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Separation and Divorce Issues – When One Partner Is an Alcoholic
From: GETTING THEM SOBER, VOLUME 4Copyright by Toby Rice Drews
PART ONE: The non-addicted partners' illusions that keep them attached to alcoholic/abusive persons
Chapter 3: Knowing That It’s Hard to Lose an Alcoholic, Helps to Calm Us Down and Keep Us on the Recovery Path
I said in my first book, Getting Them Sober, Volume One, that it’s hard to lose an alcoholic. People have written to me and asked me what I meant by that.
Basically, it means this: You can marry him; divorce him; remarry someone else; repeat the process. And the probability is that he’ll still want to be with you (whatever that means to him), in the long run.
I know of a couple who have been separated for over 40 years. He lives in the woods of New Hampshire as a resident alcoholic recluse, Each Christmas, Easter, and birthday, he sends her a card . . . and he still considers her “his wife.”
This is not unusual.
This can be useful information to have, to get through the times when you are feeling panicky about losing him.
However, you may ask, “But when will he come back, this time?”
It seems unfortunate, but the alcoholic/addict often begins to
return home (wooing you all over again, albeit for a short time before starting
on his “junk’’ again) when you begin to not want him around anymore.
He often appears again before you get over him entirely (and you can!). He probably doesn’t want to lose you. He has what I call “alcoholic radar.” (When they are into this behavior, they know just what to do; when to pop up.)
During those terrible panic times when you are unable to do much else than think about getting him back, it can be very comforting to have this information. And it helps to know that even if he leaves again, if you are willing to put up with it, he probably will keep coming back.
But, it is good to remember the facts: as long as he continues to drink, the alcoholic will probably continue his elusive behavior.
Remembering that can help you to become more self-protective and keep some of yourself emotionally separated from the situation.
Later, when you are calmer, you can deal with the idea of staying in a relationship with an alcoholic (or otherwise emotionally-unavailable person).
But, for now, just knowing that he will most likely be back (it you still want him) can help you through these panic-times.
* * *
Counselors sometimes ask me, “Why do you reassure her that he’ll probably come back, when it’s healthier for her to realize how sick that relationship is, and that she must let go?”
When families enter treatment, they most likely do not have to be told that an abusive (emotionally and/or physically) relationship is not good for them. They know it.
Very often, her history is that she and the alcoholic have both blamed her for the relationship problems over the years. If I chastise her for wanting him back, I am subtly adding to that blame to make her feel, again, that she is “wrong.”
If a counselor is baffled and shocked by the fact that she “still wants him back,” she does not understand addictive families.
Families’ greatest fear is that “they will lose him.”
Only if we can get beyond that obsessive fear, by telling her the reassuring facts, can we seriously get down to looking at options. For, when her panic dies down, she is often very willing to begin to look at reality. If I press her to look at this reality too soon, she will probably stop treatment, and then there is no chance to help her.
In other words, we do not lose ground by not getting right down to Divorce and Getting On With Your Life. And if I focus on what I think she should do (instead of understanding that she is nowhere near that, in reality), she inherently knows that I know nothing about her.
When an alcoholic gives us comfort and love on an irregular basis – when we cannot know when he or she will be nice – we are much more bound to them than if they gave us love on a regular basis.
The reason for this strong bonding with someone who gives love inconsistently is that, since we want the love, we are anxiously awaiting it.
Therefore, we pay a lot of attention to him, watching out for when he might be loving. All this “paying a lot of attention” bonds us very tightly to the object or person to whom we are paying so much attention. This “closeness” is not necessarily “love.” It is often more of a bonding due to that intensity, mistaking it for a “close relationship.”
We do not have to pay such close attention at all to the person who comes home at 6 p.m., is nice, says hello, reads the paper, helps with dinner and cleanup, watches TV, and goes to bed. We know the outcome of our interacting with him; it’s normal. We expect the kindness; we get it regularly. We have no need to spend any time looking for it.
That’s probably why, in healthy families, people seem “less close” than they do in alcoholic families.
