I have been married for 15 years to what i thought was a wonderful man. We have two children, ages 12 yrs and 14 yrs together. i was married before for 18 months and have a 19 yr old son by that marriage. My husband has been in our life for a total of 17 1/2 yrs. My problem is that he likes to go out after work and drink with his buddies or have them come over after work. This usually is a 5 to 6 day occurance every week. Sometimes he will call me and say he is on his way home and he doesn't show up for 2-3 hours later. I sit home and stew over this and the more I sit there, the madder I get. When he does get home, I start in with the nagging and the "why". I feel he does this just to make me mad and I feel like he isn't giving me any quality time. We usually end up in a huge fight and I am very aggressive both verbally and physically. I just lose my temper and want him to hurt like I am hurting. He has never hit me or done anything abusive back. He usually just leaves or sometimes it has come down to us fighting in front of the kids and they will call his parents and then they get involved. His dad is exactly like him and his mom keeps trying to tell me to just except it because we will never change them. He has never had an affair on me and he is wonderful with the kids. He helps around the house a little too. Last weekend is when it all hit. He went out on Sat with his brother and a male friend. He promised me he wouldn't be late. He showed up to 2:30 a.m. and I had the house locked up. He had a key and let himself in. When he came up the basement steps, I was waiting for him and we ended up in a heated argument. I pushed him and he slipped down the basement steps. He turned around and called me a B****. He then loaded up some of his clothes and left. The next day, he never called or came home and on Monday, he called me at work and told me that he had had enough and could not live like this any longer. He was going to see a lawyer. I was furious and upset. I still love him VERY much, but I cant stand when he would rather drink every night with his friends and not spend any time with me. He said he doesn't intend on changing and therefore we have grown apart and have nothing in common anymore. Tuesday i went over to see him at his parents with the 2 kids so we could all talk this out and hopefully make him change his mind and come back home. No luck. He said he was sick and tired of going through this for the last 15 years and couldn't take it any longer. We have also had some very trying issues with the children the last 6 months and have been extremely stressed out about that also. He says that is why he has been drinking more lately is to deal with the stress. I just want him to deal with it along with me and not leave me out to deal with it by myself. He was very upset Tuesday and said in no way was he going to come back and he didn' know if he even loved me anymore. I was devistated!!!! I am on the verge of a nervous breakdown and can not handle all of this stress alone. I called him Wed and asked if he would move back to the house and take care of the kids and I would leave and go to my mom's. I just needed to be alone and do some soul searching. i know i have a very big problem with anger and have a very low self esteem and am always wanting him to show me love for reassurance. i called a counseler today and hopefully can get some help. i told him when i left that i am very sorry for all the hurt i have caused and that i hope i can get some help and he will see the change and what me to come back. I can't imagine my life without him and am very sad that he doesn't feel the same way. I told him when i left the house that i love him very much and to stay in contact with me about the kids and maybe we could go out on a date sometime. he was o.k with that. I pray everynight that he will come back and i can change to except him and he will in turn maybe change to help me. I can only hope.

Hello.

I really don't have any profound advice for you. The only things that come to mind are perhaps an Al-Anon group. (for spouses of alchoholics) And maybe counseling for you for anger management. Marital counseling if he will agree to it eventually. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" />

Keep your chin up. You will be in my thoughts and prayers tonight.

H in PA

p.s. If you don't get many responses on this you may want to re-post under emotional needs. That topic gets a lot more traffic from people who have been doing this longer. And it sounds like he isn't meeting your EN's and you are doing some LBing.

Thanks for listening to me. Right now I just need someone to hear my story that is not judgemental. I have made an appt for counseling and am going to an Al-Anon meeting this week. I hope if I can get myself better and feel good about myself he may see this and want to come back and possibly change a little too! I just keep praying everynight. Thanks for all your prayers.

Dear Hurting,

I have felt your pain. I have lived your story. Though I do not know you, I can probably tell you every thought and reaction to your husband's disease. I would love to be able to chat with you more privately. You need help that is available. If you do not get help, you will end up dead, institutionalized, or in jail. You cannot sanely go through this alone. But there are answers. Sanity can be yours.

1) There is NOTHING you can do, or say, or scream, or cry, or threaten that will change your husband behavior. HE HAS A SICKNESS. You cannot cure him anymore than if he was diagnosed with lukemia.

2) The craziness I hear you describing is NORMAL. Being married to an alcoholic is CRAZY MAKING. Just ask any of us!

3) There is help. AlAnon is a great first step. If you need more help than Al-anon, go get it. You are worth it. If you need inpatient treatment to get perspective and get your head clear of the "fog", go do it. If you need to, give yourself permission for a little while to let others take over your responsibilites while you tend to yourself. Otherwise, if you keep going down this path, you risk your children losing you for a much longer time.

