Will it happen? Just tell me now.
My husband and I have been married for 10 years and have 3 amazing kids. I fell in love with him immediately. He is kind, caring, helpful, sensitive, supportive, great looking and he had drive & ambition. We have always had a relationship of understanding.
We were both social drinkers who drank within reason. I always considered him the one with more restraint. He always showed restraint and I was always the silly one, but we were fun. Neither of us come from abusive drinking families.
OK -- or so I thought. In January, his drinking swirled way out of control and was preceded by an addiction to perscription pain pills. The pain was real & the pills were necessary, but became a serious addiction complete with pain patch and an unlimited supply of prescription percoset. He owned his own business & when the economy tanked, his clients slowly ran out of money & he stopped paying our bills. I had no idea. I thought it was horrific at the time, but the best thing that ever happened to us was that our insurance was canceled due to non-payment. He could no longer see the pain doctor, no longer longer get the percoset.
But that's when the drinking picked up. He now drinks straight vodka out of the bottle. It's a loooong story (aren't they all?) but the bottom line is that he hit a sort of rock bottom in July and ended up in AA. He stayed with the program for about 40 days, got a sponsor and then stopped going & has continued to secretly drink off and on since then. Every time I figure it out, we go through the same vicious cycle of an argument & he stops drinking for xx # of days and then I'm sure the cycle we re-start.
But through all of that, we are really tearing down our relationship. I am mad. I see a once emotionally strong and grounded man with all of the potential in the world, acting like a spoiled child who sneaks around and lies ALL THE TIME. The lying is killing me! I hate to have to think like the enemy 24/7. I don't trust him. And slowly but surely, every time this drinking thing starts up again, it puts another kink in our relationship. I don't want to see him. I don't like him. I don't want to be around him. The habits that were once just mildly annoying now grate on my last nerve. I swear, if he wasn't my husband, I wouldn't spend time with the person he has become.
But what confuses it all THE MOST, is that when he's not drinking, he's GREAT! You couldn't ask for a better Dad or a nicer person. Thank the good Lord that we have managed to hide most of this from the children. I still want the kids to have a good childhood and memories & so does he.
And then also, the more times he "falls off the wagon" the longer it takes for me to forgive him. And when I say "fall off the wagon, we're not talking about a small incident. We are now talking about falling off the wagon and getting run over it 3 or 4 times. He spends money we don't have on liquor (food money). He drives while drinking. He tries to meet with clients of which we cannot afford to lose! Just dumb stuff.
So every time he does this, I move further and further away from him. I have begun a defensive position. I resumed my career and with the help of my mom, we manage the children (and he does too if he's not drinking). My career will help to get us out of the financial situation we are in (partially economy driven and partially drinking driven). I don't believe anything he says. Our careers are closely related and every time he opens his mouth to talk "work," I can't take it. I don't have any faith in him anymore.
I am turning into a wife I do not like. I don't want to have anything to do with him. I lie to my kids all the time to cover his tracks. I am impatient with the kids because I don't have any patience left after him. Is this going to get better? What can I do inside myself to keep us all together until my husband gets a grip? What do I do if I find myself NOT wanting to deal with him anymore -- even in the good, sober times?
If you got all the way through this note, God bless you and your patience. I really appreciate just being able to get it on paper.