So, when you berate yourself for “being so attached,” remember that much of that attachment is not “your fault.”
And, even though you’ve been programmed to respond in a super-attentive way to the alcoholism, just knowing that can help you to begin to detach from the sickening effects of an alcoholic on your life.
* * *
And, if you are dating, please don’t worry that you will “turn” a nice relationship into a sick one (because of past patterns). If we pick decent people to be with, we can’t “turn” them into indecent people. If we act in old, anxious ways, and if we are in self-help groups or counseling to end destructive patterns, nice people are patient with us, have compassion for us, and give us time to heal.
I hear a lot from family members that they “can’t totally believe that the alcoholism has that much control over the alcoholic.”
Very often, that statement stems from a belief system that tells
the family that “there’s the alcoholism over here – and the alcoholic
and his nuttiness over there.”
They think of alcoholism only as cirrhosis of the liver, or late-stage brain damage, or falling-down drunkenness.
They can’t quite believe that the alcoholism controls all the person’s thoughts, actions, and feelings.
Why is the family unable to get past their own denial?
* * *
Think about how powerful you think your alcoholic is. Think about how it colors all your beliefs about control issues; about treatment; about what you have the right to do and not to do; and about your self-image.
Caroline was talking with me from her home in San Francisco. She grew up in Chicago and moved to California when she was in her early teens. She had married at 18 and had two children by the time she reached 21.
“I was so unworldly. I went from growing up in an alcoholic home, to marrying my first husband. He was very religious, worked 11 hours a day, and was a good man and very steady – and very boring.
“He was very good to me. But I wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t treated for the effects that growing up in an alcoholic home had on me.
“What I mean was, I was used to the up-and-down excitement that happened all the time, at home. And then I married very young, this normal man! It was like being buried! So nothing. Evenness. I knew nothing about it; I wasn’t used to it. It was like I was looking around, uneasily, for something to make something happen!
“Then, I met Wayne. He worked where I was working. He was always chattering, always going in and out of the office, always on the move. He talked with me about things I loved; he talked incessantly! I didn’t realize he talked so much, so obsessively, because of the alcohol in his system. I just wanted constant anything; especially constant talking. My husband didn’t talk that much. He just worked and went to church and ate and rested and did everything on time and very predictably. Very normal. You could set your clock by him.
“But, Wayne was exciting! He came on like gangbusters. He swept me off my feet. Absolutely as charming as he could be. I would find little gifts in my desk drawer.
“But there was that side of him (like with a lot of alcoholics) that wanted me to be not only exciting, but the Madonna. He loved the fact that I was also a devout Catholic, and he thought I was very humble.
“He was so attentive at first, that it startled me. For instance, I would mention this record I loved, and it would be on my desk the next day.
“I was falling in love with him. I felt so guilty when I began to realize that. So, I went to my priest. And I said to him, ‘Father, I’m sure I have committed adultery, because of what’s in my mind.’
“And the priest said, ‘Don’t worry about it. Talk about something else with him. Like the weather. Things like that.’
“What a naive, young priest. What a naive, young me! I actually believed it might work! Of course, l tried it once, and it did no good.”
* * *
What I find so sad is that young people who grow up in alcoholic families invariably say to me, “I’ve left all that behind me. I don’t need any help. It’s history.”
The patterns we carry with us!
They attach us to sick situations. They attach us to the wrong people. They attach us to excited misery.
And that need for “excitement” comes in many packages: Exciting jobs (like the young woman who only can “enjoy” high-stress work situations and mountain-climbing vacations. All this after her doctor told her it was dangerous for her heart.)
Or, hours spent each day on the phone with friends, discussing the horrors of illness or who-did-what-to-whom.
Or, hanging out where things are “happening.” Liking – needing – the “atmosphere.” Feeling empty when you can’t get there for a couple of evenings.
Telling oneself that “everyone would like this way of life.” When it isn’t so.
