Tough Love

Trust and intimacy are required for a marriage to function. True intimacy is not possible with one who has an addiction. The addicted one's primary concern is with controlling their addiction. There is not much room left there for true giving to others. Trust is not possible with one who has breached trust again and again.

Al-anon teaches detachment from the alcoholic: "Detachment is neither kind nor unkind. It does not imply judgment or condemnation of the person or situation from which we are detaching. It is simply a means that allows us to separate ourselves from the adverse effects that another person's alcoholism can have upon our lives."

However, nearly all of the literature also says "Being married to an alcoholic is not a reason for divorce."

What kind of marriage is one without trust or intimacy??? So if it is time for me to detach from the alcoholic and find my own source of happiness, why would I want to stay in a lifeless marriage? I have tried detaching but staying within the marriage for the last four years. I have done my best not to enable. I stopped drinking, I started eating well, I started practicing meditation, I've focused on being a good mother and I have focused on being less critical of my husband in small but important ways. Working on myself has driven me away from my husband because he has continued to stay in the same rut of unhealthy behaviors. He is working as hard as he can on his problems, but we are simply not growing/evolving at the same pace.

Am I the only crazy person that thinks that a marriage like that is a scam?? I get really frustrated with all the advice out there that encourages people to stay in marriages to alcoholics. I know my husband can't help that he has this disease. I don't hold him personally responsible for how he is. He is just that way.

And I do love him. I just can't live with him and try to maintain an intimate relationship with him. There is no ground for us to stand on together in that close of a relationship. In order for me to truly detach from him is for us to live apart. How can I really get past being concerned about what he is doing and how it is going to affect me and the children when we are living with him? There is plenty of advice saying "stay" but none that says how you actually go about doing that.

Well this is Me telling Me how to go about it. Who else can tell me how to do it but Me?

There are ways I could detach yet continue to live with him (many ways I have already tried), but why make it so complicated and allow the risk of confusion? I am so less confused when I am not around him and so much less concerned about what he does with his time and money. I am less angry and resentful and less worried about the impacts to the kids and to my personal finances. Being separated, while difficult just because it is a change, has really been a breath of fresh air when I really reflect.

Leaving is what was needed in order for me to make a complete detachment from him and allow him the space to sink/swim on his own. I have been able to let go so much more now that we are not living together. I actually feel like I have more to give to him not living with him.

I have examined my intentions over and over since I made the decision to separate. I have no ill will toward my husband, only love. The anger and resentment that pops up here and there is really just the result of the conditions I have been in, not a result of not loving him. This is tough love at its finest.