Separation from Husband

Why is he drinking? Does he have an alcohol problem, or is he just going through some stress?

He said he wouldn't come home because he didn't want to keep upsetting you. Did he at any time state he no longer wants his family or that he is upset with you?

It sounds like poor communication all the way around.

Honestly I would just give him some space. Maybe he will come around.

You need to get your ducks in a row and not worry about him coming home. You make sure you are legally covered, that he pays child support, and you are not screwed out of income from your business or forced out of your business. You may also want to attend Al-Anon for yourself. He can make choices, but so can you. Hang in there.

So sorry to hear of the troubles between you & your husband. It sounds like it is making you feel overwhelmed and caught off-guard, as well as unsure of where you stand in your marriage, and that is extremely hard to overcome.

I mean this with all the kindness & respect possible - from what you wrote in your post, there seems to be a lot of passive-aggressive behavior & poor communication coming from both of you.

I realize that online forums don't allow for the entire picture, tone of voice, complete conversation, etc. to be conveyed. But some things that stand out
- you not getting ready to go fishing & telling your husband you aren't going pretty much as he's expecting to leave
- your husband staying out late and not communicating to you why or when he'll be home
- confronting your husband & telling him "I would not tolerate that behavior"
- your husband walking out without explanation or follow-up
- your husband's comment "this way he wouldn't continue to make me unhappy"

My husband & I went through a very rough patch 1 1/2 yrs ago, which actually built up over probably 2 years w/o us realizing how bad it had gotten. A lot of what I am reading is similar to how we behaved & treated each other.

As a woman & wife, we want to have communication with our spouse, we have a need to be connected to what is going on and how they are thinking & feeling, and to have input on the decisions that are being made.

As a man & husband, they want to be respected, not talked down to, and trusted for their actions & decisions.

Staying out, drinking with friends & coming home late are behaviors my husband engaged in also. It was his "escape" from the uncomfortable environment that had become our home. Perhaps this is the same for your husband?

How we talk to our spouse can build them up or cut them down far more than we realize (this applies to both husbands & wives). If you confront your husband, your intent may be to communicate & connect, but the way that will come across is like a scolding, where they have no right answer, & no way out.

You have children, you both loved each other & until recently, I am going to assume that you thought things were OK in your marriage. This does not have to be the end. Sit down & write him a letter. Put down your thoughts & feelings, and read it back out loud to yourself. Revise until it sounds concerned & loving, & then give it to him. Meet with a counselor (either through work, your church, or a therapist in the community) and get help to understand what you are going through, & how to approach your marriage with the intent of saving it.

Additionally there are resources available for people who are struggling in their marriage. Two very powerful programs are "Laugh your way to a Better Marriage" & "Fireproof". Both have a faith-based premise, but are not limited to only people of faith.

Marriage is not something to enter into cavalierly, and with children involved, your vows mean something to more than just you & your husband. I hope that you take this to heart, and do everything you can to save what you have, and make it better. I was able to, and I know many other women on this board have done the same, even in the face of extremely hurtful behavior from their spouse.

I hope this helps. T.

I'm so sorry. I've been down this road too. I am *trying* to divorce my alcoholic husband. It's getting quite ugly. I'm not suggesting that you divorce your husband. If you own a business together, a divorce will be…..horrifying.

Your priority right now is to go to Alanon meetings. Many of them provide free child care. You need to hear stories from others who have been in your shoes to help you see things for what they are and to decide how to proceed in the future.

Talking to an attorney is a good idea too. You don't sound like you're at the point where you can reach out to your friends and family for help quite yet. So reach out to Alanon, or at the very least, go to their website. You are walking around in a fog of your husband's creation. A therapist, clergy member, or domestic violence advocate might be able to help you process your feelings. Good luck to you!

I'm so sorry.

Alanon. Alanon. Alanon.

He is ashamed of his drinking and behavior and this is how he can get himself out from "under your thumb" and do exactly what he pleases.

Sad thing is he is disregarding the feelings of his own children. Addiction does that to people.

Tell him in no uncertain terms that on XYZ day, at ABC:00, you expect him to be at the home to explain his decision to his children. He needs to own his actions.

Good luck to you, hon.