Just becoming aware of these feelings, these needs, these patterns – this can be life-changing. When we don’t know that this is essentially harmful to us, that this derives from alcoholic family patterns, we go along blindly and continue with no self-direction.
We remain attached to a way of life that is never satisfying, never contents us for more than an hour or so. And then, we need more.
That subconscious attachment-need for “excitement” keeps many a family member in an alcoholic marriage.
We sometimes think, “I can leave financially; I have no trouble living alone. Why am I still here?”
We cannot extricate ourselves from any pattern until we begin to see it.
Part Two: How to Help the Non-Addicted Partner Make the Decision Whether or Not to Separate/Divorce
Beatrice told me that her alcoholic husband was like a chocolate Easter bunny: he looked so good, but when she was really close to him, she saw he was hollow.
* * *
Sandra told me she couldn’t wait for her second surgery: it was so good to get out of the house and into the hospital, away from the alcoholic.
* * *
Doris decided to leave, after 35 years of an alcoholic, violent marriage. She felt good about it, until her friends said they were shocked and told her:
“He can change, honey. Just give him time.”
and
“Look at all the years you were together. You don’t need to leave him after all those years!”
* * *
What are the facts?
Friends, even well-meaning ones, are coming to your situation with advice that often stems from their own needs and wants. Change is difficult, even for others who are watching your change. They don’t know where you’ll wind up; where you might move to; if you’ll see them as much; if you might like their husbands; if you’ll have the same interests, once you change and your world changes. They’re scared, and unconsciously may want you to keep the status quo.
And, if you change, maybe they feel they must look at themselves, too, and their choices.
Also, these friends may be ignorant of alcoholism and the bizarre behavior of the alcoholic. They may think you’ve been exaggerating, a little. That you could, if you chose to, “put up with it.”
* * *
If you are thinking about leaving, do it or don’t do it – because you choose to stay or leave. Just remember the facts – and don’t let your decision be muddied up by other well-intentioned, but ignorant, folks’ input.
Only you have to live with the results.
I’ve been concerned, for the past couple of years, about phone calls I’ve received from spouses of alcoholics, telling me about the advice they had received from counselors. Here is a typical example:
Juanita did an intervention with her alcoholic husband. She was invited to family week at the treatment center. She was then told that she “had severe abandonment issues of her own,” and should separate from her husband. She should have no contact with him except by telephone and just “work on her issues.”
I get calls like this a lot, lately. Calls that come from frightened family members who are regularly told this by counselors:
Let’s look at these issues:
It is true that most families of alcoholics have severe abandonment fears. However, one does not necessarily have to separate from another person to deal with these issues. Many persons have successfully detached from the effects of someone else’s alcoholism and have learned to deal with their abandonment issues through programs such as Al-Anon.
Furthermore, it is not necessarily a virtue to force an issue when one is not yet ready to deal with it – in order to prove that “you are really working on your program of recovery.” Isn’t the goal “progress rather than perfection”? Who do you need to prove what to? Could this be another manifestation of people-pleasing?
Also, when a counselor tells a visiting family member that their abandonment issues are getting in the way of progress of that family unit, the implicit message to the newly-sober person may be that this fear of abandonment is part of the reason for his alcoholism – instead of the true message: nothing got you drunk. (And, when the counselor goes further and angrily confronts the family for “being enablers” – does this not also imply that “something got him drunk”?)
* * *
Could it be that some counselors may be adult children of alcoholics who have not yet resolved their old anger toward their own non-addicted parents? Do they still expect that parent to have: a) been perfect or b) thrown out the alcoholic when the parent couldn’t do that?
And what if the couple who’ve been married 46 years do listen to the counselor who tells them that he can’t stay sober around her? Suppose they break up and he still can’t stay sober? Is the counselor going to be around to pick up the pieces? I personally feel it’s dangerous to give advice to people to break up – or stay together – when it is the client who has to live with the consequences.
I’ve seen too many counselors “shooting from the hip” and advising couples they’ve just met on a one-week intensive family unit to dissolve decades-long marriages.
