Frustration…..Anger…..
Exhaustion…. I never thought I would be the type of person to regret my life. Yet, here I am with an alcoholic and drug addicted husband and I hate it. It is 11 pm, he left hours ago with our only car …will he be back before morning? If not, will he be sober? Why do I have to go through this again….why does our son? I often wonder if he has burnt out his brain with these drugs. Does he realize that we could lose everything if he gets caught using drugs at work?
Then I wonder if you even care…..my life is not hard. I know that I have it good but is it wrong to want honesty, respect and love?. Or is money and posessions all that matters?
I know you love me and watch out for me…would you also watch out for him? He needs something drastic to happen in order for this chaos to stop. Help him…I know that with your help Tob & I will be fine.
Anne, Illinois/USA
November 4th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Dear Anne, you have no idea how much I relate to your post. I too have often regretted my life, I too sat wondering if my husband would make it back with our only vehicle so I may go to work and my kids to school. I too wondered what horrible thing would have to happen to turn it all around. I thought that horrible thing happened this past summer…unfortunately, it hasn’t changed much. He lost his job, got himself assaulted in the middle of the night and now he’s recovering from a broken leg. He can’t work, we may lose our house and yet…he still drinks. Not much has changed. I pray for a sign. What should I do? I can’t leave him, there’s no where to go. I can’t put him out, he has no where to go and of course my kids would be devastated. Do you ever wonder if you were meant to hold everyone else together? Do you wonder if thats your job in this lifetime? Is it possible, some of us aren’t meant to be happy? Or, do we learn to be happy regardless of our situations? I pray you’ve found an answer and someday, I will too.
November 7th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
I use to think just like you both that I was one of the people that God didn’t like and that he didn’t want me to be happy because he allowed my life to be crappy, atleast that’s what I thought. I had an verbally and physically abusive husband whom I’ve called the police on and had pictures taken of the assault, then I would go down town and drop the charges because I loved him and I have 2 kids by him and besides I didn’t want him locked up. He always told me he didn’t me to hurt me and that he loved me and so on. I was afraid to leave because he was the sole provider for me and my 1 and 2yr old boys at the time, and I felt I had no where to go besides on the streets, here I was stuck in another state alone with not a distant relative in the whole state period and I had no money because he controlled it. Well, one day I grew a spine and said NO MORE! and I was serious I didn’t care if I was going to be homeless or not . I just wanted to be happy like any other wife but I was tired of going in circles with some one who was not on the same page with me and was wasting my life in a relationship that wasn’t worth it, all in the name of this so call LOVE. He wanted to move to Seattle and I told him I wasn’t going and was surprised at his response….” Well, stay here you @$%^^& and let’s see how far you make it without me. You’re gonna need someone to help you with those 2 kids, you’ll be begging to come up soon”. I also was relieved, even though I knew I was alone and had no one and no money. So i went and appled for welfare whether I wanted it or not. I had to do something I had mouths to feed and I found me another apartment and found a church where I got to know people who turned out to help me and became friends and God gave me a women in her early 70s who became a mother to me and someone to talk to for that womanlly guidance that we all need sometimes. I lost my mother at the age of 17 and my father walked out when I was 13. To make a long, long story short I will be honest and say my life didn’t change for the better until I met my future husband, and his name is JESUS. I don’t care if you want to here it or not. If God can take care of me and my kids without their dad, tell me why want he do it for you? I am no better than you guys or anyone else. My oldest son is a Sheriff and my youngest is finishing up his EMT course to apply with the fire Dept. and I raised them alone without their father. Uncles can be a male figure for males it don’t always have to be a biological father. In my case it was Christ, and he has been the best father and provider I could have ever asked for. I am so glad he calls me his own. Find a church that believes that God gave his only begotten son Jesus that whosoever believes in him shall be saved and make sure they believe in water baptism and the trinity and that believes in the bible the old and new testements and no other books just the bible alone. No, I didn’t raise my kids on welfare I was on it for a short period and it was under a year. When I found Christ he blessed me with a job in the health field working with patients and with a better apartment, a car of my own, credit cards, new furniture and supplied my evey need and I LOVE HIM. My boys roommate together in a beautiful condo and take care of themselves and are very responsible and don’t ask me for anything. As for me I am trying to start my own in-home nursing agency and I give all the praise and glory to my father….CHRIST.