I'm so sad for you. Please don't be afraid to burden people who care about you because I'm sure they would want to help in any way they could.

But I'm really angry with your husband for his treatment of his children as well as you. I hope you are too. I understand some women have a difficult time being self-protective but surely you don't want your children to have a father who so readily abandons them, without warning, without reason.

Sometimes being strong for your kids and protecting them means going it alone. Wishing you the best.

oh my dear. what a perfect storm of aggressive, passive-aggressive, addictive and enabling behavior.
you MUST get to counseling. if not for your marriage's sake, then for your kids. you and your husband are both modeling extremely unhealthy behavior, and your children are learning how to create their adult lives from this template.
you both need to parent-up right now, and get your priorities straight. do it for you, do it for marriage, do it for your kids.
good luck.
khairete
S.

Wanted to add: Someone posted that it's not clear if he's really an alcoholic, and someone else noted that you don't say if he's already a drinker or if it suddenly kicked up. Those things don't matter. Alcoholics can be sober all week but if they binge-drink on weekends they are still alcoholics. Or they can be absolutely dry for ages but if they then start to drink to excess suddenly, they are no less alcoholics than if they drank every single day for years, without the dry period. Please don't fool yourself that he does not have a problem with alcohol. He may try to say the problem is with YOU, and to a very real degree your passive-aggressive behavior is indeed a problem too -- but do not fool yourself into believing he does not have a real problem with alcohol. You, yourself, say it's "more consistent" that he is drinking more.

Original post:
I want to repeat what someone else said: Al-Anon. Today. For YOU.

Al-Anon is not "Alcoholics Anonymous" for the drinker himself. It is an organization for the family members of alcoholics. There, you will meet people who have been through exactly what you are going through and they, not we, can help you best. In a large metropolitan area like yours, there are Al-
Anon meetings every single day of the week, I'm sure. Go to:
www.al-anon.org
To find meetings in your area or any area. (Be sure to use the hyphen in the address.)

You must, must, must get outside help for yourself first and foremost, before you try to deal with him. And I also strongly suggest you get a counselor for yourself and also start marriage counseling, but most of all, he needs Alcoholics Anonymous -- another group with meetings every single day, all year long (even on days like Christmas and Thanksgiving).

This is way beyond your just needing to vent though that's important. Please vent to a professional counselor AND additionally get to an Al-Anon meeting tonight. Tonight, not next week or next month. Find someone to stay with the kids. Get a list of covered counselors or therapists from your insurers tomorrow and make an appointment as soon as you get that list. THEN you can talk to him once you have an idea how to handle your own emotions and how to approach him. He does need to get to AA and into therapy himself but you need to get help for yourself first so you know how to tell him that those things must be done or your marriage is done.

"Giving him space" won't help because he now is focused entirely on alcohol. You can't give space to someone who is not present at all. Lay off and give him space and he's gone for good. For yourself: Professional help and Al-Anon, now, and very soon, an ultimatum from you that he must get to and stick with AA.

Please update us.

There's so much going on here. I didn't understand from your post if he's just started drinking or if it's just kicked up.

You can never know if he would have responded differently had you approached him differently, but I'd like to suggest something for any future chats with him:

1) Have bulleted points to make, and make them one at a time. You came at him about your disappointment and hurt and then your concern for him and that he's wrong and that you won't stand for it. Of course, you had all that going on inside, but you can't communicate effectively if you just chunk it all at him at once. Men don't tend to absorb and process all of that coming at them at once. It might even be a people thing, not just man vs. woman. It makes sense to me that he just shut it down and walked away.

2) "We need to talk" might be exactly where you're coming from, but if you want him to even pretend to listen, you might do better to say, "Can we talk for a minute?" He needs to feel like he's got a choice in the matter, or you'll get child-like rebellion. If he's not up for it in that moment, ask him to choose a time TODAY (or tomorrow, no later) when he will be available to have this serious discussion. Depending on how he processes, you might want to give him a heads up about what you'll be discussing. You can't expect him to welcome your coming down on him. You have to treat it like a give-and-take and, essentially, request his participation. He's a grown-up, and you can't demand things of him. You can set your boundaries and requirements and then act on them, but you can't MAKE HIM do anything. Then, you tried the same thing while he was at work--not the right time or place for a confrontation. You can't force someone to have the discussion that YOU want to have.

