For the second week in a row, I came home from New York to find B off the wagon. Again. When I got home, he was the one that wanted to sit down and talk. He told me how he’d relapsed and was going to call a friend to be a temporary sponsor. And when I asked, he confessed that he hadn’t gone to his meeting on Thursday like he told me he had. And he hadn’t gone yesterday morning either.
I didn’t yell. I didn’t cry. I nudged his leg with my foot and tried to be understanding while at the same time processing that for the upteenth time I had to explain why he was bailing on our friends that night. It was one of our good friend’s 40th birthday and I had to go by myself. Again. When I’d ask questions about whether he went to a meeting he’d lied to me about–and seriously, I doubt this entire conversation took 5 minutes–he’d act all bent out of sorts like I was being such a burden on him and that I had no right to ask questions. I told him I wasn’t angry that he drank, but I was angry that he didn’t go to his meeting on Thursday. Per his usual m.o., he went upstairs to watch tv in the guest room–or perhaps more accurately, curl up in a ball in the guest room with the tv on. All I wanted to do was to take a nap but when I went into our room, he’d stripped the sheets. At this point, I lost it.
In reflecting back on it, I think I swung to the far side of the pendulum by trying not to be so angry at him. I know my temper can freak him out–although I get over being angrier faster than anyone I know so long as I can address it–so I tried to keep it in check. But what I’m realizing, it is not just my temper that bothers him, but just my being angry at him. I realize that I don’t necessarily have to yell and scream; I’ve tried to be better about that. But what put me over the edge yesterday (and into yelling and screaming territory) is that I’m realizing he doesn’t even want me to be angry. Or sad. Or hurt. Or disappointed. Or scared. He doesn’t want these consequences to his actions. But I have a right to be angry, sad, disappointed, hurt, and scared. And while I don’t want those emotions to take over my life, I cannot pretend that they are not there. They’re there. And I should be able to express them. Maybe I don’t need to yell and scream (although, maybe sometimes I do). But he can’t ask me to not feel them. And he doesn’t have a right to not express them. I can express them more productively; I don’t have to yell and scream all the time. But I should be able to say to him, “B, I am angry with you.” If he can’t deal with that, then that is on him. Still hard to find where that line between what is on me and what is on him.
Sometimes I think I try to be the perfect Al-Anon wife–be detached, don’t get sucked into his madness, be compassionate, try to understand that he is hurting, etc. But I can’t do it all the time. I called my sponsor yesterday. Before I left for dinner, I went into his room and spooned him and told him I loved him–trying to be compassionate, loving, and understanding of his shame. But when I got home last night, he didn’t speak to me. He just sat on the couch watching hockey. I went to bed and he slept in the guest room. But not before coming into our room long after I was asleep, making a racket trying to get his medicine, and deliberately leaving the hall light on, making it all light in here. Bottom line: he’s acting like a complete dick. This morning, he passed me in the hall and then just looked away. He left while I was doing yoga almost 2 hours ago and I haven’t seen him since. I thought he was going grocery shopping but now I think he’s probably somewhere drinking.
I’ve decided to spend the day in bed. At least until I feel like getting up. I have the local paper and the NY Times. I have the book I’m reading and a bunch of magazines that arrived while I was gone. Maybe I’ll sleep. I never do this. I always feel I have to be doing something productive. Fuck that today. I’m taking care of me. I’m going to pray some more. Maybe I’ll blog some more. And then maybe I’ll go to an Al-Anon meeting tonight.
What is so hard is that if he were to come in here, be himself and just say, “I’m sorry. I’m struggling. I’ve called J and talked to him,” I’d be fine. All would be forgiven. My anger would melt away. But the longer he acts like a dick, shuts me out, and suggests I don’t have a right to my feelings, the more I question whether we will make it. And that is what scares and angers me most of all.
soberfishwife 
November 20th, 2011 at 11:30 am
When it comes to finding that “balance” (if such a word can even be used when we’re dealing with Addiction) between what’s-on-me and what’s-on-someone else, I had a real “Aha” moment when I was prepping with my Sponsor for my ninth-step Amends… She had me write out what I thought I needed to say to my first few people, to share it with her before I actually attempted the Amends, and she called me up short when I started to read my list to her. My list of the harms I’d caused other people included a lot of instances of “I made you feel”… NO, said my Sponsor–how they have felt and how they have reacted is on THEM. What I’ve DONE is on me. MY job, as the alcoholic in this scenario, is to accept responsibility for whatever I have done, to accept whatever reactions my victims do have to me and the harms I’ve caused, and not take their reactions as further reason for ME to be sulky or upset or slinging blame. Although I don’t have to take responsibility for their emotions per se, I DO have to take responsibility for the fact that it was MY fuck-ups that resulted in those emotions. Is this making any sense?
What I’m trying to get at here (maybe not successfully, but I’ll keep going) is the fact that yes, it’s “on you” to determine how you handle and express your emotions–but no, the alcoholic doesn’t get a “free pass” from acknowledging and accepting that HIS actions have brought those emotions about. These are the very real consequences of relapsing (and lying, and all the behaviors that go along with that), and as much as he’d like to ignore their existence and not be “burdened” with your feelings, that’s not how life works, is it?
I SO admire the lengths you’ve gone to, actively taking on the role “Al-Anon wife.” I don’t know if I’d have the courage, if I weren’t already entangled in addiction-issues (of necessity) myself. It’s no great shakes, in my case, to be up to my eyebrows in Recovery-stuff, because my OWN life depends on it too. (And although we provide each other with great support in Sobriety, our shared addiction actually multiplied the disaster exponentially when we relapsed together–you can probably imagine the horrors. In a matter of WEEKS we threw away our successful business, lost custody of all our kids, lost the house and car and all our savings–and very nearly the marriage. Very very nearly.) It was that last that got us back “off the skids”–we, who had actually not had a single argument Sober, found ourselves in the yelling-and-crying scenario of revealing that we didn’t LIKE one another (the drinking-selves) and didn’t TRUST one another, and neither of us believed the other would stop drinking… We thank God every day for that fight bringing us both to the point of WANTING to stop, because we’re all too aware that each of us was helpless to make the other one want to stop.
I’m not trying to offer advice with all this, because I wouldn’t even know what to advise. Maybe it would be a help if B had to face up to the very real consequences of his drinking, or maybe he’d push away even harder… Nor should your reactions be entirely tailored to gratify HIS wishes or his version of reality, because “being a good Al-Anon wife” DOESN’T mean putting your own life and feelings and reality aside to accommodate his. You’ll have to follow your own heart and your own prayer on that one–but I think for the immediate present, a day in bed with some good reading material and some time for prayer is an *excellent* choice. As always, you’re in my prayers, Sister.