Leaving is hard

[anna38anna]

They say it takes 7 attempts to leave. I think I'm on number 5. I haven't told him yet.

I'm wondering how many of you left your marriage only after a number of attempts - what made you stay the extra times, and what finally spurred you on to leave? You can stop reading now if you are able to reply - or copious background is available below.

DH is an alcoholic, for more than 4 years. He dries out, but so far has never stayed dry longer than 2 months (this last time the dry spell lasted 2 weeks, and within 4 weeks he has relapsed totally, so he spent most of the May bank holiday weekend drunk or drinking). He's very functioning, management role with lots of travel, and he does very well at his job. When he's not travelling he works from home, which enables him to start work late or drink during the day. He's not physically abusive, but can be emotionally very harsh and threatening when he's drunk. He hides most of his drinking from the children, but the detachment from family life is obvious to all. It's a roller-coaster life, and there's more than enough reason to leave - but somehow I always seem to be convinced to let him try again. And now today I know he can see by my eyes that I'm distancing myself again, and he's sad, and pitiful (and has retreated to bed on a sickie) - but he sets limits on the help he's prepared to seek (limits AA meetings, quits therapy after 3-4 sessions, won't go to rehab unless he can fit it into holidays from work).

On attempt number 2 (a year ago), I left with the children (we were living abroad and came home - a huge upheaval and the hardest thing I've ever done). He followed us home, dried out and then relapsed. Attempt number 3 was in November, he refused to leave our home when I asked for a separation, he started therapy and dried out for a while. He quit therapy in January, was already drinking again. Attempt number 4 was in February - he was crossing the boundaries with involvement with someone from work (not physical as far as I know) and I saw red and told him not to come home after a business trip. I got legal advice and separated our finances. He came home, refused to leave, told me to leave without the children if I wanted to. As if. I considered us leaving the family home, but my solicitor urged me to get his family to persuade him to move out. THe in-laws are the greatest, totally supportive. After a couple of weeks of standoff he was a broken man, got help again, went on antidepressants, quite drinking, started AA again, asked for a referral to the local rehab (hasn't arrived yet…) For about 3 days I held firm in my resolve that he still had to leave, get better apart from us, and see how he goes for a year or two. Then I crumbled, he begged me and I was willing to support him again… and so here we are. Attempt number 5. I'm wondering how to tackle this one with better success.

I'm having therapy (weekly for about 6 months now) - and it is helping me stand back and see the situation for what it is. The children have priority - except they haven't because they're exposed to too much already. There's a part of me that still wants to be merciful to him, because it's an illness, and a big part of me that still loves him. A small part also wonders if I as a single mother can actually be a nice mother to the children (visions of shouty, irritable me not able to hold it together).

I'd love if you could share what worked for you.

bump

I'm afraid 'what worked for you?' might not be much help because the decision to call time is highly individual and depends on things like motivation, courage, planning, support and judgement. Everyone is different. As many stay 'for the kids' as leave to protect the kids, for example.

FWIW, having unwittingly married into a family with alcohol problems, I don't think alcohol abuse is an 'illness' so much as it is a personal obsession. By tagging it 'illness' (or affliction) the implication is that it is beyond the sufferer's control and those around them should be endlessly patient and forgiving. I beg to differ. IMHO these people still have the (albeit impaired) capacity to choose and, simply put, they choose alcohol over everyone and everything else. There is a point where 'merciful' means walking away

Ironically, the alcohol-abuser in my life had an affair with someone else and left. Yours sounds like he's heading a similar way....

You mention therapy. Is that via Al-Anon?

Hi Cogito, thanks for your reply (and Minime for the bump),

It's psychotherapy - I took DS2 first as he was having adjustment issues when we moved home, quickly became apparent that I could do with help too/first, so now we both go, and all three children come once a month. Huge luxury which just now we can manage but can't continue forever. I did do Al Anon and found it great, but going out in the evenings is a real struggle, I don't like leaving H to do bedtime.