3) Did you ever ASK HIM what the hell is going on? Did you just go in on him (ultimately making it about you, which is how it sounds from your post) or did you approach him at some point with sincere concern for what he's doing and why, and then stop talking to LISTEN to him tell you?

The whole fishing thing--you should have talked directly to him about not going once you had made your decision not to go. And your reason should have been that you EITHER had work to do OR didn't want to go with him. Not both. You should not have thrown out that "I don't like the way you treat me" business--on top of the passive-aggressive lying around when you knew that he was expecting you to get ready--unless you were ready to address it in that moment.

He is all the way wrong here, but you're not so right that you're not playing a part. Vent to us. Get the volatile feelings out so you can get your thoughts together and present them to him calmly and rationally. Like I said, communication is a two-way street. In a marriage, one's communication is only as good as how it's received by the other. Take some responsibility for that, and figure it out. It's not communication if you're not hearing each other.

He's not going to talk to you right now. He's in a mode that you're not capable of coaxing him from in your current state. Calm down. Take care of your children. Al-Anon might be a good place to turn for some immediate relief, but you don't say that he is actually an alcoholic, so just use them for initial support and to be forearmed, until you can figure some other stuff out. They might be able to give you some tips for talking to him in a way that he can hear you.

I'm sorry for what has happened.... he has chosen alcohol over you and his children.

I agree that seeing a lawyer, and getting things put together financially and legally is a good idea.

Also, you may want to find a counselor to talk to, so you have someplace to talk things out. If possible, it might be nice that you could get counseling together, but I don't know if he would be willing at this point.

Al-Anon is a good idea. Sounds like he is a classic alcoholic, or one that is going to have major chemical dependency problems. He may have to completely hit bottom before he is willing to change. All you can do is protect yourself and your children.

Also..... find out what you can do to protect your children. If you go with a legal separation/divorce, he will get visitation. I would suggest documenting his alcoholic behavior, so you have something to share with a lawyer as far as unsupervised visitation. The last thing you want is for him to be driving with the children in the car if he is drinking!

So sorry this is happening. I imagine it must be so scary and heartbreaking. I would start by increasing contact with your support system. Do you have a trusted pastor/ spiritual leader you can talk to about all this? Or maybe go to an ALANON meeting or find a therapist. Your kiddos need you to do all you can to take care of yourself as you go through this. A qualified professional could give you support, guidance, and help you sort through some tough decisions. Sending cyber hugs your way!

I'm sorry you are going through this.
I understand you just want him home. Right now, it might be better to take some time to clear your head.

I agree, you both are being passive aggressive. You need marriage counseling to learn how to communicate. At the least, you need to go to Alanon. It will give you insight you don't have now. Your H may just have wanted an excuse to leave so he can drink all he wants. Or he wants to manipulate you and make you the bad guy so he can distract from his obvious drinking problems. Don't accept that manipulation.

You have written about your moms lack of parenting skills and it seems to me that you are willing to accept more blame than is deserved. Get help seeing your way to a healthy marriage.

The worst thing about this is, what do you tell your kids? What a jerk.

You need to get angry and tough. Don't let him bully you into submission. You very appropriately said you won't tolerate his behavior, and you can't back down on that. It would be one thing if he did that once, but he did it a number of times in a couple of weeks. Do not back down on this, don't let him guilt you into accepting his crappy behavior. Draw your line in the sand and calmly stick to it. It's his choice whether to accept it or not.

Meanwhile, you should probably look into getting your ducks in a row. Stay calm and firm with him. Don't argue or belabor the point, just tell him continually staying out late and drinking, and refusing to check in are unacceptable. Good luck.

