Reply to DH sobered up, I'm contemplating an EA, advice?

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Reply to "DH sobered up, I'm contemplating an EA, advice?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Wife of a recovered alcoholic.

Here's my take.  You are in your own recovery process.  You can label this contemplating having an affair, but what you are really going through is seeing your husband for real, seeing your marriage for real, and contemplating whether [b]you want to stick around and whether your marriage is worth saving.[/b] Having an affair is a side show to that decision.

You need to own your own fallout from the alcoholism and own your own behavior.  If you have an affair, it's YOUR BEHAVIOR.  You can't blame him for it, just as he can't blame you while he was drinking and say "She made me drink."  You can't say "He made me have an affair."  Own your own actions.  Make a decision[b].[/quote]

Excellent post. [/quote]

Agree.

I'll add that it's not easy being married to a recovering alcoholic, and you don't have an obligation to stay.

I don't have first-hand experience with a recovering spouse, but I have family members who have struggled with it. Also, I have a lifetime friend who recently divorced her husband who has been 12-stepping for 15+ years. In my experience, recovering alcoholics don't always change their stripes. Again, this is just my personal anecdote. Because addiction is hard to shake, they may switch addictions from alcohol to sex, religion, drugs, porn, exercise, food, work, etc. Their negative character traits, including the addictive and compulsive personality, stay the same--they're just not using alcohol anymore or have switched vices.

My intention is not to offend, and I realize I sound very negative. And well, I do have a jaded opinion about most addicts and the recovery process, probably because I haven't witnessed many positive outcomes. My friend's husband attended meetings every single day (sometimes twice a day) for years. In a sense, he was addicted to AA. When he wasn't at AA during his free time, he was exercising for hours on end. He had at least one affair with another AA member. Possibly, there were others. He rarely spent time with his family. He talked a good game, and justified his need to do so much for himself (meetings and hobbies), since it helped him to stay sober. All of this was at the expense of his family who never saw him and for whom he was never really present. My point is, he didn't fundamentally change for the better and his behavior was hurtful to those around him. I'm sure this is not the case for many and there are success stories out there, I'm just not personally aware of any, hence, my cynicism.

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