the ultimatum of counseling and AA really works for them because normally they just have to come to the realization that they drink too much on their own. My sister is a nurse and says so often, older men come in with a broken leg, or something minor and if they spend two days in the hospital, you see that they are detoxing, and they'll talk of their lousy wives who have left them for no good reason!<BR> I know that women have drinking problems as well, but in my life, I only knew one woman with a drinking problem, but have known several men with problems. Perhaps men are more able to get a problem, because they cannot seem to talk about their emotions. My H says I have too many emotions and therefore cannot deal with life as it is. He says he deals with itelligence!<BR>But he's angry all the time to the point where when he comes home, no one says anything until he does to get a feel on what kind of mood he's in! Anger is a emotion, and one he uses well.<BR> I guess I'm really not giving you much advice here. Your husband will have to come to the conclusion that his drinking is ruining his life on his own. It may happen if you divorce, or it may never happen. So you need to go with what you feel is best for you in your heart. My good friend, also with a husband who drank everyday, had all the same stuff in her relationship and also wrote a letter to her husband on giving up the drinking or else she's out of there....well she got lucky although she says it really doesn't seem like it had anything to do with the letter she wrote. He just happened to get very sick one night from drinking. He was angry about the letter she wrote, and perhaps the letter did work in that he got drunker than normal because he was so mad about her ultimatum! She said for two days, he was so sick, and then he just stopped and has been sober for over a year now. The marriage is really wonderful now. I hope this also happens for you and I'll pray that it does.<BR>Mads

Dear Campbell,<P>I can relate... same song different verse... my husband does the divorce threats... in his mind though, he's doesn't want to leave the marriage, he wants me to. Ultimatums don't work, just gives them an excuse to tell you how controlling you are, then of course to not succumb to being controlled, they do the opposite... and of course it's your fault!<P>What I have learned... get help for yourself so you can get out of the tornado of his twisted rationalizing and thinking, and see and feel reality for yourself... so you can stop beating up on yourself and blaming yourself for the insanity. Have you tried al-anon, or CODA (co-dependency anonymous)? Or check your local substance abuse center or hospital for programs for those affected by chemical dependents. Going to face to face meetings is a hard step to take, but it really makes a world of difference, when your talking face to face to people who understand, who have been there, who can give you knowledge and direction... a big weight lifts off your shoulders. When you get yourself healthy it will be easier to make what ever decisions you need to make. I don't know where my marriage is headed right now, but I do know that participating in these groups is improving my outlook on life and my ability to appreciate the good things in my life even when my H is drunk or gambling. It's also given me the confidence to start taking care of the things I do have control over without being too afraid of his reactions.<P><BR>You have to take care of yourself, and the first step is getting your own mind back to health and out of the clutches of his addiction.<P><BR>Take Care.

Hi,<BR>I'm pretty new here and happened to read your post and the replies. What happened to me and what has happened in the last couple of months may help you deal a little better with whats happening in your lives. I don't know if it will help but it changed my life. You see I have lived with the nightmare of alcohol for 25 years. Here's my story, I truely hope it helps you who deal with this life destroyer before it's too late. I am today trying to recapture what I lost - not because of Alcoholism but because of me. You'll understand what I mean I hope when I finish. This will tend to get long I'm sorry I'll try to leave out the less important parts.<BR>My husband and I have been together for 29 years (a lifetime really) we were children, in love and so happy. Married for 25 years.<BR>Alcohol was pretty plentiful then (anyone would buy you cheap wine or beer all you had to do was wait at any liquor store and ask a stranger) We were married and I became pregnant with my first of two children. I want to say I stopped drinking because I was pregnant but thats not true. Actually I stopped because I have a tendency to become addicted to things. And I was a violent drunk. I hit or abused people who mattered to me. So I just stopped doing it at the age of 19. My husband never did. Our marriage was stormy to say the least. We fought all the time. Battles raged for years unresolved. There was never a doubt in my mind that we loved each other or that he was destroying me and my children. For years I covered for his drinking and we fought about it. Then something changed. The fights intensified, I withdrew somewhat. Holidays were hell, I never wanted to go, but I did. Every holiday ended with a fight. My daughters (now 24 & 21) have seen far more than any child should see. Over the years I tried every method you can think of. I tried threats, ultimatums, I stopped enabling him years ago. I no longer made sure he got into the house if he fell asleep in the yard, I left him there, only made sure he was safe from injury-like his foot wasn't in the driveway and at risk of being run over. <BR>By now we fought like cats and dogs. But there were good times too. Always Always he went back. I would scare him into trying but it wouldn't last and he'd crack that next beer and again my world would explode. Then the explosions just never stopped.