Why did you marry an alcoholic/addict?

[Deleted]

I've noticed a few on this board have married an alcoholic/addict knowing their spouse had a problem before the wedding.  This topic came up at an AA meeting last night for me.  

An alcoholic in attendance spoke with a lot of emotion about her friend who is engaged to an alcoholic.  The member at the meeting wants to help her friend's fiance get into AA.  Most of the comments were to the effect that she probably wouldn't be able to change her friend's fiance unless he wanted help.  After the meeting, I suggested Al-Anon for her friend.  

But this got me to thinking...If you knew your intended was an alcoholic, why did you decide to take the plunge anyway?  

[bronco]

I didn't think my DH was an alcoholic when we got married. Well, i guess if I'm being honest, I knew he liked to drink, but I honestly figured it was a growing up, being done with college thing.
Anyway, while we were dating and first married we drank together mostly on the weekends and not every weekend at that. I have alcoholism in my family so I was always pretty careful with my drinking and never felt like I was out of control. It wasn't until I found out he had been hiding his drinking until a year into the marriage that I realized how deep his dependency was to alcohol. But then, he "fixed" his issues. He quit hiding it, drank pretty sporadically, wasn't depending on it for a fix to his issues, ect. It wasn't until our twins were born very premature and all the stress that comes with that, the NICU, me being really sick, having newborn twins once they were home, that he began drinking again and here we are.
I hope that answers your question. Maybe I am/was naive but I truly thought he would grow up for lack of a better term.

[Deleted]

I get your thinking he might grow up. Sounds like he wasn't full-blown when you married him. My husband drank way more than I did when we were first married. I grew up in an alcoholic family (mom) so I was very on edge when he would get lit up. Funny that I turned out to be the alcoholic. God has a sense of humor, for sure!

The stress with your twins must have been awful. You wrote they were about 3 months premature, right? That must have been really scary. I hope you and the twins are doing well now.

The lady at AA last night really got me to thinking because her friend is 3 months from the wedding. Her friend's fiance is in pretty bad shape. Sitting in the meeting, I just kept thinking "why wouldn't that woman call off the wedding?" You know? I'm sure they love each other and all that. But she's signing up for all the heartbreak of untreated alcoholism.

Anyway, not my business, but it caused me to wonder. Thanks for your honesty, bronco. Glad you are here!

[bronco]

Jul 23, 2014 20:24:08 GMT -5 @courtneyloves said:

I get your thinking he might grow up. Sounds like he wasn't full-blown when you married him. My husband drank way more than I did when we were first married. I grew up in an alcoholic family (mom) so I was very on edge when he would get lit up. Funny that I turned out to be the alcoholic. God has a sense of humor, for sure!

The stress with your twins must have been awful. You wrote they were about 3 months premature, right? That must have been really scary. I hope you and the twins are doing well now.

The lady at AA last night really got me to thinking because her friend is 3 months from the wedding. Her friend's fiance is in pretty bad shape. Sitting in the meeting, I just kept thinking "why wouldn't that woman call off the wedding?" You know? I'm sure they love each other and all that. But she's signing up for all the heartbreak of untreated alcoholism.

Anyway, not my business, but it caused me to wonder. Thanks for your honesty, bronco. Glad you are here!

Yeah, that's hard. My friend has been dating a guy for years and I'm sure they will eventually get married. I remember thinking around the time I got married that he was going to be a full blown alcoholic and I would run if I were her... Guess the jokes on me!  
Marriage, babies, life is all hard enough without tossing addition into the mix. I hope things work out for that girl. 

We are doing well! They were born at 29 weeks because I came down with HELLP, but they were a great weight for twins and their NICU stay was pretty uneventful, although incredibly stressful and scary. That's my DH issue- he uses alcohol to cope or cover up hard and scary feelings as well as stress, so the issues surrounding our boys arrival and the infant stress pushed him over the edge I think. He has been doing very well finding other outlets for his stress though, so fingers crossed!! 

Thank you for being willing to talk about your addition. It is helpful to hear from someone on the other side of things. I'm sure it isn't always easy to discuss, but it is appreciated. 

[lyssbobiss, Command, B613]

Hello!

So I have been lurking on the board and hadn't posted yet but I'll respond to this.

My XH is a recovering addict (prescription painkillers). I knew that he likely had a problem when we met, but we were also in college, and we were all experimenting with shit, and people got out of control. My biggest problem was, my ex before him was a drug addict as well, and he had all the classic signs - no job, extremely thin, barely productive at anything - so when XH came along and he had a 4.0 GPA, and had a partial scholarship for law school, I felt like he could get his shit under control. I thought once he graduated, it would stop. Or once we were married it would stop. Or once we had kids...you see where I'm going with this.

And he was so good on paper with other stuff. He had a job he liked. We had the same views on religion and having kids, and it felt like maybe the addiction wouldn't be a huge deal. But it got bigger than anything else in the marriage.

