Hi, My name is Rob. I'm an alcoholic/addict. On Wednesday I will get my 6-month chip. I've been in the program a year and a half. I have a wife of 15 years and 4 kids - 12, 10, 6 & 8mos. For 16 years I was my wife's problem and now it's the other way around.
My wife's dad is an alkie. He has slowed down in the last two yeras due to high blood pressure, a heart attack and my wife's holding of the grandkids hostage "If you want to see your grandkids you will NOT do it drunk!" etc, etc. His Dad was a drunk farmer who died under a tractor.
Wife's Mom (M) is the daughter of an abusive alkie. (M) left home at 18, took her mom with her and then married an alkie. My wife is the daughter of that CoDee/Alkie union.
My wife is educated. She is a nurse with a BA. As such, she knows almost everything. Just ask her...
I am getting better and she is not. She will not go to Al Anon. She will not go to couples counseling. She has not reached Step 1 for herself. She retains the illusion of control.
She is armed with an acronym...ADAM. She has said that she is now my second wife. My first wife is ADAM: Anxiety/Depression/Addiction/Management and ADAM allows her to de-personalize 12th Step work, meetings, readings and even prayer the way i have now de-personalized her with the label of CoDee.
My sponsor's E/S/H is that his current wife is with him out of habit. Their marriage is a roommate arrangement. He has been waiting 8 loveless years for her to "Come To".
I don't know how much longer I can be the object of her contempt and disgust. I haven't been able to achieve the Serenity it must take to endure that. I have, however, thought seriously about Change. I don't want to. I love her...and not just out of habit.
I would like to hear E/S/H from AA's or Al Anon's who have worked it out. I have already heard from many who haven't.
Hey there Aquaman, I was clean and sober six years when I found it necessary to walk into the rooms of Al-Anon. I had come to strongly dislike all parts of the "ism's" of this illness. I had come to the place where recovery looked bleak. The CoDee was every where, including in ME. Sounds weird to go to Al-Anon to learn how to live with CoDee but that is what I had to do. Every alky I knew was CoDee, my wife was. the damn neighbor was. The cat was. Al-Anon gave me a different "spiritual tool kit"to use. Saved my sanity and helped build my serenity. Toad
Hi Aquaman, and I just want to say congratulations on nearing your 6 months. It is great to see that, and I know you have worked so hard for it. I have nothing to offer as to your current issue, but I can and will pray for you.
joni
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~Your Higher Power has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
You mention that your recovery is now in its 6th month. Congratulations.
I think you mention above 15 or 16 years of active alcoholism, and I think you're saying that your wife did not leave you during that time. Whether because of codependency or some other reason might be debated. You mention that she's an educated, skilled woman, so it seems probable that she could physically have left you at some point, but did not.
First, I would urge you to remember just how much longer 16 years is than 6 months. It took you a long time to get into this problem and it may take a long time to get out. I think the big book mentions this. Your wife is jealous of the amount of time you spend doing recovery work, obviously, and jealousy is a character defect. But it's not a defect that's substantially worse than any of the ones we have that facilitated our drinking. I urge you to be tolerant and patient. She may very well come around. If not, fine. Her participation in Al-anon is not mandatory.
Second, in my 20+ years of marriage I've found that neither my wife nor I are married to the same person we were in the beginning. We've both changed, some for the worse, some for the better. You have undergone a radical change in your persona and priorities. Is it possible that SHE may have undergone changes over the last 16 years, that you may have missed or de-valued because of your addiction? If so, I again urge you to be tolerant and patient.
And lose some battles once in a while. 6 meetings per week might be just as good as seven, and the old flowers / dinner / theater maneuver still works, for some bizarre reason!
Lastly, you capitalize Change and use it as a euphemism for divorce. Please don't do that. Say it for what it is. It's an ugly thing that turns a marriage into a business transaction, and absent violence, infidelity, or extreme financial recklessness, I think there's never any good reason for it after a marriage as long as yours. People often ask "Don't I deserve to be happy?" The answer is no. NONE of us alcoholics deserves to be anything but dead, absent the help of our higher power. Happiness can be made, like a basket or a chair, it just takes the right tools and some work. Maybe you'll be great at making happiness and maybe you'll suck at it, but it's not a birthright, it's a reward. I urge you to find the thing in you that loves the sweetheart of your youth and bind yourself to it with hoops of steel.
Just some thoughts. Good luck.
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Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's.
Codependency - is that another way of saying two people love each other - but make mistakes?
There is a good reason why it's suggested that a man doesn't make drastic changes to his relationships for a couple of years in sobriety. You don't want to throw away a foundation of 15 years on a six month sobre whim?
Sure, your wife may ahve been an enabler (like mine was) and maybe she's having a hard time accepting that these people, that you don't even sleep with, somehow are helping you do what she couldn't help you do for 15 years and all in just 6 months! (Just like mine)
So here I am, 4 and a bit years down the line, looking at another Christmas without my wife. We're still married but haven't lived together for nearly 5 years - but we are friends and one day we will either live together properly or our relationship will change in another direction.
Count your blessings, Am I 'cody' - probably. Is she 'cody'? - probably. Am I bothered?
NO!
