Hi Chris, welcome back!!!! so how was it, oh I supose I should check your thread, I will.
uhhh, well, basically things suck big time around here. He is drinking like crazy every night worsening our already ugly financial situation and I am preparing my self to bail. And wishing I would have just left last summer.
I got this great book, Conversations with God, I really like it so far, however I just started it last night so I am not far into it.
I am currently just letting go and letting God as far as my H is concerned and taking care of my self and my personal goals.
sorry I know this isnt the best and brightest news from you to hear from me right now.
You certainly know you have my support and understanding and I do understand how diffficult it must be in your enviroment right now.
Is there anything you can do to help your H realize how much of a problem HIS drinking is to your relationship.
You have very many more tools than I do for understanding substance abuse. The first thought that come to my mind is that unless your H can understand that his continued drinking will only end in you leaving he will not stop.
Perhaps a carefully worded note explaining very clearly how you feel and seperating him from his drinking. Although detachment is helps you survive the day it leaves you both struck.
I read earlier that your H is making in the 80's and you are still in finacial trouble! If this is the case something is wrong and poor money decisions are being made.
Sue, although he will not admit it to you your H needs your help and support.
He KNOWS his drinking is very destructive and what its doing to the marriage. I just dont know anymore what its going to take to jolt him. I mean gosh the EA was a huge jolt, me leaving was a jolt, me going to file was a jolt, our seperation was a jolt.... I am just feeling like there is just nothing big enough to get him to change permanently.
yes the financial situation is absolutley rediculous!!! He dosnt listen to me. when he works the overtime he easily makes in the upper 80's but when he dosnt he only makes 60 a year as his base... and we still cant seem to manage on that and no he dosnt listen to me at all financially and I do know how to manage and budget money.
he just buys whatever he wants, like the Harely, that was 21000, and we have a truck and van payment, a family of 5. I just feel he is totally irresponsible. Not thinking of the kids or the family. Just doing whatever and I am so tired of trying to help him or make him feel better about himself and security... he dosnt give me much!
He does hug me a lot and is very affectionate, tells me constantly how beautiful I am and how very much he loves me. Thats all nice, but it dosnt take care of the problems. He also gives me a lot of grief. I have no security, well hell who wants the security of being married to an unstable unpredictable unreliable person? okay so he says a lot, and what does he show me. This is never ending Chris, how long have we been talking about this cycle, of he screws up, I get highly upset, he changes long enough to keep me here then goes back...
rewarding good behavior dosnt keep him on track... he is just going to do whatever no matter what.
could you look at Argus's thread in I need suport? he needs suport and advice and I just dont seem to have any right now, I am feeling burnt out on this whole thing.
I am not saying I am leaving today. but I am preparing myself to be able to leave so hey he has some time to change his ways.
I am also tired of him complaining I dont share myself enough with him and I do but he just assumes I am full of it. so how do you deal with that... I just dont know anymore.
that is a good idea, my only problem with that is, I keep falling asleep at night.
you see he waits until we fall asleep then he goes out buys his booze then sits in his car or truck in the driveway and drinks. Then he comes in and goes to bed. he does this because of me saying I will not have any drinking here, and I wont be around him drinking. I have tried so hard to stay awake as late as him, but he comes to bed many times at like 1 and 2 am. I get up at 5 so I just cant seem to stay up that late even when I drink coffee. he gets up at 4 but he takes naps after work. yesterday he didnt take a nap. and I thought for sure he wouldnt be able to drink because he was so tired. He said go ahead and go up I will be up in a minute I am very tired too. well he didnt come for a while and I fell asleep so I dont even know if he drank last night. He used to do this before he got help, he couldnt wait for everyone to go to bed so he could drink. I used to just go up and get on my computer to not be around him drinking.
He was very nice yesterday. This is whats so hard for me. We can get a long great! so often I think we seem like a very very hapily married couple. So many things I see and hear about other couples fighting over is just nothing to us, I guess because we have some big issues and most other things pale in comparrison. And yet other times, he gets on my case for everything... there is no stability or norm its a constant rollercoaster. Ive tried to pay attention to when things are working and when they arent and it seems to be his mood that determines it. When he is nice we get a long great, if he is feeling stressed or in a bad mood, its like everything is on me.
sometimes he is just the most amazing father, very patient and understanding. keeping his cool when I feel like I am going to explode with frustration and other times he is yelling over lesser things. I know no one is perfect all the time, but its such etreme ends of unpredictablility.
