A few years ago before our littles were in school, the week before Easter (also spring break) my husband started the weekend in his normal fashion (drinking). The next morning he left for work, the kids and I left to spend the week at the beach. It has made spring break a normal time away for a few days now. If I can sense a binge coming on I say hey guys lets go swimming in a pool and spend the night in the hotel. They love it! Now its not something we can do all the time as that would get expensive. It is so easy to shop for a hotel with pool and breakfast without breaking the bank!
I think that is an excellent idea!! Fun time with your kids!
When I first started considering leaving, I'd go to a hotel for a night or two. (You are right, it adds up! My budget has its limits!) What I felt was displacement. All my things were there. I can't pack my world in a suitcase. So I felt robbed of taking care of things I had planned to do: laundry, crafts, paperwork/bill paying (My desktop computer with CPU is NOT portable, and I didn't have a printer I could easily take with me.), cleaning out the fridge, etc. sure it was only a short disruption each time, but those add up. It wasn't until I LEFT that I felt like I could make a safe, stable home for myself.
My frustration is that he drinks in secret and goes on week long benders. It is not practical for me to move my child and my 99 year old mom for undefined perods.
I know, it's so very disruptive! If you add in a dependent parent or special needs child, the sudden changes made due on his behavior cause anxiety for everyone. If it repeats unpredictably, it does harm to any child.
I think I would explore leaving once and staying gone rather than letting his behaviors dictate the family's uncertainty over and over again.
I wonder what a child or geriatric psychologist would say: stay at home though he's drinking, leave permanently, or take off whenever he behaves a certain way. I am going to do some research.
Learning to get busy and get on! I am thankful I don’t live with active alcoholism but I grew up with the disease and I am surround by the effects of it everyday. It’s different now!! ❤️
One thing I can do which is Opposite of Alcoholism is some self care which is apart of having some self love and a little self respect.
Very Difficult situation. When my husband drank (every single evening, without fail), around 8:00pm he would simply pass out, be unresponsive, slur his words, or in a word disappear. He was not violent, or on a bender, he was just absent, which was painful and in my opinion was damaging to my young kids who if they weren't already asleep when he passed out they were talking and interacting with him, and he would simply fall asleep as they were mid-sentence. So upsetting to see the kids be 'blown-off". I didn't leave in these cases but maybe I should have. It's a grey area, am I going to pull my children out of their beds or go to a hotel room every time he passed out? Not logical. I didn't have an answer then, and I still don't now. I guess I could have left the room with the kids, or I could have asked him to go somewhere else to drink, but he probably wouldn't have gone. He was in the middle of family life going on around him and he passed out, missing it all. It was heartbreaking,
oh, i feel this down into my core. Now, i feel lonely and dismissed, ignored, or annoyed because all the kids are gone and I have moved to a new province, 10hrs away. He spent the ENTIRE long weekend sleeping and we have a house he is determined we are moving into by September, but needs to be demo-ed, then reno-ed and if he sleeps for 3 days at a time when we should be working, we sure as hell wont be moving in there by September, will we? So how to have this conversation when he is sober minded, i just dont know. It is a very lonely and frustrating existence right now.
Hang in there, I know it is lonely, it certainly may not happen, unless you are doing work on it yourself. Unless you will be homeless in September, if it does not happen, your options are limited to watching him quietly while he manages this project at his own pace. He is a grown up, he can calculate how much time it will take to demo and rehab a home. Sorry to say, you can ask questions, that is about all if you hope to detach.
yep. I will work with him when I can because I do enjoy the work and I enjoy my husband 95% of the time. that addiction sure makes me question everything though. And it makes me question is it 95% sober or 95% using. Those are the questions a person asks. It is unlikely that it is 95% using but any use can cause the sober one to question that.
This is not for me but it's for a very dear friend. Sometimes she finds his bottle of alcohol and dumps it out. Their child is in school during the day but there isn't anywhere to go.
My question to those of us living with sobriety but no recovery…. The moods. How do you live with the ups and downs? The moodiness? The depression (his) without it affecting your mood? I know I’m co dependent and really have made great improvements in that department but still- how do I not react? It looks uncaring to me. It makes me wanting to disengage from him which is where I was before his sobriety.
Same Teresa. I’ve been living with his sobriety without recovery for close to 20 months. He did 3 month rehab. A little bit of therapy following in outpatient. Now. No more meetings, no more therapy. He says he doesn’t need it. He doesn’t like to talk or share. He is bipolar as well and is in a constant irritable state. Addiction is so selfish. Recovery is selfish and so is bipolar.
HE IS SELFISH. I’m sick of it.
I try to work on myself, pray in the mornings and always have audible or a podcast in my ear. Despite the effort, his mood, behavior, attitude drags me down often. When he blows up, I try hard to keep “a quiet mouth”. It’s difficult.
My therapist says I’m reactionary.
I try not to react but it is very difficult.
It does look uncaring of us. But only we know what we have been through.
My husband has a space in the garage. A separate space helps as well. My kids are not young but just any space away from behaviors helps. Boundaries are important!!