Now, of course there are times when it is probably advisable for a person to not return home after completing an inpatient stay for alcoholism (for instance, if the spouse they would be returning to is actively alcoholic or violent). But even in those cases, there are many times when the trauma of separation is too much to deal with, on top of newfound sobriety. Many women, especially, have found it immensely helpful to attend a large number of AA and Al-Anon meetings every week. When they attend both groups regularly, they are often able to stay sober and stay in the marriage long enough to buy themselves time. The Al-Anon meetings give them emotional detachment from the marriage problems, so that they can stay in that familiar environment, for awhile, at least. Later (and sometimes it takes years), they have the strength to look at leaving a still-drinking and/or violent spouse. If leaving the marriage had been insisted on from the beginning, many of those now-sober women would not be sober, today.
But this is all a very individual decision, based on more issues than a single “dysfunctional family” diagnosis. Many women alcoholics find it too frightening, in early sobriety, to deal with facing the world alone and financially-strapped, with young children; many people have never lived alone; many alcoholics – looking to bolster their already-irresponsible attitude toward their families – seek an excuse to further abandon them, instead of becoming responsible, making amends, and seeing if the marriage can be saved.
Now, of course, many relationships and marriages are just not salvageable. But even in those cases, it is often wise to wait a while to make a major change.
The old-timers in AA used to say: No major decisions the first year, if possible. They knew that it’s often easier for alcoholics to run, rather than to “sit still and hurt.” They knew that in the first year of sobriety, your brain is so foggy that many of your decisions are probably way off base. It’s often easier to wait a bit to clear the brain rather than to act impulsively and later try to retrieve a lost partner.
This is Caroline’s story:
“We had just gotten married, and we were living in the State of Washington. He was going to get this big job, and all of a sudden, he announced that he lost it. Suddenly, he’s out of work, and needs someone to take care of him.
“I kind of knew from his background that he was in and out of work all the time, but I wanted to ignore it. Actually, I had met him years before, when we were still in high school. And he had that reputation back then, as kind of a “slough-off.” But he was charming. So, like I said, I ignored it.
“Now, I can look at the picture, and it’s so obvious. But, when you’re in the middle of it, you don’t see it.
“He continued to womanize. He’d been known for it, but I thought that if we got married, he’d be so happy with me, he wouldn’t do that anymore.
“And then I had surgery for blood clots. And I had other things wrong with me, physically. I was a mess. And here I was married to an unemployed womanizer. And me trying to work and support both of us.
“I mean, it was on our honeymoon that he started telling me that I’ve got to get a job.
“He’d get good jobs, but he wouldn’t keep them for more than six months. And after he got out of treatment and came home, I saw that he was the same person and he would never change. I just knew it. And I was right. He was the same conniver, the same con man.
“I asked him, when he got out of treatment, ‘What did the guys do, when they left the treatment center?’ And he answered, ‘They went back to work.’ And I said, ‘What about you?’ And he answered, ‘What do you want me to do? Go to work for a lousy $15,000 a year?’ And I said, ‘It beats nothing.’ He walked away in a huff.
* * *
“I realized he wasn’t going to go back to work. And that I was going to have to support him the rest of my life. Oh, he was going to do little odd jobs and maybe bring in a hundred dollars a month. And he was going to get real excited about it, like a little kid.
“But, it would always have to be a job he liked. He’d never do anything he didn’t enjoy doing. I’d have to, to support him. But, not him.
“He went to a lot of AA meetings. And they told him there that he’d have to change. But he didn’t want to. And he didn’t. Oh, he found socialization; and he found friends; and he found God.
“But, he didn’t find a job!
* * *
“Well, I wanted out. But, I was scared, because I was so ill.
“But, I was able to leave because the future with him was more devastating than a future alone. If I’d need a person to care for me, medically, I knew he wouldn’t. Let’s put it this way: he said he would. But, I knew better. He’d do it for awhile, and make a big to-do about it. But, he’d get tired of it quick, just like the jobs.