I never know what I am going to get. One day I have this great understanding H who I can open up to and talk to and other times I have this mean person who is just out to hurt me it feels and will use things I have opend up about to hurt me.
very small ex.
I forgot to give my youngest one her medicine on Christmas. it was a crazy day, he was at work and I had to pack up the kids drive 2 hours to Grandmas un pack visit for a bit then turn around drive 2 hours back home to get H, and pick up our crib which I am giving to my soon to be niece or nephew. My H could have brought it in the truck after he got out of work or we could have waited for him to get home from work before driving out, but we decided we wanted to get the kids to all the relatives as soon as possible to enjoy Christmas. and we thought the driving time alone together would be nice for us which it was. that night he asked me with all the happenings that day did I remember to give her her meds. I said oh no I forgot! I felt terrible about this, like an irresponsible mother, because even though alot was going on I shouldnt have forgotten to give her her antibiotics. He said dont feel bad it was a mistake lets make sure we give them to her tomorrow though. the next morning he got up so cranky and started complaining I hadnt made him breakfast yet. I said well you have never been a breakfast person untill after you have been awake for a couple hours and had your coffee. I made you some coffee and I was waiting to make breakfast for when you tell me you are ready for it. He was mad about me being so inconsiderate and went in and started making himself breakfast. I said, I said I would make it for you... he just snapped at me and started saying I dont think about anyone but myself, (I was sitting with my sil having a cup of coffee talking to her about her pregnancy) then he said well did you at least give Amanda her medicine today?! very rudely. I said yes I did. "at least"??? he said well yes "at least" because you didnt care enough about her yesterday to give her any. and made some remarks about that.
see what I mean he was understanding one day and knowing i felt bad about forgetting he uses that to hurt me the next day. now thats a much smaller scale then what I am usually upset about and I let that go to he was just a grump. But I am so tired of the mood swings.
I thought if I could get him out of taking naps he would not be able to stay up late. but I cant get him to stop taking naps just goes on and on about how he has to get up at 4 in the morning while we are sleeping and he works hard. and then when I manage to interupt his nap time and keep him awake, he then starts falling asleep while he is driving home.
I just see it as he needs to realize what he is doing and take responsibilty for himself.
he does talk about how much he needs me. he needs my suport etc. Wishes I would give him what I give to everyone here. The thing is I try and he really dosnt listen to me and dosnt agree with me or the way I think and look at things so its very hard. I mean here it dosnt matter if anyone agrees with me or not they can take my insights or leave them, its just my thoughts and oppinions from my perspective. With him its diferent, he thinks I am just not there enough for him, I dont know what he really expects from me, I dont have the answers he wants I guess. and other times I just think well maybe we are just too diferent for each other I dont know, but I dont have this much trouble being understood or understanding others. I dont know what it is that he thinks I have in me that I am not sharing. maybe he just has a false image of me and thinks I am something I am not ... I dont know.
its hard to deal with when I hear so many other friends saying such wonderful things about me. of course they dont have to live with me like he does.
okay definite ramble here.
thanks for your idea, I will try to see if I can work it some how, maybe just in a diferent way then I have tried. I have kept him awake by just having a lot of sex with him but I cant do that because it takes away from my time with the girls. they need me taking care of them. I thought cutting him off after work from sex will make him just have to have it at a diferent time. but I think late at night nothing is more important to him then his drinking.
I think he has gotten so comfortable with the fact the drinking is HIS problem and not for me to worry about, that he thinks maybe I wont leave because of it, I dont know. I dont want to make that threat anymore, I just dont know how to debate that one anymore because I am not suposed to be thinking about HIS problem, and I am suposed to be detached from it. sure detachement gets you through the days, and keeps you from damaging your spirit, but I think it also allows me to be able to live with less then I deserve.
Hi. Just thought I'd pop over and see how you were doing. You seemed to be getting a little burnt-out from the posts I've seen.
