Families & Friends Of Addicts Support Group

Addiction affects more than just the individual. This community is dedicated to the families and friends of individuals suffering from any form of addiction. Mental health professionals are increasingly considering alcoholism and addiction as diseases that flourish in and are enabled by family systems. Family members react to the addicted person with particular behavioral...

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and it just keeps getting better

jms7229
jms7229
just an update for those who read my post about how a change in diabetic pill dose lead to my husband needing to take time off from
AA....... of course he couldn't understand my less than happy response and then told me his therapist told him he should tell me all the things about me that annoy him instead of letting them fester into rage. (this bit of advise i agree with) so any way i said "so tell me" he says "you wont be able to handle it" well i am not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but his list was so funny i wrote it down and posted it on my bedroom mirror so i will never forget here goes: 1. i start ALL the fights, he never starts fights.
2. he tries to help out around the house but our house is a hodgepodge collection of shit laying all around.*translation= i leave my coffee cup out in the morning when i leave for work and the puppy grabs towels and leaves them around. and i do not always put jars and bottles in the can fast enough. 3. he is a rational person who does not believe in emotion. 4. he is working on stuff and does not like to cope and does not like to be told what to do. the list went on but just kept coming back to the coffee cup.
BTW the beach was great, dinner with friends great. and i am off to the hamptons for the rest of the weekend. Tiki birthday celebration for a friend!
deleted_user
deleted_user
I love your posts, they are so healthy!

He doesn't really get it yet, does he ;-)
deleted_user
deleted_user
You should let him catch you talking to coffee shops about getting more cups, deny everything, and then show up smelling of coffee and leaving the occasional cup around te house and be like "how did that get there? It's not mine. I don't drink coffee anymore. It must be an old cup or something. ;-)
jms7229
jms7229
haha maybe i need to go to coffee-anon. the support group for those of us who rush off to work in the morning but are too irresponsible to realize their stay at home spouses are upset by cups on counters ...driving them to drink!
i believe i have given him the ultimate gift, i am letting go. he wants to drink or take pills more than he needs any thing else in this world. i cant even remember why it is so important to me anymore. now i can be done with anger resentment and fighting. i just want some peace.
jms7229
jms7229
ps bhamguy LOVE the "it must be an old one" i hear that often! old meaning from yesterday.
deleted_user
deleted_user
You guys are too funny. We can laugh about these things together because we have all seen them ourselves. Astonishing sometimes - different countries, different cultures etc etc but the behaviours are the same.
katrinka
katrinka
Not to offend, but this is why it is recommended that couples also see a marriage counselor while spouse is recovering from addiction. We the non-addict are not perfect and just because person get sober doesn't mean life will be blissful. There will be issues still there and a marriage counselor can help work through these.
deleted_user
deleted_user
I thought about couple's counselling. The thing that kept me from it was feeling like it wouldn't accomplish anything now. I learned with my kids that when they were throwing a temper tantrum, it was pointless to try to talk or teach lessons. You put them in timeout to calm down and then when they were done, THEN you talked. I think you would need some level of sobriety for counselling to accomplish anything between a couple. With jms's spouse only being like a month sober at best, how is there going to be any honesty or trust int he counselling? That's what I kept waiting for in my spouse - like, "Get a few months of sobriety, individual counselling, and a program going and THEN we look at couple counselling." It's like those passages in Proverbs about arguing with a fool - it doesn't accomplish anything. (not meant to insult your husband, jms - under the drug use is the great person you married, but while the drugs are still hazing things I just don't know what you can accomplish).
katrinka
katrinka
Its not that you won't be able believe person is being honesty or trust them, but instead the counselor can let you know it you are wasting your time or this person is really being honest. I know from what my therapist tells me, they are trained to know who is lying and what marriages stand a better chance then others. It amazes me when I walk in to therapist office and just by looking at my face she knows how I am feeling. Sometimes I am shocked and say how did you know??? All this takes time and money.
I do think I should of tried marriage counseling, but I didn't know as much as I do now. If anything I would of wasted less time waiting and hoping for ah to get sober and stay sober. I still do not have any regrets about divorce and am happy to be out of the drama.
In your case Bhamguy I don't think it would of mattered. She is still trying to manipulate you, playing games, flirting and then getting mad when you don't bite. Your in the early stages and I know how hard that is.
jms7229
jms7229
he refuses! its okay though because coffee cups are a small thing and i can rise above the urge for passive aggressive coffee cup sloppiness. i pass starbucks on my way to work and have a coffee pot in my office. he also can only see things from his own perspective and needs to protect his sense of self and dignity somehow. the trick here, i think, is not to rise to the bait.
deleted_user
deleted_user
You're so right about him, jms. I'm sure if there was a chance for the marriage in the short term, you'd know, and you'd be doing things differently. While he is using, there's no point trying to reason with him. The idea that we are somehow to blame for the fallout of another person's addiction is just another lie put about by addicts to keep them using. I don't buy that one anymore. I love your anecdotes about your spouse's wacky behaviour, keep 'em coming!