Support group for those affected by someone else's drinking - thread 3

[pointythings]

Link to previous thread here: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/alcoholsupport/5177307-continuing-support-group-for-those-affected-by-someone-elses-drinking?page=40&reply=147449407

Continuing our series of threads for people who have an alcoholic in their lives. This is a safe space to vent, look for advice and support and maybe find some strength.

And we are now stuck with 1000 posts of a thread with a spelling error in the title - I'll chase up HQ to see if they can help.

@Userccjlnhibibljn8 I read it all and found it moving, balanced and extremely compassionate. I like that you say you're cross, not angry – I get that, there's a distinction.

I find it a great relief not to be angry any more. Cross and sad are much easier emotions to bear.

You say you had two people in your life. We said in the eulogy that it felt as though Mum had died twice. Different slant but similar idea. Reading your words helps me understand some of the nuances of how my dad might feel.

(It was a rather bracing eulogy! Maybe a bit of a departure from the celebrant's usual butterflies and rainbows stuff. I don't know if people sat there shocked but no one was rude enough to say so...)

@Userccjlnhibibljn8
I loved mine too, I would have never in my wildest dreams have guessed how cruel he would become in the end, I’m honestly still shocked that he doesn’t see his part in our relationship breaking down. Or maybe he can’t bring himself to. I feel almost the opposite… I had a lot of empathy while we were in our relationship (15 years altogether), but now it’s over and I’ve been forced to sell my beautiful house and he will take no responsibility all I feel is hate.
maybe in time the empathy will come back but at the moment im in survival and re-building myself mode

@Userccjlnhibibljn8 beautifully put. My DH is dead too, and the rage and resentment I felt while he was alive has subsided because as I've said before, it was only hurting me and I wanted to be able to move on and be happy. It took a long time to get here, believe me. I can't even say all is well now because those traumatic years have damaged me, and worse, they have damaged my kids. @MamaBear81 you are still in the middle of the madness -your anger is totally natural. It would be a strange human being who wasn't furious that their partner was behaving appallingly.

@CharlotteByrde
Oh he isn’t my partner anymore.
To be honest, even when we were together he was never really a partner.
I was the one out working while he lost job after job.
I was the one paying the bills, putting food on the table & providing for our child while he blew the money he did get on booze.
I was the one taking care of our DD, cooking, cleaning etc while he was either out on a bender, or in bed for days at a time recovering from one.
I was the one expected to support him through his illness, while getting zero support from him in return.
Even when I lost my grandmother and stepfather 18 hours apart, he spent that time drunk.
I was the one making all the sacrifices..
my emotional wellbeing, my own wants and needs, my energy, my peace.. while he made none.

@MamaBear81 I know you're no longer living with him but he is still behaving terribly and causing problems in your life, as my DH continued to do for several years after we separated, as children were involved and I couldn't slam the door completely. Your life with him sounds very similar to my own experiences, and probably many others here. Addicts aren't capable of thinking beyond their own desperate cravings and it is bloody hard to live with the results of that.

@CharlotteByrde
Yes, most definitely still making life difficult for me. When sober, he’s great with DD.
But then I think back to last week where he got drunk whilst taking her for lunch, leaving his older DD in the uncomfortable position of having to be the responsible one.
He tried to guilt trip her for telling me & his parents he was drunk. It didn’t work. She was livid and embarrassed at his behaviour, and hasn’t spoken to him since. So of course he’s using that to try and get sympathy from everyone else aswell.
He’s always the victim in the situations he creates himself.
He will constantly use our DD to try and intimidate me into taking him back, making threats that he will take her from me.
But then has the audacity to say it’s me using her as a weapon for refusing to let him see her unsupervised, or agreeing to supervise his contact myself anymore. (I’m making it difficult apparently, because his parents have limited availability due to their work schedules).

One of the things I am most grateful for is that mine died 8 months after being made to move out of our home with police input. I didn't have to ride the rollercoaster of having him still alive for long. That 8 months was bad enough; I can only begin to imagine how hard it is when it stretches into years and beyond. I had 8 months of the self pitying emails, the radio silence when both my kids landed in hospital during that period and I kept him informed, the terrifying stress suffered by my kids when they saw him in the street on the way back from school. His death was a huge relief. And yes, I wished him dead. I knew I would have mixed feelings when the phone call came, but a larger portion of my feelings was relief.

