Side affects Percocet. Need explanation, please.

[MessyCook]

Hello to all,
I will try to be short in my explanation.
My husband is in recovery for a couple of years but has been drinking and using drugs for most of his life ( before I met him).
We have been together for 5 years almost and I am ending our marriage, for the safety and emotional well being of my children and myself.
Still though, I feel that I need to find an explanation for what is causing the craziness in our family.

I have never used drugs and drink alcohol very moderately.
I never knew anything about addiction, I come from a completely different world than my husband.
We have struggles since the beginning of our marriage, my husband is controlling and can be emotionally abusive, actually he is that pretty much all of the time. I am only just coming out of my own denial about that.
Only two days ago he got physically abusive too.
That is where I drew the line.
It is a very sad situation since we also have a young son who will now miss his father because I have to go home, which is also literally on the other side of the world.
My husband has a herniated disc for about 6 months now, the doctor feels an operation would be best but my husband feels he can not take time off work and wants to postpone it until after Christmas.
He has been getting Endocet, which is a generic for Percocet, and his worst side, that would only pop up on certain times, has now taken over for the past 6 months.
He is very volatile, very moody, very short fuse and I have not seen him smile for months.
I put " very " in front of these words since he could be like that before his medication too but it was balanced often with his good side.
I started to find some information on the side effects of Percocet after my brother in law told me how the drugs can also affect his behaviour.
I talked about that with my husband who denies completely that this is taking place, he blames my and my children for his bad mood.

This is short and of course there are a lot more details that would complete the story but this is pretty much what is going on in a nutshell.
I feel that he should know, after all the years of doing drugs, how he can get but since he is in denial and does not want to even go to AA-meeting or any counseling, I feel that I am making the right decision.
My husband had a very dysfunctional and abusive childhood himself and I do feel for him even though I am relieved to have taken the decision to leave.

My question: what are the side effects of Percocet? The anger, the unpredictability? Sometimes he is just plain evil.
He always had that but, as my brother in law said, they are now enlarged even more.

Can I do anything to change him if he is not willing to even consider what I am saying to him.
I have seen him change from a man I could feel love for to a very controlling man who has chipped away the love and respect our relationship was built upon.
I am at the end and feel I can not go on anymore. The moods that my children are subjected to are just too much.

Because my home country is thousands of miles away, this means the end of our marriage and my youngest son has to miss his father in his life.
We came here to start a new life and will have to leave with just a few bags, and nothing to go back to.

How is is possible that a man who has been through several rehabs himself and knows a lot about addiction, can not see how the drugs affect his life and are causing the end of our marriage.

Any advice is welcome.

Forgive me for being emotional while trying to be factual too, I have come to a world I did not know and have found my children and myself in a surreal family life that I still can not seem to understand.

[GodWrksNmystryusWYS]

I see that this is from about a year ago, I hope all is well. I usually would never comment on something this old because of the fact no one will reply but I am curious now if you still are in the same situation or you changed your life.

After he hit you or abused you, and tells you that he does not care about your feelings or thoughts, you need to leave. You can move somewhere else there are a lot of help for women in your situation. There are homes shelters and even some agencies that will help you financially get into your own home. If you are continuing to stay in the situation you are in that is because you are unable to leave and you are inflicting the pain on yourself and that the longer you stay the harder it will eb to leave. I am not trying top be mean but my grandma told me that you are the only person that can conduct or destroy your happiness. If you are nothappy then just leave! No one can make you stay or go or do anyting you don't want to do. If you have children that were born here you have an option to get a green card and you won't just be "deported" you have aright too now. Please let me knwo if you can read this now and any other women that read this and are in any simular situations know that there is help out there and no man is worth feeling hrut or scared. There are many other fish in the sea!!

[MessyCook]

Thank you all for taking the time to read my, long, post and for giving me your thoughts.
I have had a few days to think about it all. The facts are still the same, what happened, happened but my emotions do not cloud my thinking that much anymore.

The crazy thing is, and it blows me away, that my older sons do not want to leave.
They are teenagers, they know my husband's behaviour is crazy at times but they like the school here very much.
They are both involved in football and wrestling for which they received awards.
Both have made the honor roll almost consistently.
This is really the part I can not get over.
They do experience a lot less of my husband's moods since they go to school all day and come home at dinner time.
Maybe that is an explanation but it is very hard for me to understand.

