Why didn't anyone tell me?

(Shared with permission by Margaret Clapp)

Why didn't anyone tell me this was a no-win situation? Why didn't anyone tell me how "supporting my husband's recovery" would destroy my kids? I think they should post some stats of actual long term opiate recovery outcomes at meetings. This is lifetime of descending levels of hell for the families.

Over the past six years, I sold my soul, compromised my identity and values, wasted my savings, irreparably destroyed my self esteem and most horrific of all, damaged my precious daughters. For what? To keep "my marriage together", so my kids wouldn’t grow-up without a "dad". They have a "dad" alright. A "dad" who taught them, by constant example, how to lie and avoid responsibility. This is not life I imaged for myself or my lovely children.

I was never stupid or weak. Just the opposite. I am well educated. I was fit and cute and funny. I worked hard and success came easy for me. I had a supportive family and strong network of friends in a lovely upper middle class neighborhood. Notice the past tense.

In 2005, I discovered my husband had a “problem". He was coming home from work falling down high, pissing in the hallway, sleeping/watching for days, then he went off the wall, screaming, agitated, violent. You all know the drill. I was scared. I wanted to help him. I loved him. He loved me. We had two kids. I would stand by him and he would get through this. After all, we were married for better or worse.

Over the next four years I thought I was insulating my daughters form the chaos of their dad's addiction. He never drove them in car. The kids were busy at school, sports, homework, social events, spent allot of time with grandma. I took on the roll of mom and dad. put on a happy face and took care of business. All the while, demonstrating, through my daily example, how to be a doormat, how not stand-up for your rights, that a wife is not entitled to love, affection or respect, that a wife was a target for blame, that wife should never expect the truth, that lies are tolerated in marriage, that marriage is not a partnership. I allowed this to happen.

Worst of all, they knew. My sweet young daughters knew I was compromising my integrity and self respect for the sake of a drug addict. My kids, by extension, also comprised a significant portion of their childhood for a drug addict. They had no choice. They grew-up in home without trust, without respect.

At some point, I realized that he (my Opiate-addicted husband) was not married to me. The love of his life came in a pill (Oxy, Vicodine, etc). Weren't fathers supposed to put forth effort and make sacrifices for the family? His efforts and sacrifices are for drugs. He wasn't my partner in building a future our daughters. His partner is opiates. His future is getting high.

If you're still trying to be the best wife and mother possible, please stop believing everything will be OK. Every lie you ignore, every dollar missing, every late night wondering when he’ll arrive home is one more chip away from your soul. Your kids are bearing witness to your slow decay.

GRAB the kids and RUN. Why? So you don’t end-up a soulless disaster. Run. NOW. Today. Run for your life. Don’t stop until you are free from the lies and pain of someone else’s addition . Run fast. Run while you still have love in your heart, before hate overtakes your soul. Run.

Feminism in Recovery

I have been thinking a lot about recovery lately and I think the 2 things that have helped me the most are feminism and volunteering. Al-Anon is a good starting place, but I don't believe it finishes the job - especially for women.

The volunteering is probably an obvious thing. When you help others, you forget about your own problems. But there were many years where I was so enmeshed in my own life that I didn't even consider volunteering. I wish I had done this earlier. It would have taken me out of my own head. It also would have put me in touch with more positive-minded people instead of isolating myself.

In terms of feminism, I started Women's Studies in college and it was eye-opening. I think that was one of the biggest periods of growth in my life. But as life progressed and I went on to get my MBA and marriages, somehow most of that went by the wayside. I stopped reading and being involved with the Women's Movement for the most part.

I think feminism is so important because we are not socialized as girls to see our worth.

It is especially important for those of us who are, become or were co-dependents because feminism is one of the only things that can truly empower us as women.

AWOL

I rear ended someone yesterday with both my kids in the car on the way to school. Luckily, he was a very kind man. He was more worried about how my kids were doing than the damage I did to his car. For all my complaining about my enormous Suburban, that car is a tank. There was very little damage to my car whatsoever. His, on the other hand, looked pretty bad.

It turned out that the man was a Muslim from Jordan, so we had a nice visit in the midst of everything.

The kids and I were all pretty shaken up. They hadn't been in any sort of accident with me - and I haven't been in an accident for probably 15 years. So much for my perfect driving record!

But at least I have insurance and it shouldn't be a major deal.

I tried to get ahold of my husband afterward and couldn't reach him most of the day. I started to panic. As the day wore on and I didn't hear back from my texts, emails and phone calls, I imagined that he must be in jail or dead. I started swirling around in my head.

Luckily I had lunch with a great old friend and she kept me grounded. After that, I started swirling again on the way to meet my sister. I almost called my father-in-law several times, but stopped myself. There is nothing he can help me with.

I asked my sister anyway whether she thought I should call my father-in-law and she practically laughed and shouted NO!!! No contact with him ever!!!

She is right. But there are situations like that where I feel so desperate I would do almost anything. It made me realize that I still have a lot of healing to do around this. If I ever am to get in another relationship (which seems doubtful at this point!) I am going to have to deal with this. Even for my own sake and that of my children when they are grown - it is just too hard to go down that road. And, I have been here enough times I should know that. But when my husband is AWOL, even now, my mind goes to the worst possible place.

Recovery

I went back through all my previous posts, going back over a year, today. It was emotionally draining for me to even read all of it. I considered taking it all down, but decided to leave it up in case anything here might be helpful to someone else in my shoes.

I firmly believe that the only way out of all of this is leaving the dysfunctional relationship behind - as much as possible. In my case, there are children, so my ex will always be somehow involved in my life.

But to live day-to-day as I had been living - even separated - is not conceivable to me any longer.

I don't want to end up like my grandmother, dying too young from cancer, after 36 years married to an alcoholic. She sacrificed herself to him and to her family. Most of her children became addicts. It was the only choice for her in her day, and I ache for her. I ache for all women who have been in relationships with addicts. It is hell. Pure hell.

I spent over a year in Al-Anon and I still read the literature and what not, but I don't believe that is the answer either. I believe 12-step groups are deeply flawed, especially for women, and I will come back to that in a later post.

The thing I saw meeting after meeting for 95% of people is not what I would call recovery. It was recycling the same garbage. Putting up with very poor behavior and then venting about it. Yes, it is an outlet, and yes, it is better than nothing. But after all this time, we need to do better. We need better programs that are progressive and deal with the specific needs of women.

The advice I would give to any woman who asked me what to do if she were in my shoes is to leave the relationship and work on herself. An alcoholic, "recovering" or not, will drain you. (My definition of recovery has completely changed as well over the years - again, for another post).

Recovery for me has meant joy - pure joy. Not repeating meeting lingo or being how someone thinks I should be. I feel that I have finally come home to myself. I believe that I am good and deserve to be happy.

For so long I was scared to leave. But it was the best thing I ever did - for me and my children as far as I am concerned. I am happier than I have been for a long time. I actually have energy to focus on things that I enjoy. I have renewed energy to volunteer, which has also been enormously healing for me. How wonderful to focus on someone that wants your help - that will truly benefit. An alcoholic can only help himself when he is ready.

I am sad for all the tears I shed and wasted energy I spent over the years. But I have learned.

Name Change

I have decided to change the name of my blog. I am nearing the finalization of my divorce and have felt for some time that the blog name did not reflect where I was going with my life. I want to focus more on my own recovery and keeping my kids well.