Enjoy the present. If things go the way you fear, we'll deal with it then. (A vent)

[Anonymous]

That's a quote from my therapist.

Yeah, ok. Except here's the thing. You, Mr. Therapist, were the one who suggested we stage an intervention to get DH to stop drinking. Which we did.

Now, a month later, it keeps coming up and up and up.

DH: If it's ok with you, I'll have a glass of [his favorite hard liquor].

Me: No, it's not ok with me. But I'm not your mother. I am not going to tell you what to do. You have free will.

DH: This is ridiculous! You didn't need to reiterate you weren't ok with it. And if only I had free will in this - yeah, right. [Stomps off]

And then:

Me: I don't know why I am having such a hard time sleeping these days.

DH: You know, if you had a shot of [his favorite hard liquor], that would fix you up. In fact, some of the time when I drank that is why.

Me: Well, my therapist says sleep actually gets disrupted by alcohol.

DH: What does he know? He's only a psychologist

And then:

Me: Did you ever make an appointment to talk to a therapist? When you do see them, you might ask them why you still want to drink somteimtes.

DH (very angrily): You have this wrong idea about me. And it's ridiculous. And I think I should be able to drink because I am not an alcoholic.

Me: Oh, I thought we agreed that neither of us was going to drink again, maybe forever, but at least for one year.

DH (shouting): No, that is something you imposed on me. You dictated that to me! I did not have a choice!

And this morning:

DH (referring to an e-mail between me and an au pair candidate): You are way too puritanical about this alcohol thing. You have the wrong idea about me and I am sick of it.

Me: Well, we had an agreement we would not drink anymore, so I didn't see the harm in telling her we don't keep alcohol in the house and would prefer that she not drink in the house.

DH: You are going to push the candidates away if you keep up this puritanical behavior.

Me: Well, we also talked about how we should stop drinking so the kids don't get the wrong idea about alcohol, so I don't see why saying we don't want her partying it up in the house with her friends is such a problem.

Followed by more yelling about how I have the wrong idea about him, me saying I felt more present when I did not drink and that I thought things had been better between us and reminding him about the agreement. Him yelling back that I was all wrong about him and the cause and effect between the stopping drinking and the less angry behaviour I had seen from him (yes, believe it or not, this is less angry). Then more yelling when I asked whether he made the appointment with the therapist.

As far as I know, he has not had anything to drink since the ban. But he is getting angrier and angrier and it keeps coming up every day or two. My therapist says ignore it and enjoy that things are better now. He says that by doing so, I can show him an alternate reality and incentivize him not to drink by making him invested in what we have now.

What I would like to know is how I am supposed to do that when it keeps coming up every couple of days lately and he is so angry about it. It's all about me: I am the evil ridiculous person with these crazy ideas about him and I need to give up that idea and just let him drink. Sorry, no can do. I've kept my end of the bargain since he insisted when we made the agreement hat it couldn't be about him alone, that we both drank too much, etc. OK, easy peasy. I do not drink post-ban. I keep going to my therapist. I don't yell at him about it. His father says that the fact that he is angry means he is at least considering making the change. I hope he is right.

I am so tired of this. I really hoped somehow he would gets ome help this time. But I guess no one said it would be easy, right?

[Anonymous]

Al-anon

[Anonymous]

Your DH is wrong. I don't drink alcohol at all. I am not an alcoholic; it's just not right for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Al-anon

Sounds like she's a drunk, too.

[Anonymous]

That's putting too much on you - "show him an alternate reality and incentivize him not to drink by making him invested in what we have now". I don't even know what that means, exactly. Your therapist does not sound experienced in this area. Al-anon would probably be more helpful to you at this point.

[Anonymous]

It will take a few months for soberness to be enjoyed.
And then you get to know your real husband. And you might not like him.
Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Dry drunk, OP. I know EXACTLY what you are going through.

I am hesitant to give concrete advice other than the following: you do not sound like you have a good relationship with your current therapist. Maybe you should consider getting a new therapist. It also sounds like you and your husband would benefit from going to counseling together.

That said, it really doesn't sound like your husband is on board with your plan. It sounds like the fact that it was YOUR plan is a large part of his anger and resentment. I know exactly what it's like to be in a relationship with an alcoholic who still believes that they are in control of their addiction, rather than the other way around. I have been through the "It's not okay with me, but I'm not your keeper" and the "reminding of the agreement" conversations. My experience has been that "the agreement" is only effective if both people are truly on board. It doesn't sound like your husband is. It sounds like he is angry and blaming you for his anger. As PP says, it's possible that you're meeting your husband for the first time and that he's not a person you'd like.

Right now, I personally am at the point where I am trying to take stock of how much anger and drama I can take before just giving up. It's a really terribly lonely place to be.