“So, I left. And got an apartment. The first night in this apartment, I couldn’t get my window closed. I was weak from the illnesses, and I couldn’t close the window. I was frantic! I called a friend who lived up the street, and she came over and closed the window.
“And when I had to get my groceries, I was breathless and exhausted. I found that I had to curtail certain things. I would have to get them into the house, and then sit down for awhile. I would have to learn to do things one step at a time. I’m learning to take care of myself. I’m learning to not do certain things. And that’s hard for me, because I think I was born running!
“You see, I’m an adult child of an alcoholic, and I think I should be able to do everything! I think there is something amiss if you don’t take care of the world!
“Once, I got a maid. And I cleaned for two hours before she came! For two reasons: one, so she’d think well of me, and another, to lessen her load – because I had to lessen everyone’s load in life! Except my own.
“We have so little that we need. That we think we need. We get a peanut and we give an elephant. We don’t ask for a lot. But, if we should happen to get it anyway, we feel so guilty, we give them a thousand times more.
“The point is, after I left, I had to learn all this about me. And, it’s been quite a wonderful journey.”
Part four: Hidden Issues After Separation That Keep the Crazymaking Going
Chapter 19: “But He Looks So Good Since We’re Separated – Maybe He’s Not an Alcoholic?”If the alcoholic “looks good” it doesn’t mean he or she isn’t alcoholic! “Looking good” is a stage of the disease.
* * *
When an alcoholic or other-drug addict reaches a later stage of addiction, he or she needs alcohol or other drugs to seem normal. Their bodies are so sickened from the toxicity that they need a certain level of drug in them to not go into severe withdrawal.
When they get that level of alcohol or pills into them they seem “calm” and “functional.”
But, they can’t stay that way for long.
For, after they drank or pilled enough to satiate the biochemical need for the drug, the calming – and supposedly “normalizing” – effect begins to wear off.
The withdrawal sets in, and it gives off an anxiety-producing after-effect that lasts longer than did the original anxiety.
As the disease progresses, the calming periods get harder to attain, and the anxiety and/or depressed moods get more difficult to shake.
This cycle continues until sobriety . . . the only way to end the merry-go-round.
* * *
So don’t confuse a seeming “calm” with thinking there’s not an addiction. It’s just a stage of the disease.
Jan calls me every other week for counseling. She lives in Idaho, and is separated from her husband, Karl. Jan lives in a small town where she can’t help but see her husband or hear about him from others. He picks up the kids every other weekend and keeps them until Sunday evening.
Jan has a part-time job as an accountant. She keeps a spotless house and makes all her children’s clothing, as well as much of her own. She’s a rational woman . . . until he shows up.
Lately, Karl’s litany is to keep telling her that he “is controlling his drinking just fine.” That he “isn’t an alcoholic, like she always thought.”
Jan tells me “how well he seems to be doing” and then tells me that he is doing bizarre things in his apartment, like putting dirty ornaments from the yard on the coffee table and thinking they look good. (This is a man who used to be impeccable.)
She insists that he must be better, since he told her so. But, then she adds, in an “oh, by the way” manner: “Oh, he just got out of the hospital. His pancreas is acting up again.”
* * *
Denial in the entire family is multi-layered, deep, and subtle. Jan, even though she knew the facts, did not really “hear” when she heard that his pancreas was affected. Jan knew that that was a sign of his progressing alcoholism, but because she lived with Karl’s telling her for years that “she was over-reactive,” she tended to doubt herself. She believed that Karl was really getting better.
* * *
What is the truth?
Alcoholism develops in stages. In the first stage, the alcoholic usually has a higher tolerance for alcohol than do other human beings. He or she can drink more and “hold their liquor.”
In the next stage, the alcoholic usually can get as toxic from the alcohol as before, while drinking less of it. It just doesn’t take as much booze to get sick.