Wow. I am really sorry. I don't know your whole history and I know the drinking is probably very scary. Any chance this is just a phase where he is being a complete jerk. You mentioned you all have three kids - which means you have probably been together for some time. If I were you I would get organized. I would open up my own bank account and dump half your co-money into it and then I would wait and see. I would certainly keep your boundaries, but I would stop talking to him because it is getting you no where. Without knowing your history, this all seems really accelerated which makes me think it isn't the end of the world? Like maybe he said that in anger but didn't mean that? I don't know - I wish you the best. In my experience being heavy handed and assuming the worst and lawyering up isn't a recipe for reconciliation and it doesn't sound like you want this to be over. Get organized, keep notes, protect the kids and try to find something more fulfilling to focus on. He will either figure out what has him so wound up and realize he is a jerk or this is the beginning of a real separation - either way, having your wits about you, the kids on an even keel and money in the bank in your best bet. My heart goes out to you. Hang in there.

I'm so sorry - it sounds like a messy situation.

It sounds like you both use avoidance - he stays out late and doesn't come home even when he says he's going to, and you lie in bed not telling him you aren't going to go fishing. You both talk to each other at the last possible minute (you go to his office, he sends someone to wake you up when it's time to leave). He doesn't engage you, but then says he's not coming home but he will pay the mortgage? So he's thought about it and made a plan, but you aren't talking to each other.

Neither are ideal situations. So you wish he would "just come home" but how is that going to solve anything?

He of course should not be drinking so much and should absolutely not be driving under the influence. So that's a huge issue. You need support and I agree that Al-Anon is a good source. But there are other significant communication problems so perhaps a good family counselor with familiarity with alcohol issues would be best. Call your physician and ask for a referral to someone who accepts your medical insurance.

Your children need 2 strong parents to teach them how to confront situations in their own lives. They are not well served by parents who cannot talk to each other and who retreat to bed, school work, the office or anything else. You both need support but so you do your children so they can learn how to deal with stresses in their lives as they get older.

Good luck!

I don't have any words for you other than i'm so sorry. i'm going thru similar times and my heart is just crushed. i'm not ready to tell my bff anything that's going on so i'm going to see a therapist. they will probably be more neutral anyways than our friends right? i wish you all the best.

Happy birthday to your daughter!!

I'm so sorry you are going through this. Please call your best friend. She will help you through this as well...family or not in town.

You need counseling. There is a support group that will help you deal with this - Alanon. It's a support group that will help you understand this is NOT your fault and it's NOT you!! Please go today!! Also look for a counselor for you and the family. Alanon will help with many things - to the best of my knowledge, they can even refer you to a counselor.

I've not been in your situation, so I don't know what to say. I'm sure you're trying to figure out what to tell the kids - Alanon will help you deal with this. My first instinct is to tell them the truth - daddy is sick and needs to get help on his own.

Good luck!! Cyber hugs to you. I'm sorry you are going through this!

First of all, Mamade3, I'm terribly sorry. In reading your story, I'm seeing something your husband is hiding from you. First, there is a reason he has been staying out late at night. Whether it is another woman, or peer pressure (yes, it still exists, I've seen it myself as a 45 year old), or another issue he's running away from. Second, his excessive drinking is a symptom of the real problem, whatever that may be. It could be depression, but it doesn't really sound like it. It does sound like he's trying to place blame on you, to cover his own guilt. Lastly, if he's deciding his needs/wants/issues are more important than everyone else's in his family, then he is pretty far gone at this point. He needs counseling. He won't go willingly until he can admit he has a problem, and it sounds like you are at the beginning of all this, so there is a long journey ahead for you both.
I am the mother of 2 girls, both of whose fathers are no longer my partners. But, I've become friends with both, and we have always agreed to put our children first. They are the most important thing in our lives, and have thrived and become happy, healthy young women, and I believe they will continue to do so. I left both of their fathers for compatibility reasons, nothing major, such as your issues. But I did it for my happiness, and the happiness of our household both times. We, as mothers, have an inherent responsibility to bring our kids up as happy as they can be, without dragging them through the mire of our failures as adults. Love them. Put them first. Show them that they have a strong and loving mother. Go to counseling if you can, or join support groups. Here's the hardest part: Give your husband his space. Something is bound to happen in his life, whether it turns him around and brings him back, or he moves on in another (destructive) direction. But he's an adult, and he is shutting you out. You can't force him to do anything he doesn't want to do. But again, I don't know the full situation, just feeling your emotional helplessness in your post. I wish you the best of everything, and truly believe you will come through this difficult time as a stronger, wiser woman. Your kids will benefit from that.