Yes, it's heading towards an affair - several emotional entanglements already, can't seem to see the problem with the fact that all his new friends are women…

I need to get to that point where merciful still lets me walk away.

I want to suggest something else to you which is that I believe you are being subjected to psychological bullying or emotional abuse. His behaviour with booze and other women is evidently offensive and his response (which is only turned on when he believes he has gone too far) ie. guilt trips, false promises, threats to keep the children etc.... is purely designed to manipulate you into sticking around.

In that light I think you were given bad advice by the solicitor about staying in the marital home. That's perfectly good advice when things have ended but everyone's still behaving reasonably. However, if the relationship has failed because of intolerable behaviour - and especially where emotional abuse is present - it's poor advice because you are still in an environment where you can be subjected to the bullying. No amount of therapy changes your environment.

I would further suggest that you contact Womens Aid and ask them to recommend a solicitor that specialises in divorces with a domestic abuse element. I would also recommend that you do not involve your ILs in this any more. However lovely they may be, they are not fully motivated to act against their son.

I am going to reply to the longer substance of your post later as I need to get DC to bed. For the moment, I just want to pick up the last bit. Which is to say, if you have less stress and you are more in charge of your own life, you are less likely to be irritable and shouty. In other words, a lot of your stress is coming from the situation you are in, it is not because you are naturally shouty or not a nice person. On the contrary, you are bending over backwards to be nice to someone who is not nice to you. That is an enormous pressure.

Thanks Bluebell, you're right that stress affects things and removing that stress takes the pressure off. It's an irrational worry really - born of my having occasionally found it tough to get through a week as a 'single' Mum while DH was travelling. It just feels like it could be like that always - but in sane moments I know it'll be fine. The children and I have amazing times together .

Will you wait until he fucks someone else before your last straw is reached ? is that what it will take ? Keep waiting, it won't be long. And boy will you regret giving him enough rope to do that.

Leaving may be hard but staying sounds pretty damn hard too. And while leaving may feel hard in the short term, longer term (or actually possibly fairly short-medium term) it will only get better and easier for you. Whereas staying sounds to me like it will only get harder.

Can you visualise a life for yourself and your dcs beyond the initial leaving bit? Eye on the prize and all that.

Sometimes it is tough as a single mum, and you have the added emotional issues with having to detach from someone you love(d), being angry and sad, all of those things. But you also get space to work things out in your head without the perpetual roller coaster of emotions which is draining and stressful, and you are able to build a support network, have great times with dc and remember who you actually are.

My father was an alcoholic, I was also for a long time very much in love with someone who was a high-functioning alcoholic. With my ex, I think I always, always thought he would change till what happened was he stopped drinking and became a workaholic, literally that was all he did. With both of them, I think there is something about it which makes you feel worthless, like you are not worth getting better for. I don't know if I think of it as an illness or not.

But more to the point of your OP, I left my marriage to someone who was very controlling, and it was literally like I had to close everything I felt off, don a metaphorical tin hat and keep walking. That is the only way I can describe it. It took four months for him to accept it was over. I felt horrible. Looking back, I still feel horrible, but I do not know what else I could have done. Quite simply, I could not open myself up to having my mind changed as then I did not know when I might ever be able to go again.

Not sure if that helps.

took me 9 attempts.
Why?
Habit and cowardice.

I finally got rid of him last summer.
I have been renewed. Single parent to 3 kids. Life is wonderful

Being a single mum is joyful and not that hard

absolutely brilliant, eloquent contributions by Cogito

Mrsbrownsgirls - what was different about the 9th attempt, what made you actually do it in the end?

Bluebell - that's a very striking picture, of donning a tin hat and just keeping walking. That's exactly it. Something has always been making me turn back, change my mind about what's right in that moment. I bet those were 4 hard months.