<BR>It's hard to express what life was like. I was dying. Everything in my life that was bad involved that damned alcohol. The damn stuff was killing me and I DON"T EVEN DRINK!!!!!! Still I loved that man. I took that love Bright and shiney, put it in a velvet lined box, slammed the lid and padlocked it, poked only oneway holes in the lid so that love could breathe but nothing ugly could touch it and lived a life of pure hell. Things were very bad very often, My husband would be a great guy to everyone but me. Nobody really knew about the monster inside our home. I was so sure if he just stopped drinking the demon would exorsized and we'd instantly live Beaver Cleavers life. After all Alcohol was the monster in my home.<BR>Twelve years ago things came to a head. We both worked at the same place. (by the way I was a stay at home mom for 13 years.) One morning my 12 year old daughters school called me at work, She had been rushed to the hospital, it wasn't really serious but I had to go. I called my husband and asked him if he was going with me. He declined as he wanted to save his vacation time and it wasn't that serious. Idiot that I am I took that and agreed to come back and get him after work as we rode together. At quitting time I was there to get him after seeing to my daughter. I was a couple of minutes late 2 or 3. I waited and waited. 20 mins, 30 mins, he didn't come out. I figured maybe I was later than I thought and I missed him, someone else gave him a ride? I took a chance and checked a little hole in the wall bar nearby where allot of work people went. He was there. I thought not alot about that. afterall he was just waiting for me. STUPID STUPID. Anyway as we drove home somehow innocently I asked how long he'd been waiting, as of then I truely thought my watch was wrong and I was later than I thought. His answer tilted my world. "I have been there since lunch" That was 20 minutes after I left. He did not want to waste his vacation time for our daughter then went to a bar!!!!!!!!<BR>That drive home ended with me tossing his butt out. I made him leave that day. OUT!! NO MORE!! I shrieked.<BR>For five nights in a row I saw him parked just out of sight (or so he thought) near our house he would stay there (guarding) until close to dawn, then leave. I was in a fury for 5 months, he treated me like dirt, blamed the whole thing on me. Suddenly it was ME. Everyone though it was ME. IT"S ALCOHOL!!!! I raged on in my home and to a few close people. <BR>After five months my mad simmered down and I paniced. I hunted him down and begged him to come back. I was a mess without him. I tried ALA-non (didn't like it much.) Anyway I promised him anything, everything, I would change, I would be the model wife. BLAH BLAH. I, to this day do not remember what I promised. I know I never kept one of those desperate promises because I never meant a one!! He moved back in and we were off to twelve more years of an existance I considered worse than hell. I stopped going anywhere with him, stopped doing anything that involved alcohol. If he went out I was waiting when he got home and sure enough A fight would occur. It got worse and worse. Name calling, screaming, fights fights fights!!!! This is abrieviated here, trust me it was hell. He would constantly remind me I begged. Said nothing changed, It was all my fault, I was pretty good at holding my own here. I fought back and gave as good as I got. For the last several years insults, fights and everything else just rolled off me like water. I stopped fighting. I retreated. If he drank or came home drunk I left, I'd go to the beach and read in my car until I was sure he was asleep. The next day when he got up it was just the same as always. He acted as if nothing happened and I was still pissed. "How dare he not remember THIS!!! This went on and on. I no longer went anywhere with him or anyone else. The few times he tried NA for several months, I was just waiting for the inevitable fall and the crack of the opening beer, so nothing changed. Everything in our lives suffered, sex, children, finances, everything. I was miserable. Stressed beyond endurance. I was screaming inside that ALCOHOL: was this horrible monster that was destroying everything. Mostly destroying ME.<BR>Then something finally gave around the middle of May. He withdrew into himself, he no longer talked to me. No longer fought, was not beligerent, nothing. This put me over the edge here. I was beside myself with anger. Then June 9 he said one of only five words he said to me in a month. BYE. He left. Just like that.