Round-the-clock maintenance drinking doesn’t usually occur until the last stages of the disease. So, if your alcoholic husband or wife isn’t drinking all the time – and therefore seemingly sometimes “controls” it – it’s because he or she has not yet reached that later stage of the disease.
* * *
If you find yourself in denial, note it. Make a “Denial” notebook. Write down your patterns in this area. The process of writing them down will enhance your awareness of them when they pop up again. You will be well on your way to recovery when you stay aware of your patterns.
Dana hails from Minnesota. She lives there, again, after separating from her alcoholic husband, Ned. Dana moved back to her home state with her two children. She’s going through a messy divorce and trying to keep an emotional distance from Ned.
It’s even more difficult because when the two of them do have to talk, Ned is usually vicious.
But Dana feels particularly overwhelmed when he is nice to her: “When the lawn mower broke, Ned offered to bring me his, when he brought the children back from their weekend with him. It sounds crazy, but that got me more upset than anything! Why am I like that? Why shouldn’t I be happy when he’s nice to me, for a change?!”
* * *
I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with Dana. I think that she is responding in a very self-protective way, when she doesn’t trust his being nice to her.
Why?
* * *
If you’re worried that “his friends” may think you’re nuts for
being wary of a nice-acting man: just think of all the bars in the world with a
bunch of alcoholics in there, all complaining (to other drinking alcoholics)
about their “paranoid wives.”
So a motley crew of people whose brains are soaked with
alcohol say to each other that you’re one of those wives who’s “off” for not
putting up with their behavior.
Think about it.
Most families of alcoholics go through certain stages of mood swings, after a separation.
They are:
* * *
What are other feelings that can lead into setbacks?
If we get into:
Anger and self-righteous feelings can carry us through a certain period of time, but they do eventually end. Unfortunately, there is a boomerang effect from extended anger and self-righteousness. Families of alcoholics have much more of a sense of conscience and of “doing what’s right” than do other folk. Therefore, we tend to have guilt after we’ve angered onto someone for a period of time . . . a feeling of “we’ve got to make it up to them.”
This guilt is often subconscious.
What we (unconsciously) tell ourselves is that we need to “make up for our anger” by letting the other person off the hook. And we do that by going back into denial about how bad their behavior really was.
But, when we tell ourselves, especially unconsciously, that they were not so bad – then, we get blamed, because we left them! After all, if they were really just a little annoying, instead of abusive, then why in the world did we make such a big deal out of it, and leave?
We get back into the old behavior of taking the blame. Once again, we collude with the alcoholic in saying: “the family is at fault.”
The best way to counteract that is to write down the facts. Keep a fact-notebook. That is one of the best ways to end the minimizing that is often at the heart of family denial.
Example of how writing down the facts can help tremendously: Joanne told me about an incident that was so horrible that she ordinarily would have gone into her denial, and forgotten it. But, she had written it down in her fact-file, and could refer back to it when she told herself that he “probably wasn’t that bad.”
This is what she wrote about:
Joanne and her actively-alcoholic husband, Kirk, were in a marriage-counseling session. The therapist asked Joanne what she would really like from the marriage. Joanne answered that she would like it if Kirk came home at night, didn’t drink, that he would be nice, and that he would spend one whole week being good to her.
The therapist asked Kirk if he would spend one entire week being good to her. He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head No. The therapist was stunned that he wouldn’t agree to just that.
What I told Joanne that I found incredible is that the marriage counselor didn’t ask her a very important question: “Do you mean that in your entire 24-year marriage, Kirk has never been nice to you for seven consecutive days?”
* * *
Write down the facts. Keep them in a very safe place, so that
they cannot be found to later hurt you.
We families of alcoholics go so very easily into denial and
minimization, that we cannot trust our memories to come up with the truth. (I
can’t count all the times that clients of mine have remembered something, and
exclaimed, “I forgot that that happened!” And it was something like “he shot
off guns in the house through the ceiling, all the time!” And the client told
me this after weeks of her telling me that he “wasn’t that violent.”)
We must be able to remember the truths when we start to
“romance the past.” For if we do not, we may have to repeat the past.
