Living With An Alcoholic Husband-How To Survive Living With An Alcoholic Husband

I was asked to write about Living With An Alcoholic Husband and How to Survive Living With An Alcoholic Husband. Mighty Mom asked me to write about what it was like to love and leave a man who was an alcoholic and the effect it had on me.

I hesitated, set the thought aside, made some inane comment about thinking about it and how horrific the pain was and then, ultimately decided that after twenty three years, it wasn't such a bad idea after all. "What did I have to lose?" I told myself, "Why not."

Twenty Three years ago I met and married a man who drank. A lot. When he drank, he was mean. I was foolishly and naively optimistic that we could make our marriage work. I became instant mother to an 11-year-old, and six years later a grandma at 33-years-old. My husband was 13 years older.

                        " It is such a secret place,

                            the land of tears. "

By the time I left, 2 years after I became a grandmother, I was more heartbroken to leave my stepdaughter and granddaughter than I was my husband. The pain was deeper and stronger to walk away from them.

Knowing that I had to cut all ties so that I didn't risk putting them in the middle with address information and a way to contact me that might jeopardize my safety was hideously painful. I couldn't take the chance.

As long as we had friends around, he was fun and happy-go-lucky, but as soon as they left the mean mask came out and his hands around my neck are what I remember.

As he backed me up against a door frame, making sure he had me by the shirt collar as my head met the door frame in a repeated striking motion until I wanted to throw up.

I thought I would die in that house. There were never any visible marks on me. Not on the outside. Grabbing my clothing instead of my skin helped prevent that kind of identification.

Negotiations with god, begging, pleading, crying, bargaining, counseling, threatening, yelling, hiding alcohol, drinking with him, nothing could convince him to stop drinking.

I believed that nothing mattered to him except alcohol and being able to control the people closest to him.

Everyone around him was to blame, no fingers were to ever be pointed at him for his own behavior. Or so I thought.

And so I gave up trying to fix him and I began to go to Al-Anon. Saving myself was the only option I felt was left at that point.

I had never seen him as someone with a disease until then. I believed I would never be capable of forgiveness either.

I found a way to get better, and he got worse, just as the counselors told me would happen.

I learned that sometimes we really can't help anyone else unless they seek out that help themselves. I learned that I was an enabler.

I learned about my own arrogance in believing that by my recognizing 'his problem,' that I was somehow absolved from any responsibility in dealing with it from a personal viewpoint.

I learned how foolish that arrogance was and how it cost BOTH of us.

None of us truly knows or understand what is "BEST" for another person until we walk in their shoes. When you pass a man on the street and he asks you for beer money,

You may be thinking, "How dare he ask me to support his bad habits," and maybe you tell him so. But, What makes you so sure that a beer isn't the best thing in the world for that person, at that time? Who are you to judge?

Probably makes you feel better about yourself, doesn't it? A regular model, angel-like citizen, huh! I used to think that of myself, too.

We've all done that. I just have this to say

- borrowed from Mighty Moms hub, "Is an alcoholic ruining your life?"

She asks these important questions,

"Do you believe you have the power to heal your loved one from a fatal disease?

If you do, then you must be God.

Are you God?"

"Recognizing that, "YOU did not cause it.

YOU cannot cure it.

YOU cannot control it.

And frankly, neither can the alcoholic!" She continues in her Hub.

I remember finding these alanon words hugely absolving and liberating because I had bound myself to feelings of shame and guilt and failure.

Which leads me to my final word. I walked away. Two years after I left my (ex) husband quit drinking. Drinking would have easily killed him if he hadn't stopped.

I saw him about 5 years ago, looked into his clear, bright and happy eyes and hugged him, laughed with him and felt pride for his success.

I learned so much once I got past the heartache.

I learned patience where I had none. I learned tolerance, where I felt very little and I learned forgiveness, when I thought it would never come to me.

I learned that waving a wand of "righteousness" over someone's head doesn't mean that I am less responsible for myself or my own actions and behavior and thoughts.

It only means that I am arrogant and foolish enough to believe that I am any 'better' than 'that other' person.

I am re-married to an amazing and wonderful man who inspires and encourages and supports me. There is only one person on this planet who I can honestly do anything about.

It's me, and sometimes that just takes a lifetime to learn.