My daughter is 7 times more likely to marry an alcoholic, as it stands now - I wonder how quickly that statistic improves if we leave? (I take it you spent your whole childhood with your alcoholic dad - can I ask how that affected you?)

It's 4am and I've just been downstairs, woken by our new kitten who is piteously miaowing. H has brought her into the house - he is sitting drinking wine, and comments that I just want to exterminate him (like our delinquent dog who won't stay within the boundaries of our property and so we're considering getting rid). The analogy is not a million miles away - I don't want to exterminate him, but not staying within the boundaries is choice he's making.

'You want to exterminate me'.... is more emotional abuse.

You asked the PP how it affected you and I said I married into a family with alcohol problems earlier. The father was an alcoholic (also highly selfish and manipulative) and, of his five children, one DD went on to die of alcoholism herself & his three DSs abused alcohol to various degrees. More importantly, all five siblings spent large amounts of their time disturbed by his behaviour, being frequently rejected and NC'd, preoccupied with trying to help him, blaming themselves when they failed or blaming him for being a lousy father. I remember one grandson even being upset and puzzled by his grandfather's behaviour. These were people in their thirties and forties, not children by this stage. So whole lives blighted

He knows he's on borrowed time and he doesn't care, op. When I read your op, the first thing I thought was you came back alone from expat life with the dc, escaping him and his drinking, and took him back! After all that trouble to get away. I think you have issued enough ultimatums you don't mean now.

He isn't going to change and suddenly become the dad and dh you want him to be. He's a boozer. He likes it, much more thank he likes you and the dc. He needs you as part of the smokescreen though. The family cover. If he is starting affairs then perhaps he knows he'll be off soon, so he's looking for a replacement you before you ask him to go.

He still drinks, he is having affairs, he clearly isn't interested in the children. Or you. You are enabling him, at the very dear cost of your life and your children's childhood. My df was a drunk. He ruined my childhood. And yes, it does impact your life, in so many ways.

How bad does it have to get op? And you're a single mother now, living with a drunk. If you can be nice with the dc whilst all this is going on, it should be a breeze without a long term pissed bloke in the house.

See a solicitor, don't talk anymore to his parents etc- you are all making it a family problem where you get to manage it and support him whilst he gets a roof over his head and drinks. He doesn't want to stop. Don't delude yourself.

I think there's a charity for partners of alcoholics. Give them a call. And you are worried already about your dc exposed to it all. You can stop that.

The four months were till he accepted it on paper, there was another six months of hostility before he started to be more civil, and we are still in an on-going legal process. It has taken a year of my life, but I think staying would have taken the rest of it. I don't think that is an overstatement.

I can answer the question about how it affected me quite simply by referring you to my second post, I spent most of my twenties in love with someone who was an alcoholic, emotionally unavailable and abusive, though I did not recognise it as abuse. I married someone who did not drink to excess, that was actually a defining plus point, he did not drink to excess, but I had no sense of being myself, and he had no understanding of boundaries and was very controlling, so it was a car crash really. That is the simple answer, though it took me a couple of decades to work out the connections. The more complicated answer of how it affected me day to day is actually really hard to write, I don't talk about it. My mum was actually fairly emotionally absent and quite controlling as well. So it is hard to unpick what was what.

But I knew when he was drunk, I knew when they were fighting, if my mum went away, he would get plastered and play music and get us out of bed, and get maudlin and then I remember having to get him to bed as he was comatose. I remember cleaning. I don't know why, I was always cleaning because I thought being helpful might make it okay. Mostly, my emotional life was outside the house though, I had lovely friends and a nice school and we played out a lot.

But as I said already, the overriding feeling of it being you, of not being worth stopping for. I have unwittingly gone on to be with emotionally unavailable men.

I don't drink, I don't do drugs, apart from coffee! I have a good job, a nice house and decent friends. I have minimum contact with my parents, I love them but I cannot cope with seeing them because of everything which has happened. I have only put a brief bit on here.

