‘Til Death Do Us Part

Hubby drinking again last night… didn’t ever seem drunk but after the first drink I get vigilant, after the second drink I get angry. So, today I told him he had to decide what was a higher priority…. his drinking or my feelings of security. I’ve tried everything I can think of to make his drinking not matter to me. Last night when I was looking up Alanon programs I realized just how unhappy I was about it. Alcoholic stepfather + alcoholic father + alcoholic ex-boyfriends  + non-drinking alcoholic best friend who’s husband and mom are also non-drinking alcoholics. It’s just too much to allow me to feel safe.

Kind of interesting though is that drinking at a party doesn’t bother me unless it’s getting out of control…like throwing up or doing stupid shit. Drinking at home distresses me once it goes past one drink. I feel unsafe, i feel anxious, I feel distressed, I feel angry, I feel resentful, I feel my adrenaline rushing, I feel like the floor is not stable beneath me. That may not be his problem, but if I can’t feel safe with my husband, who can I feel safe with? If alcohol is more important than my feelings of safety then there is a bigger problem than my anxiety.

I’ve been trying to figure out what my hubby and I like to do in common so we can just do some “hanging out”. It’s been kind of difficult. We used to have more in common than we do now. What we have in common now is great for the fact that we both like to spend all day just playing games on our computers without getting mad about it, but what’s not great is that it’s not exactly good for “togetherness”.

We used to:
go dancing, go for walks, play cards, play video games together instead of apart, play arcade games cuddled on the couch, watch movies, go out to eat with friends.

Now:
he doesn’t like dancing anymore and I feel too fat, we don’t make time for walks, we don’t play cards or games in general because we can’t just play alone and the family ends up fighting when we play together (we usually played with friends anyhow and that’s difficult to coordinate for lots of reasons now), we can’t find any good arcade games to play together on the couch and i’m not sure we’d make time for it anyway, plus someone is always ready to point out what we’re doing wrong and that’s annoying, I no longer enjoy watching movies due to anxiety issues (my dad has this problem too) unless they are animated pretty much, and we can’t go out to eat too often because we are no longer just feeding two mouths, it’s anywhere from 3 to 5.  And when we DO go for a walk or out to dinner alone or whatever, we don’t really talk. He’s not a talker and I run out of things to talk about. Besides, with my worrying bent, what I do end up talking about is money, kids, scheduling, things that need to get done, etc. We almost never talk about anything meaningful.  It makes me sad. We are both disappointed.

Also:
his idea of how to interact with me and his kids seems to revolve around teasing us. None of us like to get teased. It’s not “good” teasing. It feels bad. People get hurt. He feels lost as to what he did and how not to do it. It’s a mess.

But:
we do love each other greatly and we’re both in it for life, so we’re going to do whatever needs to be done to make it…. it just may take time.