<BR>At first I was uncaring, numb really. I was still beligerant too, It was just like him to do this crap again I told myself. So let him go. I don't care. I knew he'd be back, at least now I had some peace.<BR>Peace lasted three days then that desperate panic reared it's ugly head. At work I calculated the whole thing out. I'd hunt his butt down, seduce him, (even though sex-my fault-had been nearly non-existant for a long time. I wasn't going to make love when he was under the influence.) Then I'd beg if thats what it took. I'd done it before, no problem. I still love him and everything else is secondary. He's the one with the problem here, he won't survive without me.<BR>I left work that day really upbeat. I even stopped on the way home at places I'm sure he spends all his time at. (Bars). I didn't find him, but I wasn't worried. I went home.<BR>There on the counter was a letter, my full name handwritten on a white envelope.<BR>I think at that very moment that I saw that letter, my heart broke into a million pieces. It was like dieing. I knew what was in there. I KNEW!!! Finally the ONE thing I feared my whole life had happened then I read those ugly words. READ THEM!!!!<BR>I DON'T LOVE YOU ANYMORE. To describe reading those words hurts too much to talk about here. The letter also said he had filed for divorce. That wasn't bad, we'd been down that road before. But those words. OH GOD!! At that moment he wrenched open that box with the shiney love inside, protected and safe from all the ugliness, he wrenched it open and tossed in a hand grenade, slammed the lid and blew up my world.<BR>For two days I was the walking dead. Truely. I don't remember much about those days. Tears, oceans of them. I couldn't sleep, couldn't eat. I even (God and my children forgive me) considered suicide. Not to stop the pain mind you but for SPITE. I'd show him. That did not last very long. Too chicken, thank God. <BR>The third day with no sleep for two nights I went to work. It's a long drive and I really should not have been driving in that condition. The whole 35 miles I cried. At times I think I even lost conciousness for a second. I could barely see and was all over the road. Anyone out there who has been close to emotional breakdown knows what I'm saying. I was convinced in a distracted way that I was really going nuts. I was hysterical but a part of my brain was deathly calm, like I was watching ME, but unable to control anything ME did. Weird SH-T this. Just before arriving at work in this hysterical & calm weird state. Here I am a complete Mess, my whole life is disintigrating and I look toward the ocean at the sky. I'm saying to myself "What a beautiful sunrise!" "No clouds, what a beautiful sunrise." At that moment I knew I was seconds from total breakdown, I was still hysterical and now I could feel myself retreating to that safe place inside.<BR>The next thing I heard was someone praying. I'm not religous. Not at all. I don't go to church. I beleive in God and try to do the right thing but I've never thought all that much about it. I prayed before-like most everyone else-you know, prays for things, selfish prayers, grace, prayers for someone's safety. BUT until that moment I had never really prayed. I get emotional here too.<BR>I don't remember much of this prayer, I do remember asking God to help me , to hold my hand.<BR>A calm came over me then, I wasn't better, just calm. I drove the rest of the way to work, about five minutes. As I turned into the parking lot I looked up at the sky again. AND there, in the cloudless sky the biggest rainbow I had ever seen, right over the buiding I work in. Me, the non-beleiver thought for sure I'd lost it now. I hurried inside, got my friend to come see the rainbow. (I wanted her to see it too. OF COURSE, this could NOT be an answer from GOD!!!) We rushed outside, me fully expecting the rainbow to have faded and that would be that. Well, When we looked up---THERE WERE TWO!!!!!!<BR>Over the next twelve or so hours I got my answers. This story is very long and weird. There were movies in my head. Thats right movies! Withsound (amplified) But somehow no sound, after all I KNEW what the people in the movies said. I told you this was weird! Anyway I'll abreiviate a little here.<BR>During the movies in my head a tiny whispery voice kept repeating, like whispering gently in my ear. "The answer's right there, just look." I have to tell you folks, at this point I truely thought I had gone to that nut zone some where. Picture it. I was sitting across from three good friends at work. They knew something was drastically wrong, but were clueless as to what. They were saying the things friends say in these situations, you know the things. We've all heard them. And I'm answering back. BUT, I can't hear them, I just see their mouths move. Then I hear them saying "You have to see a councilor." And I'm laughing inside because they have no idea that I am having a nervous breakdown right here right now. I'm HEARING VOICES!!! I THINK ITS GOD!!!! I'M WATCHING SOUNDLESS LOUD MOVIES IN MY HEAD!!!