Trying to save my marriage

[fixer]

I'm a mess....total basket case.

For background, I've been married to an alcoholic for 17 years, the last 6 of which she has been sober. I have been to Al-Anon in the past, and thought I had a handle on my program. There are few meetings in this area, so I stopped going, having seen the same people and heard the same stories over and over again. All this time, I am still having issues of my own, which I don't fully understand.

This past year, I got what I percieved to be the dream job. I'm a computer tech, and this was working in a field that I has always wanted. I got fired. Shortly after that I was in a motorcycle accident and ended up with one leg burned fairly bad, needing 3 surgeries and 3 attempts at skin grafts before I started healing. Terrible amount of physical and emotional pain. Meanwhile, my wife gets her own "dream job". So now I'm unemployed, injured, and jealous. More pain. After many a screaming match with God, wishing he would kill me and get it over with, I bottom out. I realize that my life is screwed up and that I need to make some changes to get back on track.

About this time, my therapist wants to explore the effects of childhood sexual abuse that I suffered, and it's effect on my life as an adult. In the meantime, I get a job, it lasts 3 days....and I get fired. Now I really know that I need to make some changes. So I start in earnest, working some therapy to put my CSA behind me, and looking at my co-dependent behavior.

Now I get another job, a good one, at a good company. I'm going to therapy, get involved with an online CSA recovery group, and think things are coming together.

Until I walk past my wife sending an email to her AA sponsor and pick out the word "lawyer". Seems she wants to file for divorce. I fell through the floor. Now what. I know I need to continue my own program and my own recovery, but I don't want to lose my wife and family. I know I'm co-dependent, but how can I not be co-dependent, and want with all my heart to keep my marriage? I love my wife dearly, and my kids are great, any parent would be proud to have kids like mine. I just can't let go of this, and leave it up to God.

She says that whether we stay together or not is not up to us, but is according to our Higher Power's Will; that I need to surrender my will to His, and take what comes. Only problem is, I feel like her sponsor has crossed the line in becoming involved in our marriage. She has acted as a sounding board and advice-giver regarding things that I feel fall outside the 12 steps of AA, and I resent the hell out of that. Who the hell is she to point out all the areas where our marriage may be unsatisfactory. I know there have been trouble in the past, and I have admitted to my wife that I acknowledge responsibility for my behaviors.....that in many cases they were reactions to her drinking, and the pain it caused me.

What I didn't realize at the time, because I couldn't see past her drinking; I couldn't separate the person from the disease; was that my behavior was painful to her as well, and that she resented me for it.

So here we are......been together for 20 years, and I am desperate not to lose those people who are so dear to me. HELP!

Dave

[naturelvr45]

Dear Fixer,

As a co-dependent my heart goes out to you! I'm losing a spouse to my CO-Dep as well. It's extremely painful! I didn't want to live, had to check myself into the hospital.

But I can see many characteristics in you that I see in my co-dep self and that contributed to the deterioration of the marriage and that's the controlling.....we do have to give it up to a higher power - very hard for me to accept - even harder for me to do - but the controlling is not going to bring them back.

I just had a therapist appointment today - please find one to talk to.

[kaistevens]

Hey Fixer! I'm Kai, ACoA/co-dependent turned alcoholic but now in recovery.

Nature is right, you are still trying to controll. To blame this on the sponsor is denying that there is a problem. If your wife wants a divorce, it is because the marriage is not working for her anymore. Of course she HAS talked with her sponsor about this because that's what we have to do, we ask for help in seeing our own part in the problem.

My family, my friends, my job - those are all RESULTS of how I live my life, of what principles I live by. When those things start breaking down in my life, I can't fix them if I don't look at myself and what it is that I am doing that is making them not work.

Today, when those outside things start falling apart, I have to back up and look at myself. What am I bringing to this situation? Is it healthy? Is it selfish?

PART + PART = WHOLE

If the WHOLE isn't working, I can't fix it without looking a the PARTs. Specifically, MY PART. Because my parents weren't my problem, my children weren't my problem, alcohol wasn't my problem, ....
The one thing that all my PROBLEMS had in common, was ME. So I was the problem, and when I started working on me, all those other things stopped being a problem.

The answers are in the steps. The steps are in the book. Do you see how you and her are the same, or do you see yourself as different?

Just my two cents worth. When I put my children in God's hands and started working on me, they came back to me, but not over night, it took some time, but it was worth every second.

[Jesse S.]

Kai,
Thank you for your response to Dave. I know they weren't addressed to me, but I needed those words today. My wife of three years is an alcoholic working her 12 steps and she asked me to leave our home last night. She got to step 4 and her sponsor told her to start listing everything that puts a knot in her stomach and one of those things was me. I have lied and kept secrets from her for most of our marriage in an attempt to "keep" her and my marriage. She explained that she believes she can't get better with me in the house, so I spent the night in a motel. That sure felt like bottom, but I think I read somewhere that you actually don't hit bottom until you stop digging...
I'm sorry for your pain, Dave. Thank you for sharing.

[Booky]

Originally Posted by fixer

I'm a mess....total basket case.


Until I walk past my wife sending an email to her AA sponsor and pick out the word "lawyer". Seems she wants to file for divorce. I fell through the floor. Now what. I know I need to continue my own program and my own recovery, but I don't want to lose my wife and family. I know I'm co-dependent, but how can I not be co-dependent, and want with all my heart to keep my marriage? I love my wife dearly, and my kids are great, any parent would be proud to have kids like mine. I just can't let go of this, and leave it up to God.

She says that whether we stay together or not is not up to us, but is according to our Higher Power's Will; that I need to surrender my will to His, and take what comes. Only problem is, I feel like her sponsor has crossed the line in becoming involved in our marriage. She has acted as a sounding board and advice-giver regarding things that I feel fall outside the 12 steps of AA, and I resent the hell out of that. Who the hell is she to point out all the areas where our marriage may be unsatisfactory. I know there have been trouble in the past, and I have admitted to my wife that I acknowledge responsibility for my behaviors.....that in many cases they were reactions to her drinking, and the pain it caused me.

Dave

I have to agree that you need to respect the sponsor and try to deal with the problems and not the personalities.

If your marriage is based on the whims of a sponsor and you declare the sponsor as unwanted or unliked then you will lose double time.