Help needed

[bearfeet]

Just reposted this as I think it might belong in here.....

I have been in a 5 year relationship with a man whom I believe to be an alcoholic, I will give you a little insight and hope that you can confirm this. When we met I had just left a 10 year relationship with my University Boyfriend and had lost my Mother after spending some years caring for her with Cancer. I fell instantly in love with him and was happy to indulge in his lifestyle of social drinking at that time. His family are quite dysfunctional, his Mother has always been Bi-Polar, His father a very heavy drinker and his sister has suffered with depression since a breakdown some years past and they all lived together. Over the first few years there were a number of drunken arguments between us but when he was sober he was so kind, conscientious and loving. I then bought a house and became pregnant. Since living in 'our' house and particularly through pregnancy and the subsequent birth of our daughter he went out more and more without me and commonly went on 2 and 3 days drinking binges. I recognise from what I have read that I was enabling this by either - locking the door don't come home or getting him a new job when he got sacked, either or. I also understand again from what i have read that I became very co-dependant (my family were entirely normal with no dependancies/ mental illness etc but my Mother though caring would never even use the word 'love' but I know she loved us dearly) recently after a binge he returned home to find I had put his things outside and came in and set fire to the kitchen whilst I was upstairs (there has been a number of such incidents) He was arrested and now faces the penalty this may bring, although I have said I did not wish to go to court. After a short while I asked him to come home again, desperate to have this normal family life and we did albeit short. It didn't take too long for him to disapear again as his Father has recently come into several thousand pounds all of which he will spend on drink and happily encourage my partner to join him. I 'snapped' overdosed on sleeping tablets and am now being treated for depression. He simply walked away, he left his things, his car, his job, us everything and made no effort to contact me or even enquire through friends about my well being. Since then I have been contacting him sporadically to try to arrange meetings to see our daughter (but in reality I want him to see me) also on the occasion I do drink I will get very upsaet and try to contact him then. I know to his family and friends he blames my arguing and trying to control his drinking on all the trouble that has been caused, I sometimes wonder if it was my fault, had I held the hurt and anger in when he went missing etc, he wouldn't have become angry and it would have settled down again? He has told me that he no longer loves me, we are over and he will need to 'straighten his head out' before he sees our baby. I can't accept this, He has been drinking solidly every single day now for the last 7 weeks- helped by his dad. Does he mean this? I can't believe he does because during the periods where he was sober or not drinking terribly heavily we were so close and happy. I hope you can answer this honestly becasue I need to hear it even if it is that there is no longer any 'us'. I know the relationship was awful and I would tell a friend to run away fast and not look back. I am 10 years younger than him, have a great family and friends and a good job and it does get a little easier some days but others are horrific it feels like he's dead and I can'[t accept it, I'm just pretending to those around me. So that's really the question, do you think he means it, when the money has gone will he come back to me? On dark days I would gladly have him back, problems as well. I know that sounds pathetic but I am being honest. Any advice would be gratefully appreciated, I'm so consumed by the upset I can't function. Anyhow, felt the need to write becasue today I feel dreadful. My best friend was out in our local pub and then on to a nightclub last night and he was out seemingly having the time of his life, she is very honest with me and simply said that he was drunk (obviously) but quite content and full of fun and didn't even ask her how either of us were (she was always a good family friend so I find this just plain odd).

I now feel a mix of things, 1. All the sadness and missing him has resurfaced and I just want to call his sisters phone to even be able to talk to him though I know he will just want me off the phone and I'll feel even worse at the end. 2.Jealousy I guess that others are still able to spend happy times with him but we are not as he finds it too problematic. 3. Anger, whilst he hasn't contributed a penny to her in 7 weeks - all my household bills are the same and I'm struggling and cold he is able to go to expensive nightclubs without even a thought.

So these are my questions if any of you can help again-

How do I get over all this again? And do you think he really, really doesn't love me so much he can't even bear to see me or speak to me and his baby daughter who he seemed to adore. Does any part of him miss me? and if it does would he even recognise it after 7 weeks of solid heavy drinking?

I know how I'm coming across and I know the answer, that I need to concentrate on me, which I was feeling I was doing but obviously that must have been false because I'm right back where I was 7 weeks ago today, I think the tablets for depression are working and it'd good not to have the angst of living with a drunk but the yearning and emptiness that his leaving has left behind today, feels worse than all of the disaster and chaos we had when he was there.

[Booky]

Originally Posted by bearfeet

So these are my questions if any of you can help again-

How do I get over all this again? And do you think he really, really doesn't love me so much he can't even bear to see me or speak to me and his baby daughter who he seemed to adore. Does any part of him miss me? and if it does would he even recognise it after 7 weeks of solid heavy drinking?