My husband has always had this particular behaviour so I do agreethat the Percocet is not an excuse or the only cause. It did make him a caricature of himself though, with the bad side emphasized.
My husband told me yesterday how he does not want a divorce, how he loves me and how he would rather want us to separate ( which is not possible because there just is not  enough of money to run two households ) and try to work through our problems.
He can act as if nothing happened.
Sometimes it feels as if I am the only one who sees what is going on here, which makes me wonder at times if my husband is right in what he says when he is upset.
He then says that it is all my fault, I am the crazy one.
It is a complete mind f**k, excuse my language.

For today, I am trying to exhale. I am trying to file a report for what happened a few days ago. I am not pressing charges but I think it is best that my husband's outburst will be recorded. It is a scary thing to do because if he knew, he will start the "full blown war" he promised me. I have to be very careful and time it right.

What concerns me is that I will have to leach on my government and my family if we would return home, because I have sold everything when I came here.
What I own is literally just the cloths on my back.

Somehow it feels that I have two bad choices and I have to choose the one, I feel will be best for my children.
My brother is a Buddhist and he wrote me that when in doubt, do nothing. Wait until the emotions subside and do not choose only for now, but for your future and your childrens' future.  My sons both have big plans for what they want to do here. One wants to be a police officer, the other one a Marine.
So, you see, a lot to think about.


Thank you all again for your time, I really appreciate it.

p.s. Dav125, I like to cook and when I do I am not worried about making it look as if I am not cooking. I am cutting, smelling, stirring, thinking and will clean up.
It has got to be messy first before you can clean up, right?
My husband is very focused on cleaning up and he is the one who called me a messy cook. Today I am proud to be a 'messy cook'.

[Jaybay]

You're doing the right thing by leaving and I applaud you for protecting yourself and your children.  I wouldn't blame your husband's worsening mental state entirely on the percocet.  He sounds like he's always been unstable to one degree or another and never learned how to control himself - if he even wanted to do that.  Now with pain and opiates on board, he's beyond all reason.  You've been a hostage long enough.  Pack your bags and get yourself and your kids back home.

[MMarty]

I believe you need to trust your instincts and get out now. I so understand where you are and please stay strong. Don't find an excuse to stay and help him because you can not. You are not responsible for his bad childhood and you can not "make it right". I stayed way too long because I explained his behavior away with a bad childhood. As true as it maybe it just isn't your responsibility and we all have to rise above our own circumstances. Wallowing in drug abuse and using a bad childhood to excuse it is just not okay. There is life and happiness out there, go find it. Good luck!

[Brandy111552]

Your children need to come first. They deserve better! They already have emotional scars.

No one can help him until he realizes he needs help, and from what I've just read, he's not ready and may never be ready.

Think of yourself and your children first. This isn't your fault.

It might be better for your son to miss his dad than to continue wittnessing this horrible abuse, or much worse. Some children have wittnessed their dad kill their mother.

My heart goes out to you and your children.  God Bless

[Dav125]

Now that I look at your handle,,does that mean you make a big mess but have great food scattered all over the place?? :).

Not sure what to say being you are commenting on bruise's and bent door frames..Thats not good. Sounds like he is entrenched into his belief system with no room for opinions other than his..

If he got operated on, it's a toss-up whether you would see change or not. The meds are ingrained into his life and without the desire on his part to stop them, or to continue to say that all the problems you guys are having are the result of things other than the meds, I don't see much hope for change at all..He has to want it..And with the attitude he has, I have doubts as to whether he could quit on his own. The wd's would definitely make him more angry if he can't realize tht alot of his mood swings and emotional turmoil are the result of the side effects of the pain meds..Bringing on more finger pointing and the excuse to say "why bother" in his head. Also sounds like he doesn't care whether you stay or leave from what you describe..

About the only suggestion I can think of is you need to worry about " you", and the wellbeing of your children..Maybe try some Al-Anon meetings if you can find one locally. There you will be able to interact with other husband's and wive's, family member's and friend's,, that are caught up in the same boat you find yourself in...I really am concerned about the physical abuse though..As his tolerance goes up requiring more medicine to keep the wd's at bay, he is liable to get even more angry about his predictiment causing even more escalation's of improper behavior..

Are there any friends of his you can talk to that might be able to help him see whats taking place?