A few years ago before our littles were in school, the week before Easter (also spring break) my husband started the weekend in his normal fashion (drinking). The next morning he left for work, the kids and I left to spend the week at the beach. It has made spring break a normal time away for a few days now. If I can sense a binge coming on I say hey guys lets go swimming in a pool and spend the night in the hotel. They love it! Now its not something we can do all the time as that would get expensive. It is so easy to shop for a hotel with pool and breakfast without breaking the bank!
I think that is an excellent idea!! Fun time with your kids!
When I first started considering leaving, I'd go to a hotel for a night or two. (You are right, it adds up! My budget has its limits!) What I felt was displacement. All my things were there. I can't pack my world in a suitcase. So I felt robbed of taking care of things I had planned to do: laundry, crafts, paperwork/bill paying (My desktop computer with CPU is NOT portable, and I didn't have a printer I could easily take with me.), cleaning out the fridge, etc. sure it was only a short disruption each time, but those add up. It wasn't until I LEFT that I felt like I could make a safe, stable home for myself.
Do you ever feel like that?
My frustration is that he drinks in secret and goes on week long benders. It is not practical for me to move my child and my 99 year old mom for undefined perods.
I know, it's so very disruptive! If you add in a dependent parent or special needs child, the sudden changes made due on his behavior cause anxiety for everyone. If it repeats unpredictably, it does harm to any child.
I think I would explore leaving once and staying gone rather than letting his behaviors dictate the family's uncertainty over and over again.
I wonder what a child or geriatric psychologist would say: stay at home though he's drinking, leave permanently, or take off whenever he behaves a certain way. I am going to do some research.
Learning to get busy and get on! I am thankful I don’t live with active alcoholism but I grew up with the disease and I am surround by the effects of it everyday. It’s different now!! ❤️
One thing I can do which is Opposite of Alcoholism is some self care which is apart of having some self love and a little self respect.
Very Difficult situation. When my husband drank (every single evening, without fail), around 8:00pm he would simply pass out, be unresponsive, slur his words, or in a word disappear. He was not violent, or on a bender, he was just absent, which was painful and in my opinion was damaging to my young kids who if they weren't already asleep when he passed out they were talking and interacting with him, and he would simply fall asleep as they were mid-sentence. So upsetting to see the kids be 'blown-off". I didn't leave in these cases but maybe I should have. It's a grey area, am I going to pull my children out of their beds or go to a hotel room every time he passed out? Not logical. I didn't have an answer then, and I still don't now. I guess I could have left the room with the kids, or I could have asked him to go somewhere else to drink, but he probably wouldn't have gone. He was in the middle of family life going on around him and he passed out, missing it all. It was heartbreaking,
oh, i feel this down into my core. Now, i feel lonely and dismissed, ignored, or annoyed because all the kids are gone and I have moved to a new province, 10hrs away. He spent the ENTIRE long weekend sleeping and we have a house he is determined we are moving into by September, but needs to be demo-ed, then reno-ed and if he sleeps for 3 days at a time when we should be working, we sure as hell wont be moving in there by September, will we? So how to have this conversation when he is sober minded, i just dont know. It is a very lonely and frustrating existence right now.
Hang in there, I know it is lonely, it certainly may not happen, unless you are doing work on it yourself. Unless you will be homeless in September, if it does not happen, your options are limited to watching him quietly while he manages this project at his own pace. He is a grown up, he can calculate how much time it will take to demo and rehab a home. Sorry to say, you can ask questions, that is about all if you hope to detach.
yep. I will work with him when I can because I do enjoy the work and I enjoy my husband 95% of the time. that addiction sure makes me question everything though. And it makes me question is it 95% sober or 95% using. Those are the questions a person asks. It is unlikely that it is 95% using but any use can cause the sober one to question that.
This is not for me but it's for a very dear friend. Sometimes she finds his bottle of alcohol and dumps it out. Their child is in school during the day but there isn't anywhere to go.
My question to those of us living with sobriety but no recovery…. The moods. How do you live with the ups and downs? The moodiness? The depression (his) without it affecting your mood? I know I’m co dependent and really have made great improvements in that department but still- how do I not react? It looks uncaring to me. It makes me wanting to disengage from him which is where I was before his sobriety.
Same Teresa. I’ve been living with his sobriety without recovery for close to 20 months. He did 3 month rehab. A little bit of therapy following in outpatient. Now. No more meetings, no more therapy. He says he doesn’t need it. He doesn’t like to talk or share. He is bipolar as well and is in a constant irritable state. Addiction is so selfish. Recovery is selfish and so is bipolar.
HE IS SELFISH. I’m sick of it.
I try to work on myself, pray in the mornings and always have audible or a podcast in my ear. Despite the effort, his mood, behavior, attitude drags me down often. When he blows up, I try hard to keep “a quiet mouth”. It’s difficult.
My therapist says I’m reactionary.
I try not to react but it is very difficult.
It does look uncaring of us. But only we know what we have been through.
My husband has a space in the garage. A separate space helps as well. My kids are not young but just any space away from behaviors helps. Boundaries are important!!
I’m so h. H h g