Some people might not agree with me, but I will tell you what I find to be true, and both from my own experience and from many other men that I have spoken to about their situations.

I find that men say they do not care because we feel powerless, and if the man gets closer to you or to his daughter then the man feels like he will fall apart and cry and die. That might seem extreme but a man's emotions are extreme.

When the woman and man separate then the man looses his place and his position and his personal power and that hurts the man in an extremely deep way, and so the man shuts down those feelings by saying they do not care, do not love, do not want any more.
This is true even when it is the man moving out to separate.

And even the drinking is to shut down the hard and painful feelings.

Once I wanted to take my young 4 year old son to a movie and his Mom said "no", and so I knew my role and my power as the father and Dad was gone and I never asked such a thing ever again.
And that meant that I could no longer visit or see my son. It is because a man is not a "friend" to our children, we are not twice a month visitors for our children, we are either Dad and father or else we take nothing and discard the child(ren) to the mother and be done with it.

It is the same with the wife, if we are not the husband and lover then we are nothing, and that is intolerable.

Some men and maybe many men can get pass that and see their wife with another man and be just a "friend" on weekends to the kids, and so God bless those men, but I do not see how they can be so cold to do it.

And it troubles me how so many women can leave their husbands and take the children from their Dad and then expect the man to be okay about it all. It is never okay.

And just for the record - it is not just Moms against Dads, because now many men take custody of the children and it is the woman Mom being discarded and degraded in the same way by the men.

The problem is not in male verses female as it is in ignorant divore and custody laws, that is my belief.

[Booky]

Originally Posted by Booky

Some people might not agree with me, but I will tell you what I find to be true, and both from my own experience and from many other men that I have spoken to about their situations.

Well I got thinking that my reply might have been a bit confusing so;

I say yes the man still loves you and he still loves his daughter and he is just suppressing his true feelings because he is afraid that his emotions will explode.

And it is not some psychic knowledge on my part as it is just that Men and Women are joined by God and we can not truly put asunder what God has joined, and all children are a gift from God and so the children are joined by God to each parent, so even if the man believes that he does not care or not love then the foolish man is just decieving himself.

[treetop]

We can never tell what another person will do. He has told you how he feels and is not responding to any of your attempts on contact. You have to go by the ACTIONS of a person and not just words. Acceptance is a process that we go through. It takes time to accept these changes. Give yourself time to adjust. He is also adjusting too.

[clean42day]

my questions for you are:

at what point will you choose yourself and your own self-honor and self care - over him?

and at what point will you stop measuring your value and worth in the ways others treat you and instead define your value and worth according to your own self-reverence and abiltiy to love yourself?

from my expereince - I tried for years to get "loved" right.....instead of focusing on how I could love myself in a healthier way.

what changed that dysfunction in me was - I made a choice to make God my first primary relationship and then I focused on the relationship I had with myself first and I made that my priority.

the result of doing that - was self honor and self respect and a new healthy self-love.

In short I made a decision to heal those things inside of myself - that kept attracting people into my life that did not honor me.

This man in your life - is a great teacher and an opportunity for your own growth. instead of trying to figure him out - try looking at the personal lessons you have the opportunity to learn about yourself from all of this.

What is it in you that feels the need to be validated through his behavior to measure your inner worth through his outer love?

the hardest thing for co-dependents to learn is to focus on themselves and our own spiritual development.

we CANNOT control others - we can only take responsiblity for ourselves and how we allow others to treat us.

in short "we teach people how to treat us - and that is a reflection of how we treat ourselves.

When you settle for anything less than reverence, honor for self and a measure of self-respect....... less is what you will get.

if you cannot accept that he won't change or is changing or whatever..........................

then focus on what you can change within yourself.....that is not dependent of what he does or doesn't do.

otherwise you will get blown by every wind that comes along

you must anchor your self worth in something deeper than other people.

the tighter you hold on to something - the more damage you are doing to youself - because in essence you are saying "I must have this - this exact way - at this exact place in time in order to be happy. in effect what happens is - the person, thing, or thought that you are holding on to eventually holds you hostage in a prison of your own making.

so again my question to you is: what will it take, how much pain and emotional turmoil will you have to go through to finally make the choice to - choose yourself and your own self love?

When we begin to heal our own life - we begin to attract a different kind of energy into our lives. When you display self honor and really live it - you will get "honor" from others and not settle for anything less.

good luck and God bless you

light and love

gail