4) Allow your husband to experience the consequences of his actions.

5) OTHERS HAVE BEEN WHERE YOU ARE. WE HAVE SURVIVED. WE SURVIVE EACH DAY, ONE DAY AT A TIME. SOME ARE STILL WITH THE ALCOHOLICS. SOME ARE NOT. SOME OF THE ALCOHOLICS ARE STILL ACTIVELY DRINKING, SOME ARE NOT. BUT THE DISEASE GOES ON, AS DOES YOURS.

6) PLEASE, let us help.

CKD

Hurting, I reread your post again, and my heart so aches for you. I found a couple of other points I want to make.

1) Your RAGE is normal. It is what emotionally healthy people do in reaction to this behavior. But you can learn that the rage is far more destructive than it is useful.

Until you learn some tools for responding to the RAGE feelings, PLEASE stop beating yourself up. Let your husband own the responsiblity he has for creating the evironment that leads to the RAGE (if only in your head and heart).

Thanks ckd for all of your advise. This weekend went very well. I left him alone all weekend and he got to do pretty much do as he wanted, but still had the responsibility of the kids. I was at my moms and she left for vacation on Sat., so I was there alone and did some real thinking. I went to church on Sunday and guess who showed up? He came in by himself and sat down next to me. After church he wanted to know if I wanted to go out for some lunch with him and the kids before I took them to a movie. We all went for lunch and had a very good day. I took the kids to a movie and when I dropped them off, I went in to get my mail. He was very nice and he even gave me a big hug when I left and said that we could really try and work things out. I told him I needed some time to get myself better and that he could also have some time to think about what his needs and wants are. I think he really understands now where i was coming from with the kids. Being home all the time with them while he did his own thing. It is a little different now that i am not there. I think he finally sees that maybe that life isn't going to be that fun after all.

I am going to an Al-Anon meeting tonight and I have an appt. with a counselor on Wed. If I start getting myself help, maybe the pieces of the puzzle will fall into place and the kids will start to respond and then maybe he too will change a little.

I don't condone his drinking a little, but not everynight after work and every weekend with his buddies. I need some quality time too. After all, his buddies can't give him the emotional needs that he will eventually need. Yes, RAGE is very destructive. I hope to learn how to vent in other non-destructive ways.

"You can't hug a porcupine"

Hey CKD:

An adulterous heart is an individual similar to your alcholic and as a result you would also be correct in that he takes on all your alcholic descriptions .....yes, this one too is very sick; he makes others around him suffer to coinside with what he is feeling like inside. Is it all the people around him who are sick by what he projects upon them or is it just he who is sick? Let me inform you my suffering friend, he is factually the sick one and everyone around him will be tormented because emotionally it is easier for the fragile human psych(or should I say his pride) to blame some other unsuspecting, healthy soul with excuses for his inward pain and suffering rather than muster up loads of courage, time and money, etc. to face his own monsters, head on.

Ooooh..where to start...

Aside from the drinking, one of the main conflicts I see is the state of mind you're in when he gets home, and how nonproductive this made your conversations. As you said, you sat and stewed and were so filled with anger by the time he walked through that door, that it was all you could see. Of course, your anger was completely justified--but justified or not it won't get you anywhere positive.

He's told you he wants to try to work things out and you sound like you want to as well. So, sit down and talk. Explain to him that the basis of everything is that you have to be able to trust him and depend on him and if you can't, then it will have a negative impact on every aspect of your relationship. Let him know how serious it is when he tells you he'll be home by a certain time and he isn't and make sure he understands why. Very clearcut "when you tell me you'll be home in this specific amount of time and you aren't, then you have lied to me, and when you lie to me, it decreases my trust in you and trust affects everything."

Explain to him that you need to be able to depend on him. You need to be able to depend on him to be home when he says he will. You need to be able to depend on him to communicate to you when there is a conflict between the two of you that needs discussed--or a conflict with the children that you need to discuss either between the two of you or as a family (depending on the problem). You also need to be able to depend on him to be there for you emotionally.

Be sure not to approach things with a "right or wrong" viewpoint. By that I mean that when you discuss things, don't say "what you did was wrong". Tell him, "what you did had a very negative impact on our relationship and this is why". Explain your feelings. Sit down and talk calmly by yourselves. Don't yell and by all means do not have these discussions in front of the kids--even if they are down in a calm in loving manner, don't ever involve the children in the problems between you and your husband. I heard a quote once that I think will hit home "They're children, don't make them deal with adult problems."

I really hope you two can get things worked out.