Recovering alcoholic

[Malpal]

Hi all

I am after some help, long post so please bear with me.

I am at my wits end, I’m a recovering alcoholic, 6 months sober. I was drinking on & off heavily for roughly 3 years. After the birth of my 2nd child I get post natal depression that along with giving up work to raise my girls and a not very supportive husband led me to self medicate with alcohol.
it all came to a head just before Xmas past, husband came home & I was passed out on sofa with my 2 girls in the house 7&5. They were fine but he went mental and kicked me out of house and wouldn’t leave my alone with them. Just after Xmas I agreed to go to rehab, it was a 12 week rehab and was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do leaving my girls broke my heart but I knew I needed to do for myself & my family. While In rehab got very little support from husband. Never told me once how proud he was of me, after every phone call I came off crying.
few weeks before I left rehab I told him that things need to change before I come home (we don’t sleep in same bed, no affection) or there was no point in me coming home. He said they would but unfortunately if anything it has got worse. Still not in same bed, went to kiss him one evening and he turned his head away from me. Was our wedding anniversary and didn’t receive a thing. He talks to me like I’m rubbish and I’m absolutely done with it, I think that he will never be able to get over it all. I go to bed crying most nights. I honestly think the best think for us both now is to separate. I have asked about counselling but he just keeps saying that it he needs to process things. I’m so unhappy with him

Also if I do leave him I literally have no where to go. I gave up everything to raise the kids. I have no money. He built the house we live in and it’s joined to a farm so I would have to leave

Congratulations on your 6 month achievement!

I get a sense that he may have some underlying issues to deal with, however, he is not willing to process or acknowledge them maybe.

For you, maybe reevaluate what you want or what will help you stay on your journey of recovery and if he isn't willing to join you than maybe its time to call it quits. For instances, would staying with him lead to you to start drinking again because you're not getting your needs met? Or if you let, would you never feel the need to reach out for unhealthy self soothing mechanisms?

First thing, find a job.

Then you can rent somewhere.

I think he does need to speak with someone, but he won’t do it. I have asked him to attend al anon so he has other people going through the same thing to talk to but he flat out refuses.
I am afraid of my mental health declining again and I really don’t want to go back to that place, I was suicidal at one point.

I have just started a new job a few months back.

Unfortunately you can't make him do it. He needs to make that choice! I sometimes think that the person shows you who they are and how they feel about you when you need them (in a sense) the most. Your husband seems to not want to be available for your relationship or maybe he has reached a limit whereby he doesn't feel connected any longer. Have you both had a conversation about how your future together looks or how you will both move forward?

Addiction is a very difficult thing to experience and I can very much empathise with you however, sometimes to person who is supporting gets lost along the way also and therefore are deeply scared from what they have seen/experienced. It's very tough from both ends.

It's brilliant you have got a job! Least in some way you can become more dependant on yourself.

Firstly. Congrats on making that first step and 6 months sober .

Secondly I think that it’s only been a few weeks since uou completed rehab, maybe what 3 months home? He’s been clearly impacted by what he found, and then left as a single parent whilst you did rehab, I would try to understand how hard this must have been, how scary to find you passed out and the kids there, and to try to give some attention to what his feelings are and not just yours.

it’s only been a few weeks since you’re back, I find that a short period of time and too much to expect him to have got over it, and being honest, I feel wanting him to tell you he was proud of you I understand, but I also see his perspective, in that it wasn’t about making him happy it was about your own health and your children.

What kind of guy was he before? Supportive, caring? Is this a change in his behaviour directly related to your drinking, or is this a sober you expecting more than before?

Congratulations on your sobriety. I'm sure you appreciate how important it is. Sadly though many relationships don't make it through this.

Congrats on your sobriety!