All I can offer is that twice in my life I've left men who I was with long term/married to and had children
Both times life has only improved for me and the chikdren.
Money was a bit tight but life without the abuse or affairs was sweet.
So don't let single parent hood put you off, yes it can be tough in your own but there's peace and quiet and you go to bed feeling settled and relaxed instead of worried and awaiting the next drama.
Sitting drinking wine at 4am is hardly conjusive to family life.
I do believe alcoholism is an illness but its his illness and not yours. You have helped enough and compromised your chikdrens well being for too long now.
I echo contacting women's aid.
Good luck.

Sorry, I just want to add one thing I was thinking in relation to your OP.

One of the things I have felt, as an adult but obviously stemming from childhood, was alone. I had a very clear recognition at one point, when a lot of family shit was going on which I won't go into, that I was alone. When people go visit their parents and have somewhere safe to go, I did not have that. My parental home was not a safe haven.

One of the things my xH did after we split was threatening to me in my own home. And it was really hard, because that was the only 'safe' place I had. He is still in various ways trying to get over the doorstep, it is probably one of the few things he has not given up on. But also the most symbolic and important.

The relevance of this is to your sol's advice to stay in the family home. He will still see this as his home. Mine was my home. It is about boundaries and space, if you can enforce physical boundaries, it is easier to enforce emotional ones, at least to give yourself time to heal and strengthen. Really think about how best to give yourself that space, even if it means looking for a new home, which is yours and dc. In other words, see another solicitor and be very clear about what is going on. The sol who is representing me now is not the first one I saw.

Okay, am slightly concerned about putting too much identifying info, so will leave it there. I wish you well, and hope that you are able to go, realy, to build your own life. As PP says, the best thing about being a single parent is the sense of peace.

He of course being your husband who will see it as his home, not your solicitor!

It's okay Bluebell, the solicitor is a she, not a he :)
She was pretty helpful actually, but it's not a bad idea to get a second opinion. I would be gutted to leave our house though. The life that the children and I love is right here (cousins, family, friends, they walk across the fields to their grandparents). DH doesn't love it so much - he adored living abroad and only came home because we had left. His open bottle of wine comes first most of the time so everything else takes a place further down the list.

Someone else said (paraphrasing) what an idiot I am, moving home from abroad and so much hard work, and then just letting him move back in. There's so much to leave, so I will avoid that at all costs. The children's life could continue relatively unaffected if he moved out. I am tempted to pack his suitcases and present a solicitors letter outlining my wishes. I see your point about him still seeing it as his home. I will have to think about that further.

Thanks Ledkr, I can identify with that feeling of peace (from last summer when we came home from abroad). I just need to get stronger and hold onto it, and not turn backwards when I do this again.

I see your point about him still seeing it as his home. I will have to think about that further.

What advice did the solicitor give you, in the event that he did not move out? Because that is really where you are at.

You are a saint, I'm afraid you're just constantly going round in circles, I know you want to help him but in this situation he can only help himself, there's nothing you can do.

I don't see this attempt being any different to the previous ones.

You should make a stand, try live without him, you will probably find you are less stressed and happier, there's nothing to stop him trying to win you back as long as he can remain sober for more than 2 months, which really is a joke.

I know you think it's an illness and yes I suppose it is, it's also a very self indulgent bad habit I'd say and I don't see him giving it up.

Life is too short, you should have the life you want and I doubt it's living with an alcoholic.

Bluebell, the solicitor strongly encouraged going down the exchange of discovery route (a 'civilised' separation, with finances divided - she suggested getting his family to talk him round to this if possible, rather than accumulating a lot of legal costs taking the legal route to get him out of the house). The alternative is legal action, I forget what she called it, a non-residence order or something to get the court to order him to leave the house - or going straight for divorce, for which I would have several grounds. For a few reasons I want to separate rather than immediately divorce.