Lost and Stuck

[loneysmom]

My husband and I dated for 6 years prior to our marriage last April. We have no kids, just a dog. Things have never been perfect, but we have always felt we were meant to be together, cliché as that is. We come from very different families. To put it simply, mine is loving while his is anything but. We have shared tons of love, laughs, and new experiences together. That is, up until the past few months. He is a teacher, this past year was his first, and the job caused him quite a bit of stress and anxiety. He developed back problems and began to have panic attacks and phobias developed from out of the blue. I looked forward to his summer break for him, and we discussed him possibly seeing a doctor over the summer and getting things more under control before school started back up.

 

So summer came, and he found himself quickly bored and restless, filling his time with drugs and alcohol mostly. But, he was always there when I got home from work and we would still have dinner together and chat, so things were still okay between us. But, then he got a summer job as a bartender. For the past four weeks, I don’t think he has spent one day sober. This is not because he loves to drink and hang out; this is because he has deep inner-troubles that he likes to escape from with drinking. He was abused as a child and has contemplated suicide much of his life.

 

He often stays out all night, without even a phone call to let me know he is all right. When he doesn’t stay out, he either comes home at 4 AM and crashes, or at 8 PM, drunk, and ready to argue with me. Last night, he came home drunk, crying, yelling, and irrational and telling me he is a sex addict. I have not gotten a real night’s sleep in over a month.

 

I constantly suggest therapy and help find numbers to call, he calls and says they are unprofessional and he won’t see them. His problems are apparent to his friends too and they have discussed them with me and his friends have also suggested getting help to him.

 

He thinks he is going above and beyond the call of duty by having a summer job to help make ends meet, but in reality he only spends the money he makes on drugs and alcohol. I work full-time at a newspaper and part-time instructing at a community college, but he sees himself as the main financial contributor. After work I wait for my husband to come home at night so I can have someone I love to talk to for a few minutes before I head to sleep for my next 9 to 10 hour day of the week. He rarely does. I do all the housework, pay the bills, take care of the dog, the cars, and take care of anything else that comes our way. He drinks, smokes pot, and plays play station.

 

The worst thing is he blames most of his problems and unhappiness on me and my family. He hates my mother. My mother and I are very close. Whenever the dog does something she shouldn’t he beats her. Then he wonders why the dog likes me more than him. All I ever wanted out of life was to find love, a good job, and have a nice family. This is not the type of world you can bring children into. I am emotionally defeated and completely lost. My husband has made me promise not to talk about our problems with friends or family. So I turn here. I have never done this before. What should I do?

[Gunny376]

As I read this all I could envision was a fighter plane just having got shot down, and entering into a circuling spiral of smoke as it heads for the ground!!!!!

 

I've got experience with drinking heavily and with marriage ~ and I'm here to tell you they seldom mix. First came my maritial problems, and then came the drinking.

 

XW: "I'm going to tell the Corps about your drinkng?"

Me: "Go ahead! You're the cause of it!

XW: "What do you mean by that?"

Me: "You're acting single, and I'm drinking doubles!"

 

I can tell you from first hand experice, drinking doesn't solve, resolve, reconcile, un-do, prevent, change anything! Of all the Canadia Whiskey I've dranked ~ I've never found one single solution one single problem ~ nor one single answer to one singel question at the bottom of a bottle.

 

The way it sounds ~ it could end up cost him his teaching job, his liscense, and his carrer. Then where are you and he going to be ~ it will be the equivalent of his never even haven gotten his degree! He'll be bartending the rests of his life ~ or bagging groceries down at the pack and sack.

 

I'm sorry to say that you're just at the beginning of your troubles and worries. I commend you for having the foresight to start seeking answers and solutions early on.

 

I'm thinking that you need to start planning some sort of intervention here down the road. Not with just you but with a trained professional, friends and family.

 

The thing about this kind of behavior (again learned from first hand experience) is that the individual thinks he's fooling everyone when in effect the only person that they're fooolig is themselves!!!! Every single time. He and you don't live in a vaccumn, people know what the deal is and what's going on. People talk, ~ man do they ever talk! They're just not saying it in front of your face.

 

Then people start treating you diffirently, things that should happen ~ don't. Things that previosuly fell into place ~ don't. And, its because the word is out. The old, "Well, I'm not one to gossip, but I heard from a friend of a friend of a friend.................." You can't ignore the mathematical law of permuations, one knows who tells two, each of one that tells two more, etc.

 

This guy's got some issues, past and present, that he needs to reconcile with.

 

I also know personally several trained and educated teachers, one works at a bank, and the other is a carpenter, who just cannot, just do not have it in the to teach ~ they've both told me ~ "I just couldn't do it.

 

I referreed to one of the greatest advice givers of all time ~ Barney Fife:

 

"Nip it! Nip it in the bud!"

 

Plan this out tactially and strategically. You're going to need to pool all of your resources.

 

Keep posting

 

A outstanding cheap, non-presecription, over the counter sleep aide is

Melatonni, in the vitamin and herbal section. Wished I'd found it years ago. Most of my drinking was so I could sleep, otherwise I would walk around for days without sleep.