I wonder whether this relationship has run its course. It wasn't as if he was a great husband before your drinking- in fact, his lack of support was a factor in it. Give yourself a bit of time- you've been through some huge changes and maybe things will settle- but be open to the possibility that this one isn't fixable. One problem with all the work one does getting sober is that it's quite tempting to see all problems as being down to oneself- your drinking, your behaviour etc are what harmed the marriage- and so you can do something to fix them (in fact you can end up in a situation where both partners think this). But alcoholics can also have shitty husbands and it may be that what your sobriety gives you is not the ability to improve your relationship but the clarity to end it.

Talking to you like you're rubbish is not ok. Keep an open mind about what you want to do, don't rush it don't assume you're the one in the wrong just because you're the one who's needed support.

Many congratulations on your six months. Was your rehab based on the 12 steps, and are you continuing with support now? I've been in AA for many years but am aware that doesn't suit everyone.

Your recovery is absolutely great. You probably feel new, alive, ready to start your life with a clean sheet. However, those around us, whom we have undeniably harmed through our behaviour, may not unreasonably be slower to accept the change in us. Maybe he needs more time to process? Please don't lose faith in what you're doing.

I have to firstly congratulate you on getting sober, it is no small achievement so well done.

I can tell you as the ex partner of an alcoholic that unfortunately living with an addict (especially if you share DC) does have a huge impact on the relationship and it may not be something he can get past. I'm not saying you deserve poor treatment or to be miserable but it may be that you can never get back to how things were prior to your drinking (not trying to make you the bad guy) and it may not be salvageable.

I also wonder op, if you had to do a 90 day program, it would seem you had a serious and long term addiction, so could there be more than the one instance you refer to, could he have had multiple years of dealing with addiction?. If so, it could take much longer for him to adjust than 3 months or so home if he’s lived with your alcoholism for a long time.

you need to think how well you’ve done, for you and your children, but I think you need to give him time, time to adjust , but more , time to trust you, that you will hold the course, that they are all safe now. Time to rebuild your relationship, I think it’s far too soon to now be saying let’s split, he’s telling uou he needs time, if you want to save the marriage, I suggest you give him it, if indeed it is more than the one instance you refer to.

Congrats! Being 6 months sober is amazing. You should be incredibly proud of yourself. I'm sober too and it's not an easy thing to do. Do you have connections to the sober community/AA/support by people other than your husband? I would assume that you know after 12 weeks of rehab that getting sober will throw up all sorts of realisations and emotions that you didn't expect when you were drinking. Drinking keeps us from feeling the good feelings and the bad. It sounds like you probably pushed down all the bad feelings about your relationship when you were drinking because you had the drinking to cover it all up and hide behind. But now you don't have that anymore and you have to feel it and see it for what it is.

Is your husband going to al-anon or getting any support for himself? You getting sober isn't going to fix everything around you. But it does mean you can confront everything head on, as your true authentic self. But you can only work on yourself and he needs to work on himself too.

If you are unhappy, you can separate. You don't need any other reason. Only you know your relationship, and if this is your husband and naturally who he is, or if this is him traumatised and exhausted from holding everything together while you have been ill. I don't think it's too much though to ask him to start getting help and support, with counselling (individual) and/or al-anon. But you need to take care of you and your sobriety, and your children, and I would keep that as your priority.

I know I hurt him a lot with all the lies I told him. Promising that I would stop and then him finding another bottle.
no he wasn’t the best husband, don’t get me wrong he adores our girls but we rarely spent time together, he would get home from work, tea, girls to bed then back out again. I feel like I’m walking on eggshells in case I say something that will start a argument.
I have asked him a few times to tell me if he doesn’t want to be with me but he just says that I’m turning it around to make him be the bad guy 🤷‍♀️

Maybe he’s just waiting on me to finish it

Well done on 6 months sober-having seen my brother in law go through a failed rehab, 6 months is no mean feat.

This won’t go down well with you, but your husband will be waking on eggshells, there will be so much that he has to deal with that he won’t be suddenly able to believe that everything is ok.
I understand how hard and complex addiction is, my brother in law passed away very recently due to it, but you have to understand how hard it is for the ones you live with.

Congratulations on 6 months sobriety.