It has taken us years to heal and find peace after his death.

@pointythings

I’ve had many a moment in the depths of my anger where I have wished my ex DP dead.
When he’s drunk, he terrorises me.
He goes out of his way to do whatever he can to make me feel distressed.
And at the time, he seems to be enjoying it. He seems to want to punish me for not loving him anymore, and for not being as weak as I once was when I would allow him to talk me around again and again with his sob stories, false apologies and empty promises.
He hates that I’m standing my ground, he never thought I would. He’s openly said he thought I would never leave him.
Even though he’s blocked on all forms of communication, he will still find other ways to contact me via new email addresses, friends phones etc, and he is absolutely relentless.
In those moments, I do have thoughts about how much easier life would be if he wasn’t around anymore.
But when I calm down, I feel guilty about thinking that way. In reality, I don’t wish him dead. I used to wish he would just stop drinking, but I’ve come to accept that’s unlikely to ever happen.
So now I wish he would just leave us alone to get on with our lives.
But I don’t think that’s going to happen either.

The guilt passes. I used to feel guilty about wishing my husband dead, but it went away with time.

I hope you're getting some real life support with everything that is happening to you - yours is far, far more abusive than mine ever was. Mine was essentially weak - once I got him out, he didn't try to come back and his attempts to contact DC were easily dealt with by blocking him because he was unable to take any initiatives. Sadly yours isn't like that.

Thanks for the new thread. OMG the posts that I have just read through are beautiful, heartbreaking, achingly honest and helping me feel validated. My feelings for my ex are very complicated but I do relate to the hate, anger, the bone crushing resentment. I felt so incredulous at how he could turn all the shit he created on to me and make it my fault. He couldn’t believe I would have audacity to leave him when he was “ill”. I have also wished him dead before.

It’s been 9 years since we split. In those years I have gone on to meet my lovely new partner, my children adore him and they now have a very decent involved positive male role model in their lives who watches their sports matches, goes to their school concerts and has little “things” with my kids - he and my son have football - he takes him to matches and they have a fantasy team together. My daughter and him have a shared love of hot chocolate and he is always buying her new ones to try or taking her out for their luxury HCs. We have a lovely new home (and since we were able to pool our resources a much nicer place than I shared with ex). So nice to be with someone who isn’t a massive financial liability and drain on me but actually brings money to the table. Ex has lost a few jobs, now has serious liver failure, lives with his pensioner aunt and is on disability benefits. Speaks to the children once every 2 weeks or so but knows nothing about them really. He hasn’t seen them in 18 months because he is too ill to travel and been in and out of residential rehab (lives in a different country) and last time I offered to bring the children to visit he said no as he didn’t want them to see him like he is. They aren’t dragged down by him day to day atall and he isn’t a significant part of their lives or thoughts. Ex is sober now I think, but too little way too late. I say all that for those that might be reading thinking they are trapped and their life is over. Life can be so much better for you and your children.

I think this is the best thread on mumsnet.

Checking in as a new member of the thread. Long time MNetter but have new user name for this.

DH is a functioning alcoholic, never visibly drunk, but unable to stop and increasing. He’s recently introduced spirits on a daily basis, which make him very irritable and difficult. We have two young DCs, so I have some hard decisions ahead.

I don’t know whether he can give up, he has major family trauma from childhood which he’s had therapy for but it doesn’t seem to last beyond the end of the course of sessions.

I’m thinking of joining Al-Anon but I just can’t believe I’m here. We’re both Masters educated professionals, big house, superficially have everything. I just want him. I want him to want us and I want him to be well. But I know I might not get either of those.

UnMNetty hugs and solidarity to everyone else on this thread.

Welcome @Cometothelightside. My Dh was well educated with a good career, we had a lovely home and beautiful children. Money wasn't an issue, but his alcoholism cost him everything. I wanted the same things you did but alcohol won. Joining a support group for family and friends of alcoholics helped me understand that I needed to switch my focus from the things I wanted to happen onto the steps that were necessary to ensure my own and my children's happiness and safety.

Welcome @Cometothelightside. I understand the feeling of disbelief. My ex was functioning until he was wasn’t. Addiction is a progressive disease/ illness/ whatever you want to call it. I might be wrong, but I don’t think many people function indefinitely - eventually the brain damage (dopamine receptors/ pathways) will lead to increasing use of the substance with increased side effects: on mental health, on physical health, on relationships.

