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.

@Cometothelightside Loving/ being married to an addict is all consuming. I desperately desperately wanted to save Ex. I wanted him to become the person he was in the ‘good’ times - a good partner, a good father, a man with hobbies and interests and talented at his job. But I couldn’t save him. It is fundamentally impossible to save someone else from addiction.

I learnt a lot about different types of enabling. Mine was the ‘if I could just do this one last thing/ give this one more piece of support then it might be the catalyst’. No. It was futile and I also became half a person in the process - always scared, always anxious, my jar of sand always nearly full because of addiction with not enough emotional energy left for all the other parts of my life.

You can only save yourself, and by extension your children. You, and they, deserve a full life. It is immensely painful to walk away, but it is so brave and future you will thank yourself for it.

Much love x

@pointythings thank you. It’s just so depressing. I have the day off today, DH has the DCs and all I’ve done is scroll, send messages and walk the dog. I have so much to do but I’m just exhausted, seemingly from doing nothing. The house is a mess, I have a pile of ironing, but I’ve also spent the last week planning and thinking, so it’s no wonder stuff isn’t being done.

@Nogoodusername I can’t believe how much I’ve run myself into the ground enabling him, when all along I thought I was helping him, saving him and keeping the family afloat. In reality I was letting him take me down with him. He has his own business and it’s sliding, but I’m not papering the cracks any more. It’s weirdly exhilarating. I think I have that chimpanzee grin a lot of the time at the moment which looks like amusement but is actually pure terror.

I’m going to parents’ evening later. I hope DS’ teacher isn’t nice to me. I’m at that stage where I’m fine with everything except people being nice to me. I haven’t told her anything but I’ve looked a bit ragged at the school gate a few mornings.

@Cometothelightside oh, I recognise the exhaustion. It's soul destroying. And most of it is to do with your addict sapping your peace of mind.

Once you've done the hard yards of divorce, you will get that energy back. After my husband left home, there was plenty of shit left to hit the fan, but because he wasn't in my head 24/7, I coped so much better.

@pointythings it was him who made the mistake of going away for ten days in the summer that started me realising just how much better I am without him. I could think straight and I was beginning to remember who I used to be. It gives me hope.

Are you me? Mine abandoned our family holiday in Devon because I refused to buy more alcohol two days after arrival (2 bottles of spirits in 2 days). Instead of caving, I booked him a train ticket and sent him off. DDs and I had a fabulous, relaxing holiday without him. Complete eye opener.

@Cometothelightside Oh the enabling… I actually wince when I think back to the all of the enabling I did over the past couple of years. I genuinely thought I was helping, that if I could remove this stress and that stress then he wouldn’t need to drink.

My ex too runs his own business, it is all but dead now as in his absolutely full on unfunctional past year, he has mucked up so many jobs and clients couldn’t trust him. But, my enabling included doing his business admin (diary management, liaising with clients - aka covering with clients, ordering, all accounting etc), legal paperwork, financial management, even managing his child arrangements when he still saw them (so that he booked and paid for after school clubs, went to events etc). I have a full time job and my own children. What was I doing?! I was exhausted, destroying myself, spread so thin it was ridiculous, and honestly it made the blindest bit of difference. There was always always a new ‘reason’ for the drink or the coke, a new ‘stress’ that had to be medicated, and in a lot of ways an increasing focus on everything I did wrong.

madness! I still worry about him a lot. I still have had a couple of moments being drawn back in to support a treatment effort (eg a home detox with local services after which he relapsed in 10 days). I have mood swings of being devastated that I couldn’t save him and had to walk away, of being so sad for him that I don’t expect he’ll ever break free, regret for his children, a whole lot of anger. But I do have so much more peace and clarity and so much time back. It’s genuinely liberating. I know some people are able to ‘detach with love’ while remaining together, but I don’t know how - it was destroying me and I choose to save me.

sounds similar to me and what I did for dh.
His invoices
chasing him to reply to clients
advertising him for work
replying as ‘him’ on emails

Same as in parents evening

sure lots of schools have them this week

dc school know as I told them last year as knew if dc would it would flag up under safe guarding so I told them in huge tears that I had kicked him out

they knew he was a drinker but not the extent

school have been great. Keeping an eye on dc and there if they want to talk

please do talk to the pastual care officer

Hi all.
I received an email from ex DP during the early hours of this morning. Saw it when I woke up.
Telling me he has turned yellow and is urinating pure blood. Asking me to help him.
I don’t know if this is true, I haven’t seen him in a couple of weeks. Also these were symptoms his friend’s partner had shortly before she passed away (he currently lives with this friend), so I don’t know if this is just another attempt at emotional manipulation trying to get me to take him back again.
He’s tried it so many times before with suicide threats and claims of suicide attempts, all of which were untrue.
Either way, I have told him I’m not a doctor and therefore can’t help him, he needs to go to hospital. But it has left me feeling like I’m so cold hearted.