GOD BLESS!
November 10th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Anne -
My heart goes out to you. Hang in there — yes, He cares, and so do many of us here reading your post. Praying for you in Maryland.
Teresa
November 18th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
I just wrote a long entry.
Then I realized that you’ve thought of what I was typing at some point.
Call the police and send him in, it will destroy what he once was. Giving him the opportunity to reconstruct his life.
November 25th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Dear Anne”
You asked a lot of questions. There is only one that you asked, that can positivaly be answered yes. Yes, God does care. He cares so much about you, that he sent his only son to die for you.
As a christian, I can also tell you that he hears you even more than you probably understand. He also loves your husband enough to give him a wife like you. God is already helping you both. First, he is helping your husband by using you to pray for him. Secondly, he is blessing you by allowing you to let love cover a multitude of sins (your husband’s, and maybe even some of your own.) By God’s grace upon your life, you are able to have enough compassion, forgiveness, love, in your heart to pray for your husband.
God wants you both to live in unity with each other and with him. However, your husband has to be delivered from his addiction. You must continue to pray for him, as well as yourself.
Please consider going to a full gospel, bible teaching, church and getting some pastoral counseling. If you are truely seeking God’s help, I think you need to know what God thinks of your situation. Believe it or not, it is possible to know this, through his word. I know above all things he desires you to be good health, live a long life, and prosper, even as your soul prospers.. He believes in marriage, but he doesn’t believe that a husband should abuse a wife. I feel you want your marriage to work out, and I think that is great. But, I think you should also consider seperating yourself form your husband, while you try to work things out. If you could afford to put yourself in a safe place without him, seek good Godly advice, submit yourself to God, and continue to pray for your husband, I think you will be in a much better position for success than you are now. I am not saying to jump right into divorce, I am just saying you need to protect yourself while you are waiting for things to turn around.
The other question you asked that is absolutely yes is; that he could loose everything, and so could you. That is why it is so important you try to salvage all you can before it’s too late. Turn your life over to God, get your house in order, pray for your husband, move out, and trust God to do the rest. God Bless you.
December 5th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
I grew up in an alcholic home, dad was the drunk, mom got saved and was the righteous better then him parent that justified her pettiness. Careful of why you stay and who you think you are in the decision, little eyes are on you. The only thing ruling the home is the drugs and the booze, it dictates, controls and decides. Everyone in that home acts or reacts based on the disease and not of the life of Christ. Your a person first, a mother second for you are their shelter and protector for them and you are sharing the shelter with a predator (alchohol and drugs) while the father who is the other half of the shelter invites the predator in and makes it home and normal. The children growing up in this shelter become used and comfortable with that predator and very often continue the same existence in their adults lives for it is a life known to them and hands that down to their children. The predator becomes a hydra and continues to grow. So, seek counsel and therapy for yourself for your choices affect their future and their childrens children and so on.
I got out with my children with a predator of a different kind then alcohol, was homeless, everyone thought I was stupid for my decision, lost everything but my kids. My son is now in college and he amazes me with his heart all the time, very compassionate strong man that will be a wonderful husband and father.. for he took it upon himself to be a father figure to his neice and nephew when his sister went through abuse and go out. We survived ….We have come through…I am strong and just helped be there for another woman go through the survival process..she has a different life now then she had 4 years ago..and a wonderful man that treats her like gold and her children like his own.
Jesus stands in the field of broken pots and with his love, grace and mercy remolds them with all the flaws into vessels to be used and life giving. It isn’t about me, it is what I allow Him to do with me that matters, my rewards come out of that and I find peace at last.
December 19th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
I am going to be really hard on you … you are a big part of why this happens. Not because you make him. Not because you are a bad person. I am sure you are doing this for the “right” reasons. But you are giving him the perception that he has a “normal” family life so he can pretend it isn’t that bad. The drugs DO mean more than you and his son. He may not want it that way but that’s addiction. Let him go so he can recover. It doesn’t have to be permanent but he has to do this alone.
More importantly, what message are you are giving your son? You might say it’s not OK but the fact that you are not protecting him from it speaks louder than those words. If you can’t do it fo you, do it for him. I am speaking from experience and it has taken me a long time to reconcile with my Mom - she is a good woman but she let me be exposed to it and I have paid the price. Let this be the last generation that does this. It is in your hands alone. Your husband can’t do it, your son can’t do it.
