I filed for divorce today. I know no big decision in the first year of sobriety. However, I filed the first time a year ago, while I was sober, my husband is an in additive addiction. We were seperated but he begged that I stopped the divorce and to take him back and after 10 months of living apart, we gave it another try, I put off taking him back in fear of exactly what happened. I left my moms, at which time I was sober, and we moved in together, we agreed we were going back to church, and he was going to attend meetings. He had already started going to a few when we decided it was time to move in, I had several months sober but not a year, here is where I shouldn't have made a major decision within the first year of sobriety, by taking the step of moving back in. I felt with us both going to meetings and being sober that our relationship had a chance, we had sustained from alcohol, sober and had God in our lives in the past and our marriage was great. PROBLEM, within a month of us moving in he stopped going to meetings, and was back out drinking, shortly there after I followed. Once again giving up my sobriety. We are triggers for each other, I can't allow that to happen again, not for me anyway. This has been a continued pattern for the past 12 years of our relationship and in this time my mental capabilities had diminished greatly, I was in and out of institutions, suicide was always a threat to me, and I was losing myself. He lasted here about 1.5 months, then I said enough is enough. I was never going to get sober or stay sober if we were together and I would surely die. 2 weeks before he left I proposed going back to meetings and he insisted he didn't need them, of course I knew this to be untrue. Then the sneaking, the lying and the cycle was about to begin again.
I couldn't afford to be on this rollar coaster ride again. So I asked him to leave. I asked while he has been gone, nearly two months, if he would consider ever going back to meetings and he said no. I tried to get sober on my own at first, with no success. I blamed the failed marriage on my continued drinking, until I woke up one day and said why am I living a lone in misery, still drinking, isolated, feeling of self loathe. I could continue drinking and despise him for not wanting to get sober with me or I could save my own life and come back to meetings. So that is what I did 16 days ago today. It was a marriage that was abusive verbally, and emotionally, as it had been in the past when we went back out drinking and I could see no end in sight for our constant triggered relapses, I felt like I was going insane.
I know today I am not responsible for his sobriety and he can only do it for himself. But it still hurts, even through all of the turmoil, the fighting, the verbal abuse, the lying, I know it is his disease that makes him the way he is. I have seen what he can be. But I can't like I said get him sober and I also can't risk my vulnerbility or my life when it comes to him and the love I still have for him jepordizes my life. He is angy, he is bitter, moreso at himself then me. His poor choices have impacted his life grately, from monitarily, to relationships with his kids, and other family members and he is left alone. I know my enabling self would have caved in to his dismay and would have taken him back as I did 3 months ago, when he got tired of being out of the house and he would have given me the same empty promise that this time would be different, he would stop drinking. I know I wasn't supposed to make any major decisions, but I feel that this was over due. I just know in in my heart that if I didn't go forward and finalize this relationship in some way that the cycle I referred to was never going to end. We are toxic together.
I am not questioning my decision, however would appreciate feedback from others. I don't want anyone else to jeopordize my sobriety, I am enough for myself to deal with. I don't feel I had another year to wait to make this decision, like I said the decision was made over a year ago, but due to giving into him and this disease I thought it was ok to pick up where I left off and go through with filing for divorce.
Any thoughts? Maybe I should've posted this before I went to court today, that would've been the wiser thing to do. But I didn't so now I am asking for opinions. The divorce will take a least 5 months until it is finalized, and I don't plan on making any other changes or major decisions until I do have a year, I guess this just weighed on my heart and felt trapped in a vicious cycle.
I too recently completed my divorce. We had been separated for over 5 years. I wrote down the reasons why I wanted the divorce. When the decree nisi and the decree absolute came through, I had to re read those notes and make sure that the reasons were still valid. The rose tinted specs do come out and as much as I knew this was the right thing to do for the right reasons, I still needed to refresh my memory.
So i'd suggest you do the same. It's a roller coaster ride and I found it very distressing. I kept close to my brothers in the fellowship and talked and talked.
I ended a 33 year year marriage (we were together for 27 years) and it hurt. It also took a long time and cost a lot of money. My ex wife has succesfully painted me as the bad man and that's OK because that's what she needed to do to live with it (she actually counterfiled for divorce on her terms) I worked out a financial settlement that I could sleep well with - I didn't get 50% but I'm happy with what I got. it's a clean break. Maybe in the future we might talk civilly to one another, but that isn't for today.
Good luck, remember to talk about your feelings and take outside help (legal etc.)
In my case, it hurt, I felt a failure, I felt that I had done wrong, but in the end, I feel like I have swept away some more wreckage of the past and I can get on with the business of living. Realistically, all through the separation, I was my ex wife's pet dog, at her beck and call, on her terms. There was really only one of us being realistic in the end. I saw that we would never live together again and that I was my ex wife's dirty secret. Still hurt though, still cost a fortune, still divided wider families, friends take sides and the ones who don't can't keep confidences, so I learnt not to tell them anything that I didn't want the Ex to know.
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It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you got. BB
I too filed for divorce in the first year of sobriety, at around 8 months. I wanted to follow the advice of no changes in year 1. But my spouse was drinking at the time. She had quit when I did but that lasted for only about two weeks. There are some similarities in our stories.
It was painful and lonely and I did not really want to do it. But it was the right thing. I wish you strength and courage to go through whatever life-changing process is right for you and your sobriety. We can get through a divorce sober. I did.
The 'no major decision' thing is just a suggestion, and a suggestion only. I always saw it as something to just to make sure you think things through before make any major changes. It looks to me that you're just doing what you have to do to save your life. If you don't have a sponsor, I suggest you get one.
I agree with Db1105...I don't think that major change suggestion apllies when it comes to saving your life. The only thing that apllies to that is what is best for you.
I'm in the middle of mine right now. It's painful. No way around that. All of the futures that could have been and knowing that I'll never live full time again with my kids hurts so very, very much, but it had to be done. I'm not the man she married and to make it work would mean being somebody I'm not. That I can't and won't do.
I don't really know what to offer here other than you have to be true to yourself. That's what makes all the pain bearable for me. I need to grow and I can only do it by being the real me. I guess that you'll understand what I mean. Best wishes with it all.