* * *
Another trap we can get into when our anger dies down is: great compassion for the alcoholic.
We often think that compassion will keep us at a detached distance from the alcoholic – and then we start thinking we are a step above holy! After all, he’s terrible and we’re kind and distanced and that leads easily into thinking we are wonderful.
In reality, that “compassion” is easily done away with as soon as the alcoholic acts up, again. Our feelings then turn into confusion and rage.
True detachment doesn’t feel noble. Nobility feelings are too
transient. To keep it up, you’ve got to be so good all the time! (Besides, we
tend to turn things around and convince ourselves that our family symptoms of
sickness are virtues; we say, “I was so good to him. He’ll never find another
one like me!” Then we go about trying to get a relationship with someone who
will appreciate our overly-givingness! When, in reality, that is not a virtue!
In fact, if we keep it up, we will just hook into another sickie, because only
those kind will “appreciate” our sickness of giving too much. A well person
will give a wide berth to someone who has to love too much.)
* * *
Our fears are the source of our over-abundant need to feel noble. We feel like we’ve got to be wonderful in order to have God’s permission to leave abuse.
That’s just not so. We can be allowed to leave abuse, even if we aren’t “wonderful”; and we can leave even if that abuse does not occur all the time.
The alcoholic doesn’t have to be Hitler, in order for us to have permission to leave.
* * *
If your therapist, your friends (maybe even your alcoholic
too) are all telling you that you’re crazy for continuing to take abuse, then
sometimes the one thing that helps is to tell yourself that you’re too sick
right now to make decisions. So what you’ll do is go through the motions. Let
the lawyer (if he or she is a good one) make the decisions (like “go for half
the property” when you want to give it all away to the alcoholic because you
feel guilty for leaving). It’s sort of like, “Let Go And Let Lawyer.”
“I had a protection order against him. He had tried to run me over in a car. He was very drunk. At least, it seemed as if he tried to run me over.
“My counselor told me to look at it for what it was. That he did try to run me over. I was actually knocked over a little bit. It would have been much worse, had I not jumped when I saw the car coming at me.
“But I don’t want to believe it.”
* * *
Sally told me this in her living room. She said her counselor also told her that if she tried to diminish it or minimize it, it was likely to happen again.
If we try to diminish the truth of the impact of an event, or if we say it was really not going on, then the next logical step is we don’t do anything about it. Then, the alcoholic figures he can get away with it.
* * *
Sally went on: “I had left him before that, for a few weeks, because of his drinking and his leaving me alone all the time.
“I took him back because he promised he’d change.
“Ten days later, he tried to run me over.
“We’ve been in divorce proceedings six times, now.
“I had to serve him papers each time again, because I always dropped the proceedings.
“Each time, he promised things would get better. And he desperately wanted to believe it, too.
“Things would get better, for a very short while.
“The last three times, he went to treatment to get me back. And then, he’d gradually let up on his AA meetings, and drop out and get drunk.
“When I’d say things to him like, ‘I have to see the change in you first, before I come back,’ he’d tell me I didn’t trust him. And I’d feel guilty for not trusting him. So, I’d go back. And he’d get drunk. And then, I’d say, ‘See? You got drunk, like I said. I came back too soon.’ And he’d come back with, ‘It’s your fault. You’re always on my back. Looking at me. Watching to see if I’ll get drunk. Anyone would get drunk with someone always expecting it.’
“Actually, the last time, he didn’t promise he’d stop drinking. I guess he knew he couldn’t – and I wouldn’t believe him. So, he promised he’d just drink at home. And I accepted it because I was so lonely for him to be home. At least I’d have a husband at home. And he thought he could control his drinking more at home, then, too. He thought he could be a good father and a good husband, but still be able to drink.
“He does not think he’s powerless over alcohol.
“He says he ‘just drinks beer.’ He thinks that means he’s not alcoholic.”
* * *
What to remember,
so that you can get out from under the craziness:
Copyright by Toby Rice Drews