[MessyCook]

David and Nick, thank you very much for your reply.
I do understand how I could support him in this but considering all that we already have been through, before he even started to take the Endocet, I have no hope he will be able to or, maybe better said, wants to change.
I have asked him almost from the beginning to go to counseling together, for him to go to AA-meetings again. To have some outside support because I was afraid we were not going to make it.
I even went to counseling myself, because that was the condition he had set, because when I would go and "work on myself" he might consider counseling too.
Of course he never went.
Because I am a so called "undocumented alien",  I had a limited choice where to get  counseling. My first question to my counselor was: " Am I crazy, what is wrong with me?"
Soon it became clear that something more was wrong with my husband. This happened early in our relationship.
So much had happened since, my husband can act plain mean, even without any medication. Because of my legal status, I stayed much longer that I should because I had no place to go.
But it has been enough. I have a few bruises now, how many more bruises before he feels he might have to change?
My husband's mood is so explosive that if he only " feels " disrespected, he will blow up.
Comes right up in your face and threatens. He has done that to my sons or myself.

He says he is too old to change, does not want to change, does not have the time to get counseling and feels that I am the crazy one here.
He has pushed me hard enough to break a storm window and bend the metal frame of the glass window behind it.
This was the final happening for me.
But as he puts it: "You are not going because YOU want to leave, you are going because I am putting you out."
I think that this gives a reasonable image of how he can be, even without the  everlasting critical remarks he makes, on a bad day.
But of course there have been reasonable days too, the typical cycle of abuse.

This is strange, because I realize now, when writing all this down, how far we have come, how deep we are in this.

I do not think this will change, I think this will get worse.
I am not writing this to trash my husband, In a way I still feel he is not a bad man, he is still a victim of his own bad childhood. I only want to show how much is going on even without the medication, although the medication made him go as far as he went now.

I have heard that with the Percocet, the characteristics of a person will become more intense. If you had a short fuse before usage, you will have an even shorter one after.
I am wondering that if he would get operated, would he change in to the same person he was before?
He always was controlling but there were times when he was fun company and clearly happy. I have not seen him smile since he started the Percocet now.

I will take the advice to read more through the posts on this forum. I already did but will read more. However I am beginning to think that he might have a personality disorder. This is what I thought in the second year of our marriage and only recently I have heard, from a family member who visits AA-meetings in the same area where my husband used to go a long time ago, how my husband was considered to be a man who could not be helped, even 20 years ago. How they felt that " there was something wrong with him". I heard that only one day ago.
It made me more at ease in a way because this is what my gut instinct has been for a while. I am finally starting to think that maybe I am not as crazy as he claims I am.
It has been quite a journey and I have learned a lot, I still feel compassion toward him although my love and respect for him as my husband are gone.

Thank you again for taking the time to read my long post. I know it is a lot.
Thank you.

[3rddayoff]

I am soo sorry to hear your whole story..But I can relate. When u consume drugs especially opiates, its kinda like your brain gets all foggy and your emotions get all messed up but its not an excuse to for the abussive behavior....I remember being verry abussive(mentally ) with my gf. I saw a shrink and prescribed me lithium for bipolar desease. Now that Im off the drugs I saw my shrink again and I do not suffer from bipolar desease at all.

See the fact that i was always looking for drugs really put me down then when i had some I was up..lol like bipolar.

It doesnt seem like your husband wants to be sobber bad enough, he knows he is losing everything and still no change. I woke up one morning and held my boys for like an hours squeezing them and kissing them, my addiction had to stop...Or I was losing the most preacious thing in my life. I realized that I had a choice to make...Drugs or my familly..

U cant change him he has to do that himself. I have a quote i really like to post  ...For some, its an hoppless end, for others, its an endless hope.

Stay strong and maybe absence will make him re think things for the best if not, wise descision on leaving It doesnt get better on its own trust me

Good luck and god bless

Nick

Keep me posted and dont be affraid of asking anything

[Dav125]

The percocet after a period of time loses effectiveness which means once a physical dependency sets in, when he takes some pills, they re-stabilize him to a normal state of mind. And it takes more and more just to get back to a "normal "state of mind.

As the dose wears of, the headaches, restlessness, and mood swings kick in..In other words, general irribility about everything. A person just doesn't feel good about anything. If he were to consider stopping, it would be about 4 days of feeling like a horrible flu, followed by a few more days of continued restlessness, insomnia, depression type symptoms..After about ten days things would start to stabilize and he would slowly start to feel better..But if he is irritable now, withdrawals would really make him hard to communicate with..

Sorry to hear you feel the marriage might not make it. If you have mixed thoughts about it though and can get him to agree to finding some help with getting away from the pills, please realize that he would need your undivided support but at the same time, you need to be prepared for alot of mood swings during the process.Possibly more abusive outbursts.

.I hope the best for you whatever you decide to do..If you spend some time reading about other people's experiences in the forum here , after a couple hours of reading you could get a good idea of what he is up against..Wishing you well,,,David