Eventually, alcoholism cost my ex everything too. His children, his house, his job, his family relationships, and me too. I wish he had recognised it earlier and tackled it earlier. Now he has countless failed rehabs under his belt and an utterly wasted life.

please get yourself some support. I preferred SMART friends and family to Al Anon, but that’s usually online

Welcome @Cometothelightside . I'm sorry you are struggling so much. It's probably not going to be any comfort to you at all that in my RL support group, over half the members who have a loved one in addiction are highly educated and middle class. Addiction doesn't discriminate.

You have a clear view of the situation and there's no denial on your part, so I think you are ready to make those hard decisions. And as long as you put your DC and yourself first and him after, you will make the right decisions.

@pointythings @Nogoodusername @CharlotteByrde thank you.

I don’t mean that middle class people don’t have alcohol issues, far from it, just that from the outside we look to have everything. You’d never know. Nobody knows in real life.

I haven’t seen SMART, I’ll look it up. We live in a remote area, my nearest AlAnon is an hour away, so it will be online anyway.

He was beginning to take me with him, I was starting to look forward to a drink in the evening and find it difficult to say no, so I stopped completely a while ago and won’t be going back to it.

@Cometothelightside in my experience, telling some family members and close friends was a massive relief. The stress of pretending everything was 'normal' was so intense that I felt I was going crazy.

Personally I prefer SMART because they are completely secular, but there's nothing wrong with trying both and seeing what is the best fit for you.

We were also the family that had everything. From the outside looking in, everything was great. People were shocked when I opened up about what was really going on - only a few had suspicions, and they were people who had seen alcoholism in family members themselves.

We don't talk about it enough. The stigma is still massive.

This is it. I am going mad trying to make everything normal. I spend my whole life compensating for him so the children don’t miss out on anything and it’s so surreal sometimes when I’m out and polished and smiling and quietly burning out.

I’m going to write him a letter this weekend. He reacts better if he has time to think about what I’ve said.

I’m so sorry for all you went through, I’ve been reading back through some of your posts.

Another one signing in for the having the man who had everything, he was a retired clinical psychologist, brilliant at helping others, but would not accept any help himself.

@Cometothelightside Once I stopped pretending he was fine when he was a million miles from fine, I started to get my sanity back.

Me too! My exH was successful, educated, well traveled, 6 figure salary, very smart, seemed to know everything (you’d definitely have wanted him on your quiz team), very clean and polished. We looked like the perfect couple and family from the outside. It was so hard to understand why he would throw everything away. Yet he did!

@Cometothelightside glad you’ve posted. I was where you are. I underline what others have said. Tell people in your life you trust, let them in, don’t try to maintain some false facade. It’s so hard to be forced to grieve the life and man you want, but the reality is he isn’t that person you want him to be whilst he’s drinking. Put yourself first and try not to shield him from the consequences of his addiction.

The three Cs are good to remember:
You didn’t cause it
You can’t control it
You cant cure it

as well as the 4th C:
Dont cover it/ don’t cover for them

My god, the amount of covering up I did for ex I rushed around trying to make his life perfect, covering all the mistakes - at work, with friends, with family, with his kids, helping. All the lying so people wouldn’t realise just how addicted and in self destruct he was. They have to feel the consequences of their actions. It didn’t change the downward slide, I just exhausted myself in the process. My life was a lot calmer and a lot more peaceful when I tried to stop covering for him and clearing the consequences of his drinking.

@Cometothelightside you know deep down that you have to leave as dh won’t change

we all know this but it is hard to actually put into place

I’m glad we have split - not happy at paying over £1200 to divorce him esp as he could have for for free as on benifits but …….

i don’t wish him dead. More for dc but I do many times I didn’t have a child with him. But then be no dc so ……

At the moment he seems to be sober but mainly as he can’t get out and buy booze as been in hospital and now housebound

I hope this means he will be sober for a while. I don’t think he will sadly and when not housebound he will be out again buying

@Nogoodusername that's so true about the 4th C! I spent years covering for mine, keeping family life 'normal'. It helped that for the first few years he was able to put on a good facade when we were in company, but in the last two years people noticed (but were too polite to say anything).

It wasn't until I started seeing the damage to the DC and realising that actually, they knew, that I stopped covering and instead focused on the three of us.