You are absolutely not cold hearted @MamaBear81. Like your ex, mine loves a suicide threat and a health scare to get attention and sympathy and draw me back in. My ex also likes it for a reason to drink to be honest - poor me, I am so stressed about my health. I actually got a ‘I’m in very poor health’ email on Monday - ignored it. I’m not a doctor and he knows where he is (or A&E).

I’m sure both your and my Ex do have poor health given the level of their addiction, but it’s not our burden to share. You aren’t a doctor and he needs medical support.

I would stay firm - sorry to hear that, hope you can get a GP appointment quickly, go to A&E if you can’t. I also tell mine to tell his support worker given how much he likes to tell me how much support he is engaged with.

I remember that you have a good relationship with his parents, so they can tell you any updates if needed @MamaBear81

You really aren’t a cold person. I am though - I mean, what did they expect was going to happen from years of abusing alcohol

My DCs' school was brilliant. I kept them informed every step of the way, from the moment I decided on divorce. They were hugely supportive, the head sent individual gifts and flowers when their dad died and pastoral care was on offer throughout. When DC2 needed time off for therapy, it just wasn't a problem.

@MamaBear81 you are not cold-hearted in the slightest. You've spent years caring and worrying and hoping.

My mother thought the rest of us cold-hearted in the face of her endless self-inflicted woes. Yet she never demonstrated any concern when we had problems. I think she saw us as cardboard cut-outs. NPCs. Support humans with no needs of our own.

And you're right, you can't help. He needs medical treatment and can access it himself.

@Nogoodusername @amlie8
I just find it really hard to have empathy for someone who has spent so long abusing me whilst drunk, exposing our two yo DD to the affects of his drinking, completely relying on me to financially support us all aswell as basically be a single parent to him aswell as our DD, does nothing to help himself other than take some medication to create the facade that he is in fact trying (but still drinking the same, if not worse than he always has).
I can’t save him, the only thing I can do is save myself and DD.
It sounds awful to say, but in a way, if anything does happen to him I would rather it be now, while DD is only two and young enough to adapt to life without him.
Although I suspect this is just another attempt at an emotional guilt trip because nothing else he has tried so far is working.

I lost count of the number of times my husband called me because he had life threatening issues. Once I galloped home from a business meeting in Prague to find out it was a small infected insect bite and he refused to go to the doctor. Also the suicide threats……

I have to mentally hold strong because his last request to me was to talk, we were estranged, with protection orders. This was done through lawyers and I said no, but that he could e mail…. He took his own life a few weeks after. Rationally I know nothing good could have come from talking to him….but it is so hard.

That's not an awful thing to think at all. It's rational. I wished my husband dead many times, especially when he completely failed to respond on the occasions when the DC landed in hospital (fortunately nothing serious both times, but still).

Life would be so much calmer if ex died. Obv we can never say this out aloud to anyone but sure we all feel the same

That is what this group is for! We're the same in my RL group. One of the things you need if there's an addict in your life is a safe space to say the unsayable.

We do. We could get on and grieve, rather than this hell that is constant chaos/ abuse/ heartache all while knowing the end outcome will inevitably be death from addiction.

In my most furious moments with Ex, having spent HOURS painstakingly trying to negotiate with him about why his life is turning around and how he still has a lot going for him to make life worth living, I’m pretty sure I have said ‘fine, get on with it’ in response to a suicide threat.

Oh, I said on here that I hoped it would end soon. It ended the same day. I don't regret how I felt or what I said. I think I sensed it was about to end, really. I was utterly exhausted by the insanity and endless stress. This forum was here for me on the hardest days and it was such a relief to feel understood.

@MamaBear81 I've had those exact same thoughts. Thinking … hmmm what’s the best age for your dad to die, if it was going to happen regardless? I am now firmly in the zone of “not now” as my children are teens, going to be doing exams soon etc. Would I choose age 2 or 16 of it was up to me? 2 everyday of the week. It’s not like there are any decent memories of those 14 years, more like 14 years of distress, drama, upset, confusion, disappointment.

They do cope even if it's 16 though. Mine were 15 and 17. If you have a strong bond with them (and you will have, because by that age they know they can't rely on their dad) you end up a unit with them, with your alcoholic sitting on the periphery of the family unit. That causes its own problems because your alcoholic will resent it, but you make it work. And of course at that age, if they want no contact with the alcoholic parent, they are heard.

At 2 it's harder because there is still this presumption that contact is good for the child, even when it is not and is often unsafe.

Thank you all, I feel a bit less of a monster.. this seems to be a fairly normal way to think/feel when there is an alcoholic creating chaos and havoc in your life.
Had another email from him this afternoon telling me he’s starting a new job on Monday and needs his steel toe cap boots.
So I would love to know how he was practically on deaths door at 3am this morning, claiming he is “literally dying, has turned yellow and is peeing pure red blood” but is somehow well enough to be starting a new job on Monday.