I haven't forgotten about you but I feel uncomfortable commenting on the substance abuse etc. as I have no knowledge on it. Just thought I'd let you know I'm thinking about you .
its nice to hear from you. I saw your post on Svolts thread. I was going to post but I just didnt have any thoughts LOL thats new!
Yeah I have been feeling burnt out. Yesterday I drove myself insane with worries of things that havent even transpired YET. That is such an utter waste of my time but some days I get sucked into it and let the undertow take me down. I just have felt lately with my own confusion and somewhat drownding in quick sand feeling I havent had much to offer others. then last night, I was reading emails has they were comming in and just not responding feeling not quite myself. When one was from a friend in need of advice. She was stuggling with pain of something that happend a couple years ago and its affecting her health and life... what were my thoughts as to what she should do she asked...
wow, suddenly a flow of all I have learned and stuggled through myself on forgiveness and resentment just came pouring in and I got to writing. we had a 2 hour session that resulted in me feeling like "I am back" AND being able to help her. Then she even said the ultimate "Dear Suzanne, I really can see you being a counsellor. You have a lot of insights and know how to apply them very well. It's time that I move on and start healing this part of me. It's No doubt due to stress and mulling these hurts over and over again I've only made things worse. I love you very much!"
I helped her and myself! It always seems to work that way, when I give to others and help them, I end up receiving so much.
today I was tempted to come in here and post how great I was actually feeling today. But decided to spend that energy around the house getting some extra things done.
I wanted to go over and post to Argus and Rayanne... I was afraid this feel good moment was temporary and kinda felt like I was hanging by a thread and didnt want to chance falling back, so I avoided being on line today.
One thing I realized is, I didnt turn to what I know centers me when I am feeling this way, I just allowed myself to feel weak and down. so tonight I am taking some time to read some inspirational words.
thanks for thinking of me! It feels good to hear that.
I'm happy to see you used that energy you found in your real life not cyber space. Not that we all don't enjoy hearing from you .
And as your friend says you do have a lot of good insights.
My experience lately has been that I have to focus on a few folks on the board. Otherwise I get the "rat in a cage" feeling of jumping from topic to topic. And besides I am supposed to be WORKING, right?
Guess what I'm saying is I think you found the right balance yesterday by channeling the good feeling you got helping your friend into your own life. Which needs to be your first priority. IMHO.
I know what you are saying about only focussing on a few. My head gets spinning if I try to follow too many. I am to the point now that I just go where I am asked for help. I do peak in on a few once in a while if i have time, to see how things are going but I have slowed down on my posting.
perhaps I am finding the right balance. This year I want to spend a lot more time on my real life! I put in a great deal of time here and learned so much, and I think it was well worth it. Now its time I start really moving forward with me.
I am gettin MS office, and going to learn all of it inside and out. So hopefully I can get a job. I am also working more I my training program for getting read for this summers triathalons... oh do I have my work cut out for me! Since I have been on Paxil and spending alot of time sitting at the computer, I have put on 10lbs!!! of course my H says I look so much better now and he dosnt want me getting all sucked up again, as he puts it. LOL! well I am taking charge of my life and creating my own stablility for myself... He can do his thing.
Last night he came to bed drunk and bitching at me. I started to talk with him and then caught myself... and just reminded myself there is no sense talking to a drunk. I tried to tune him out, it was hard. He was complaining about me of course, and telling me about how I dont know what its like in the real world to have real problems. He is under a lot of stress right now at work and I sat and talked with him for quite a while yesterday, did a lot of listening and didnt try to solve his problems just practiced some active listening.
A friend he has worked with for 7 years was walked off the job yesterday with accusastions of bringing drugs into the prison. That sucks! My H had no idea and he is pretty upset about it. This guy also had been trying to get my H to give him money for a while for him to "invest in stocks" for him. My H just kept telling him he dosnt have any money, Thank Goodness!!! also an inmate kept asking my H to give messages to this guy but my H said no. Had he given just one message he could have been fired for being part of this thing. thats scary! My H says most likely an investigation has been going on for a while and his office has been most likely taped and phone too. Which actually is a good thing because it will show that my H wasnt involved in anything going on. So now he is upset about this and of course I just wouldnt understand about real problems. No I just have to worry about where my life is headed living like this thats all of my minute nothing problems.
well I still feel good today so I am going to try to stay that way.