Are you doing anything to follow up rehab such as AA? I think that would help you.

Your post suggest you are still very focussed on how hard everything is for you but from your husband's perspective it has also been very hard too. It must have been frightening for him to find his children in the care of someone passed out drunk, even if the children were fine, he was also probably very angry.

Although you didn't feel supported by him when you were in rehab he would have had his hands full and he waited for you to complete rehab rather than initiate divorce proceedings. You wanted him to be proud of you for not drinking but this is normal for most people so it probably didn't occur to him.

You also say that his lack of support, among other things, played a part in you self medicating with alcohol so you are partly blaming him and that's not fair.

I think you need to give him more time. I don't think you should meekly accept him being unpleasant to you so you should challenge that behaviour but it will take time for him to recover from his own experiences. You cannot force him to seek outside help no matter how much you may think he will benefit, he has to make those choices for himself.

If you are in AA you need to discuss this with your sponsor. Hold tight for now and if things are not better in another 6months you will be better placed to make any necessary changes.

I've been in recovery for quite a while.

My cousin is a recovering alcoholic. We are close and over the years I have given up very much to support them. I live in fear of another relapse. There have been several.

The thing I find most annoying is after each rehab they come out totally focused on themselves and how they are going to deal with things. There is never any apology or contrition for the deep hurt that has been caused. It seems that in order to succeed at rehabilitation they have to develop rather a selfish and blinkered view of their world

I would say that your DH needs a lot of time to process it all. That if you want the relationship to sustain you have to be patient. And to understand that to be on the receiving end of addiction is very traumatic and that he needs compassion too.

Your recovery is absolutely great. You probably feel new, alive, ready to start your life with a clean sheet. However, those around us, whom we have undeniably harmed through our behaviour, may not unreasonably be slower to accept the change in us. Maybe he needs more time to process?

This is a very good post.

I'm a recovering alcoholic and I know how hard it is to put down the drink and stay sober after rehab, so good on you.

However, all I hear in your post is "poor me". No real acknowledgement of what you put your husband and your children though.

You say your children were 'fine' (yes, it's every child's dream to have their mother passes out on the sofa) and that your husband went 'mental' (I'm not fucking surprised). You're minimising everything.

Yeah, 6 months is great and all that jazz, but what about the 3 years you were drinking heavily? That doesn't go overnight.

My daughters still pay the price of my alcoholism to this day: both remember more than most people appreciate and, yeah, I'm sober and doing well now, but I can't undo the damage I did.

Neither you nor your husband sound particularly happy, so separating probably would be best.

Well done on getting so far, OP. It's incredibly difficult and takes huge strength and determination, and you should be proud of yourself. I think your DH still sounds very angry. I think that's understandable, he must have been terrified to come home and find that situation.

OP, I know you're looking for support, encouragement and validation from him, but he may need some too. It must have been so hard to pull himself together and sort out the children during your rehab. He must have had all kinds of feelings and I don't know if he has any outlet for what he has been through at all.

If you're only six months in, you may not be ready to be a support person for him but maybe if you express some acknowledgement of his feelings, some understanding of the trauma it has been for him, he might feel able to let go a little bit?

I have asked him a few times to tell me if he doesn’t want to be with me but he just says that I’m turning it around to make him be the bad guy

Well, you sort of are.

Give it some time, let him be responsible for his actions and you for yours. If you decide you'd rather be apart, you can do that.

Congratulations on staying sober @Malpal Can I ask, why do you think your husband wasn't very supportive before you started to drink, also could you have continued working after maternity leave?

My (now) DH and I went through a period of adjustment.

He did not punish me in anyway, but I was different. Stronger, more assertive, much more sure of myself. It's difficult to describe.

And he didn't want to knock that down in any way, but it was an adjustment, and it took a bit of time for us to find our happy place in that new life. But we did, and he now has the best version of me ever.

I guess only you can really decide where you'd husband now sits. Is he adjusting. Do you actually want him to?

*your