<BR>And they think I need a councilor!!!!! For crying out loud I have A council session going on in my head right now!!! And that whisper kept on saying "The answer is right there, Just look."<BR>That's when something wonderful happened to me. I KNEW the answer that would save my life and change it forever. <BR>There was an empty space in me then, a blank space. I fought like hell not to accept this. Accepting it meant I had to face something very painful. And I would have to face this demon all alone. I did it.<BR>The missing thing was rage. A rage so huge it colored everything in my life. EVERYTHING. A rage that fueled an obsession. I was obsessed with the fact that my husband drank. Sounds strange but it's the truth. I have no idea when that rage took over my life and that monster moved in. But I am absolutely sure it was there because I FEEL IS'S ABSENSE. It's a horrible painful journey to look back at your life and to see for the first time that you have allowed an emotion to destroy the foundations of your whole life. I cannot stress how controlling that was. In the later years my life was consumed by it. For too many years I blamed Alcohol. I blamed it and therefore my husband for everything. But suddenly I saw things from another perspective. I had somehow convinced myself my husband had been a bad father. He wasn't. In fact he was a very good father. Every opportunity I had to blame Alcohol I used. In retrospect I used Alcohol to avoid talking to my husband, afterall I'm not talking about important stuff when your drunk! But the next day I was mad and we still didn't talk. "After The way he acted last night I have a right to be mad" Allot of other things too but you get the idea. To my utter shame I saw the truth. It really didn't matter if he drank or not. All along I had generously taken half the blame for this mess. Or so I said. The truth was I took none of the blame. It was his fault. Alcohols Fault.<BR>Over the last month so many things have changed for me. The rage is well and truely gone. My heart smiles. I know that sounds silly but thats the only way I can describe it. It's like looking at things on a bright shiney day as compared to through a cloudy glass of water. My reactions, colored by rage, have done more damage to my life and me than any other thing Alocohol could have. I truely beleive that even if he had stopped completely years ago, it would not have been any different and that's sad. I would have always been waiting for the demon to reappear and in the meantime would have punished him anyway, because I just knew he would go back.<BR>Well there's good news at the end of this story. The changes in me are real. There's a new healthy person emerging here that I am beginning to trust and like. The rage is gone. FOREVER. Rage no longer colors my perceptions or dictates my reactions. I see clearly the mistakes I made. No he is not innocent here. He made it worse. When he drank he amplified it. No he wasn't anything close to the monster I created in my mind. The chooses he made sometimes were bad chooses. Some he owes major appolgies for.<BR>I go to church now. LOL JUST IN CASE!!! <BR>I wrote all of this down-allot longer version when it first happened and gave it to my husband. I have the need to repair the damage I did to us all. Rage is a malignant emotion. Obsession does exactly that. it obsesses you. It consumes you. Alcoholism is a terrible disease. I had never before heard of anyone so obsessed with alcohol that it did more destruction than the alcohol did.<BR>I read in one of the books I read recently, a woman in a simalar situation (obsession with the spouses drinking)was asked simply. "If the drinking did not exist, therefore no obsession, what would you do with the time you spend on obsessing?" I asked myself that and the answer is I haven't the faintest idea!" There is no part of my life left that has not been drenched in the rage and obsession.<BR>Today I am slowly rebuilding my life, at first I tested to make sure the rage was really gone, even at times I wished it back. It was a great defense. Nothing hurts when you wrap your self in rage. Oh you get hurt, you stress, your misserable, but you just know that it's really not your fault it's his, it's because he an alcoholic. Now there is sadness for the things I cannot change, for the choices I made that hurt him, for the day I arrived at a party very late to demand my husband come home-for the cold heart that turned from that sweet smile he gave when he first saw me that night- for the ***** that wiped that smile away instead of hugging his neck and taking him home. <BR>I'm working through this now. I just hope those of you out there like me, and I can't beleive I'm alone in this. I hope you see before it's too late. And I don't just mean for your marriage I mean for you. Maybe all these people are right and we have to fix ME first. I'm doing that I think it will be a lifelong pursuit. I don't like the person I saw before. It's terrifing to look at ourselves, it's so much easier to blame them or That Monster that lives at our house. But in my case the monster was in me. Is it in you too? My biggest regret is that I wasn't listening for the whispers a long time ago.<BR>Molly