The other thing I've learned about myself is that I was conditioned from an early age to associate chaos with love. It was like my brain didn't know what to do if I wasn't in turmoil (we had a lot of mental illness in the family). So...drama was kind of normal. Even though it was exhausting.

I hope this kind of answers the question. I guess the biggest response for myself, and maybe for your friend, is that you don't realize how bad it will get. Addicts don't stop on their own, but for people like me who have a tendency to be drawn to them, it's like you just want the person to figure himself out. Sometimes we have our blinders on and are willing to overlook major red flags because we don't want to believe that the situation is so dire. Hopefully her wake-up call moment will come sooner rather than later.

[totesanae]

I knew he drank, but he cut back considerably when we got together, and like others, I took it as a sign that he was growing up. There were a few bad times, but I figured it was just par for the course.

Then the shit hit the fan last year (dh got laid off, his last surviving family member passed away, and he got a serious--and scary--medical diagnosis) and he has gone into full out self destruct mode. He will be fine for a bit, and then will go on a bender. He's having one of his bad times right now.

I am still pretty new in this town and don't really have a support system, nor do I truly think I'm ready to leave. I can live with the known--but he has threatened to kill himself on several occasions, and I don't know if I can live with that. Textbook manipulation/codependent bullshit, right? I'm working with a therapist, but not having a local support system is a bitch.

And I'm not brave enough to post under my real name, but if this is thinly veiled, please respect the ae.

[flex]

Alkies are famous for their manipulations. I'm not saying that he won't hurt himself, but please don't let that keep you from leaving. You need to take care of you.

(((hugs)))

[btay]

When I first met him he was still in the early stages, so he would get wasted on weekends, but so did all of his friends so I just figured this is what they do, but weekdays were never an issue. About 4 months in I started seeing the warning signs, and in less than a month it was alcohol every day, driving drunk, skipping work, suicide threats, cheating, etc. I had decided to walk when he admitted he needed help and reached out to some doctors, did outpatient, and got himself sober. My grandpa had been sober over 20 years when he passed so I just figured this was it, he sober, let's get on with our lives. The problem was he was not actively working a program, so as soon as life got to tough (infertility) he went back to drinking and suffered a relapse.

[Deleted]

Jul 23, 2014 23:39:00 GMT -5 totesanae said:

I knew he drank, but he cut back considerably when we got together, and like others, I took it as a sign that he was growing up. There were a few bad times, but I figured it was just par for the course.

Then the shit hit the fan last year (dh got laid off, his last surviving family member passed away, and he got a serious--and scary--medical diagnosis) and he has gone into full out self destruct mode. He will be fine for a bit, and then will go on a bender. He's having one of his bad times right now.

I am still pretty new in this town and don't really have a support system, nor do I truly think I'm ready to leave. I can live with the known--but he has threatened to kill himself on several occasions, and I don't know if I can live with that. Textbook manipulation/codependent bullshit, right? I'm working with a therapist, but not having a local support system is a bitch.

And I'm not brave enough to post under my real name, but if this is thinly veiled, please respect the ae.

Is there an Al-Anon group in your new town?  Talk about an instant support system.  They get it.  Thanks for answering the question with such honesty.

[pinkdutchtulips]

when we met, he had been off meth for 2-3 years. I figured ok, he's off meth, he's got a stable job, own place to live (he was sharing a house w/ his stepbrother nbd)I think I'm ok.

then I got to see how the addictive personality works - the damn near obsession w/ things, the all or nothing attitude. first it was me, then his business, then online gaming, then weed, then prescription painkillers, then the building of his vintage Camaro, then alcohol then the death knell - he relapsed on meth a year ago.

we married bc looking back, I was in complete and total denial of the situation. I thought as long as keep his 'addictions' in check we'd have that 'normal' happy suburban life I always wanted - mom, dad, 2 dogs, 1-2 kids ....

I always looked the other way bc he was working 12-16 hr days sometimes and people need an outlet. once his contract wasn't renewed (he was an independent logistics contractor for a regional furniture retailer he started w/ the alcohol then one night reacquainted himself w meth.

there was a DV component too - he was prone to ANGRY outburst over the littlest things. I never left (even though I had thought about it countless times)bc I felt trapped, financially. it only took his meth relapse and being faced with the real fact that we could lose our daughter if we (dd and I) stayed. That is how powerful the DV grip is.

we left 11 months ago and I have never felt better ! yes he entered detox and yes he completed a 90 day treatment program but when faced w/ a crisis (our looming divorce) he went right back to meth.

I could play the would've, could've, should've game with myself all day and all night but I won't simply bc I would drive myself batsh!tcrazy doing that ....

[malibu]

I knew something was off a few months before our wedding. Maybe it was denial, maybe it was lack of understanding much about alcoholism (it's in my family, but I was either shielded from it or didn't notice or wasn't born yet for it), but honestly, I didn't realize the extent of his drinking problem until we were into the first year of marriage. His total downward spiral was within the last two years.