Also, please make sure you are safe and get the support YOU need - you can save this family but please get support so you can take this brave step.
December 25th, 2008 at 1:41 am
Think of it this way: if your child was being treated by his significant other this way, would you stand for it, or would you try to help him out of it?Did you drink and abuse drugs while you were pregnant with him? Would you let him get in the car with a drunk or drug-addicted stranger? Would you throw him in the path of a moving car? If you think YOU are living in fear, imagine what responsibility and problems that little person is having because you are keeping him in this environment.
Your relationship with him is 100% and 100%, not 50/50. You must be your own 100% before you can heal and help raise your son become the man his father is NOT, and never will be without some tough love.
Get out. Leave. I left with my car and $10 in my pocket. I made it. So can you.
God bless.
January 10th, 2009 at 3:13 am
Do not listen to anyone but, your heart. Get help….I did in the program of Al-anon. I guarantee you will find answers for YOU. You are important and valuable. believe it and get help.
June 27th, 2009 at 11:13 am
my mother dealt with an alcoholic husband (my stepfather) for too many years, and after a decade and a half of prayer he found the lord. i’m all “grown up” now but i can see that persistent prayer and devotion will work. i never thought i’d see my father be a father and my little sisters are living the sitcom family life because of the power of a praying wife. God loves you and he loves your husband too. he intended for marriage to be a resemblance of his relationship with his children. i know through all the years that i partied and wasn’t loyal to God, he was still faithful to me. he wouldn’t let me go and i came back to him, clean and so thankful for the lover that stayed by my side. love your husband, the father of your child, stay by his side. i know you don’t get a lot of responses like this because there are so many deadbeat dads out there that the world is growing bitter, i know i had two of them and 20 years later, even though it was hell of a wait, they are both there for me and have both overcome their addictive oppressors. there is a reason why God intended us to have partners in this life, we can’t always do it on our own. i see that you live in illinois and i find this to be a very supernatural coincindence. my mom is actually leading a bible study for women who’s husbands aren’t quite what they should be and we happen to live in illinois. it just sounds like a god thing. she’s at Momentum Church in southern IL. Columbia IL actually. the phone number to the church is 16182813200 her name is Jill
August 29th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Anne,
Please know you have the strength and the ability to help you and your child. God loves you and cares for you, but you have to love yourself as much as God does. Know that there will come a time, where your husband will reach the bottom of his hole, and when he does they only thing you can do is stand back and let him fight his way out. I’ve been in a similar sittuation, and found the following passage the night the love of my life hit his bottom, I’ve not helped him a step and it’s been hard, I won’t lie - but it’s the only way he’ll ever truely change.
If you love me let me fall all by myself. Don’t try to spread a net out to catch me. Don’t throw a pillow under my ass to cushion the pain so I don’t have to feel it. Don’t stand in the place I am going to land so that you can break the fall (allowing yourself to get hurt instead of me) … Let me fall as far down as my addiction is going to take me, let me walk the valley alone all by myself, let me reach the bottom of the pit … trust that there is a bottom there somewhere even if you can’t see it. The sooner you stop saving me from myself, stop rescuing me, trying to fix my broken-ness, trying to understand me to a fault, enabling me … The sooner you allow me to feel the loss and consequences, the burden of my addiction on my shoulders and not yours … the sooner I will arrive … and on time … just right where I need to be … me, alone, all by myself in the rubble of the lifestyle I lead … resist the urge to pull me out because that will only put me back at square one … If I am allowed to stay at the bottom and live there for awhile … I am free to get sick of it on my own, free to begin to want out, free to look for a way out, and free to plan how I will climb back up to the top. In the beginning as I start to climb out .. I just might slide back down, but don’t worry I might have to hit bottom a couple more times before I make it out safe and sound … Don’t you see ?? Don’t you know ?? You can’t do this for me … I have to do it for myself, but if you are always breaking the fall how am I ever suppose to feel the pain that is part of the driving force to want to get well. It is my burden to carry, not yours … I know you love me and that you mean well and a lot of what you do is because you don’t know what to do and you act from your heart not from knowledge of what is best for me … but if you truly love me let me go my own way, make my own choices be they bad or good … don’t clip my wings before I can learn to fly … Nudge me out of your safety net … trust the process and pray for me … that one day I will not only fly, but maybe even soar. —Passion