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It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you got. BB
The only thing I learned is all we can change is ourselves
I don't know what anyone else's answers are, hell, I don't know what my own answers are, and I have never met another human being that knows whats best for another human being when it comes to relationships, we ALLLL have sex problems, we wouldn't be human if we didn't, but I DO know where those answers can be found
within
The SLAA literature (which is about relationship dynamics), The CODA literature, The Alanon Literature, Melody Beatty's books, particularly Codependent No More, Pia Melody's books about Love Addiction, Some Alanon meetings, Therapy, John Bradshaw literature, frequent meetings and discussions with people with long term sobriety, successful relationships and experience with the above mentioned literature and Programs were all helpful for me
It takes two to Tango and it takes some of us a LONG time to learn that, I myself am particularly stupid and stubborn, thus have to be beaten into submission, a job God does pretty well, all things considered
The MOMENT I am focused on someone else's behavior, I am "doing it wrong" I am not working my own Program, I am taking someone else's inventory not my own, when I work my own own inventory long enough and hard enough things change and my answers come, when I fix my insides, my outsides fix themselves, The 12 steps, Therapy, literature, other people don't give me the answer, they change my perception so I can find my own answer, counsel with others is often desirable, but we let "God" be the final judge, if I concentrate on "The Problem" (other people), the problem increases, if I focus on the solution (myself), the solution increases.
My experience when I was in your shoes and started asking around, people in distorted, sick, codependent relationships all advised me to stay in the relationship, all the people who had walked away from their relationships tried to explain to me why I should walk away, everybody was full of opinions and advice, and as far as I could tell wasn't one of them that had what I wanted, so I went to a professional, for ME, to find my OWN answers, not to save the relationship, not to fix the relationship, but to find out what I thought, what MY answers should be, I bought the books, I did the reading, I took the quizzes, I went to Therapy, and I changed, and when I changed, so did the world around me
it took work, it took years, it took study, and it still does, I am still learning
I say to myself many times a day "If nothing Changes, nothing changes" knowing I am the one that has to change, and "put down the magnifying glass and pick up the mirror" because the mirror contains both the problem, and the solution, my lil "problem finder" also known as the mirror has NEVER been wrong in finding out what the problem AND where the solution lies.
Not once.
If I think the problem is "over there" and not "in here" it will never be solved, it will never change, and then I remember, if nothing changes, nothing changes
For me that didn't translate to stay, don't stay, it translated to when I get healthy, sickness, both internal and external sloughs off me like dead skin, painlessly and effortlessly, and when I'm "not right" with God, mental illness, struggling, unhealthy relationships, and unhappiness grow like little mushrooms in my brain...which stands to reason since I am keeping it in the dark and feeding it shit, how could it not grow?
My "light bulb" moment finally happened when I visualized riding around in a car that "X" was driving, and she kept crashing, and I kept getting hurt, at first I tried to teach her how to drive, all that did was piss her off, and then she started intentionally crashing, the more she crashed, the more "injuries" I sustained, the more frustrated and upset I got, and I would tell anyone who would listen about "her driving", and then one day it just came to me
All I had to do was open the door and get out of the car, it was literally that easy, I don't mean break up, I just had to stop making decisions based on self that placed me in a position to be hurt.
It was that simple
Yes I still forget, yes I still "engage", yes I still make dumb decisions and act like an a**hole, but I have a "baseline" to return to, a "zero"
I put down the magnifying glass and I pick up the mirror
-- Edited by LinBaba on Saturday 18th of December 2010 07:25:21 PM
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it's not the change that's painful, it's the resistance to change that is painful
Im wondering Rob if you have made your 9th step ammends to your wife yet? It says in our book on page 83 - They will change in time. ( the whole paragraph there is informational )
My husand changed . He has no program, doesnt want one either, but he he changed .. cuz I changed.
Yeah, there are days I wanna throw in the towel, call it quits. But wait a minute ... those vows, my marriage vows. When I got sober by working the steps I grew up and became responsible.
My husband is an oil man, very smart, wealthy. He could have given me my walking papers a looooooong time ago for all the crap I put him thru. Does this make any difference? Do I owe him now? NO- I owe it to Us to stay right where Im at.
We dont have 4 kids at home, I'll grant ya that. But I'll tell ya, my sponsor told me when I was about a year sober that my life would have more balance and meaning if I lived it this way and in this order ..
God first Family second AA third.
This is how I do it and I am happy on a regular basis today.
The first thing that comes to mind is "Give Time Time". We had to get sober for us, we work the steps/program.
The promises have come true us, the world and it's people don't change, just our views and reactions.
The 5th step did last week w/ a sponsee came to mind, he is in his mid 30's and 6 months sober, he really dug deep and I was really proud of him. There was a fair number of people on the resentment list, yes we alcoholics are over-sensitive.
I identified with those he had issues with and why, change the names and it could have been my list years ago. I shared with him that one of two things can happen, either they will be gone from your life or we need to pray for them, loving and accepting them for who they are.
We work on our defective character, and eventually someone with character takes over. Yes, "who you are shouts so loudly in my ears I cannot hear what you say"(Ralph Waldo Emerson)...we are what we repeatedly do.
All I know is to just keep working the deal. I've seen relationships turn for the better, and for the worse, but what is supposed to happen always does.
We don't put a question mark where God puts a period. We pray for God's will, and be what he would have us be. The right doors will always open and the right people are put in our path, of this I have faith, I have never known it not to happen.
Peace,
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Rob
"There ain't no Coupe DeVille hiding in the bottom of a Cracker Jack Box."