[Anonymous]

I disagree. When an AA goes into recovery, it's a process. 1st is denial and then is anger/depression. It's very common during the early stages of sobriety for the AA to be angry and lashing out at those around him.

If he continues for a long time with his anger - then it's the "dry drunk" thing, but I would give him some time. Instead of arguing, perhaps you could offer words of encouragement. "I know it sucks, honey, and I know it's hard, but let's stick to this for a year and see where we are at that point." try that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I disagree. When an AA goes into recovery, it's a process. 1st is denial and then is anger/depression. It's very common during the early stages of sobriety for the AA to be angry and lashing out at those around him.

If he continues for a long time with his anger - then it's the "dry drunk" thing, but I would give him some time. Instead of arguing, perhaps you could offer words of encouragement. "I know it sucks, honey, and I know it's hard, but let's stick to this for a year and see where we are at that point." try that.

It doesn't sound to me like this is a person who is into recovery. It sounds like this is a person whose spouse asked him to do something he didn't want to do and did not understand the rationale for. It sounds like the agreement in question involved seeing a therapist, which her husband has actively not done.

I agree that she should give it some time - a month is not that long - but there is, in my opinion, a limit to how much/how long a person can be lashed out at by their partner before it starts to degrade the relationship. In my own relationship (which involved a lot of the same elements), I tried to nip the degradation in the bud before it started to flower. So far, it's working okay, but the anger and drama still flares up from time to time. Not as often as it used to, and not in a way that fundamentally changes how I feel about him, but it's not gone. We've been dealing with this cycle for about 10 months.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That's putting too much on you - "show him an alternate reality and incentivize him not to drink by making him invested in what we have now". I don't even know what that means, exactly. Your therapist does not sound experienced in this area. Al-anon would probably be more helpful to you at this point.

OP here. He has this whole theory about how people are not linear, so that something that has nothing to do with anything can cause an improvement. So, if things are better between us and I act like I enjoy his company and keep things good between us, that can cause him to want to hang on to that and not to drink.

Although now that I just typed that, does this sound like a recipe for codependence to anyone else? How do you draw the line between it being their choice and you continuing to believe (foolishly) that somehow if you are different it will change things? Eek.

For the PP who said I was a drunk, you must not be married to someone like my DH. This is somebody who if he makes a mistake driving somewhere it is my fault even if he was following his GPS that he programmed and I was not even paying attention. So of course I have a drinking problem, too. We're all equal at my house, at least in bad things. In good things, those seem to run only to him somehow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It will take a few months for soberness to be enjoyed.
And then you get to know your real husband. And you might not like him.
Good luck.

This.

Happened to my mom.

[Anonymous]

OP again. 16:25, do you mind sharing how you nipped it in the bud?

You are right that part of the agreement was therapy. His first reaction to the discussion with me and his parents was to deny he had a drinking problem but to admit in the past (not the present of course) he had used it as a crutch and that he would see someone nd work on whatever issues led him to need the crutch. So, that is why I am pushing this. Unless he does that, and is actively willing to look at himself and figure that out (which he promised me multiple times thereafter he would do - for a solid ten days at least if not longer after the big meeting with his parents), I do not see this going anywhere.

I feel so bad every time I talk to his dad about this. He always asks me what is going on, and it is so hard to see the tears in his eyes when I tell him. I do tell him the anger stuff is better, so it isn't all dumping on DH. I've also told him what my therapist said, but it is getting harder to swallow with each passing blow up. He made it almost three weeks before asking about having a drink, but the blow ups have been coming faster and faster over the two weeks since then.

[Anonymous]

Have all your conversations since the intervention surrounded alcohol? Could you two get away for a date night and talk about something else?

He's angry and he'll probably be angry for awhile, but perhaps you could try to stay connected in other ways?

[Anonymous]

I'm trying, 16:41. I have made many overtures. Sometimes they work. Sometimes they don't. Now that he has asked to drink and I said no he refuses to watch a TV show we always watch together with me and insists on isolating himself elsewhere in the house to watch something else. Even today before the big blow up over the au pair e-mail I was telling him he is hot and trying to flirt with him. I sort of feel like this is country song and I should pull out his bottle of booze and his wedding ring and put up a sign that says pick one. Unfortunately, it's not a country song and it's not that simple. Wish it were.

[Anonymous]

16:25 here (also 16:05).

Honestly, it wasn't that easy. I say "just nip it in the bud" knowing how flip that sounds. I was supportive but also assertive. When he was blaming me for problems, I stuck up for myself. Sometimes, I didn't do that in the moment, but later, when he was calmer. I tried to do what the poster at 16:41 suggests, with the knowledge that that would be an exercise I was doing on my own. Sometimes that works and reminds me what the things were that I liked about him in the first place. Sometimes it feels like an exercise in futility.

Good luck. I'll check back in later tonight if you want to "chat" more.