Changing my responses

I’ve said this before. I have struggled with recognizing her as an alcoholic. For me, that means falling down incapacitated drunk.

She wasn’t that, but she drank daily. It affected her health. She hid how much she drank. She used it to cope. She mixed it with medications and took my prescription anti anxiety meds on top of her own. I’m well familiar with the fruity smell of someone exhaling ketones because their body was metabolizing so much alcohol. Our room would be full of the smell regularly. The kids asked what it was.

I viewed this more as mental illness, then a personality disorder. I still struggle to say she is or was an alcoholic.

Anyway

It’s a beautiful day. Work is good. We have plans for the weekend. My belly is full. Things are good.

RDMercer

Maybe you don't need to psychoanalyze your ex-wife. Is it really important for you to decide how to label her? You know she has behaved in ways that were bad for everyone around her. That's really all you need to recognize. Doctors no longer use the term "alcoholic" because there is no consensus on what the criteria should be for defining that term. Technically, the new term is "alcohol use disorder." You really don't need to employ that term either. Leave diagnosing to diagnosticians. It suffices, for your purposes, to know that your ex has patterns of behavior that made the marriage unsustainable. You don't need a psychiatrist to validate your decision to leave this marriage. Divorce is not a medical decision.

Further above you posted about wanting your wife to be given psychiatric testing to establish what's wrong with her and to possibly diagnose her with a personality disorder. No judge is going to decide child custody issues based on some psychiatrist saying your wife does or doesn't have Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Just as no doctor anywhere has the authority to declare anyone as being "mentally incompetent." Only a judge has that authority. Making that determination is considered outside the scope of practicing medicine. It seems to be getting popular to try and reduce all human difficulties to this or that medical diagnosis. A lot of what psychiatrists do is very, very subjective. A psychiatrist's opinion is merely an opinion. It might not carry as much weight in court as you seem to imagine it would.

Your therapist says that your wife was abusive toward you. You seem to think that your therapist's opinion matters more than your own opinion. Your therapist didn't live with this woman. You did. You are the expert on how your wife behaves. It doesn't qualify you to select a diagnosis for her. It does qualify you to cite examples of her behavior that are relevant to the decisions the court has to make. All this talk about psychiatry seems rather beside the point.

You say it's hard for you to see your ex as an alcoholic. Yet, you have no trouble painting us a portrait of her as quite a byitch. You get into a discussion of "ketones" that shows you obviously do consider her drinking to be totally abnormal. You seem to want to come across as non-critical of her, so that your judgement of her will seem more objective. No one expects you to be objective. You are fully entitled to have a subjective assessment of your wife. After all, you did live with her.

Another thing that will factor in - relevant to custody - is how your kids feel. I don't know their ages, but your kids are obviously not toddlers. A judge will be interested in where they want to live and who they want to live with. A police officer told me that there's really no way the law can force a kid over the age of 16 to live where the kid doesn't want to live.

Figuring out who the kids will live with has relevance to the financial settlement, as the custodial parent will have a right to child support payments, based on how much time the child is going to be with that parent. If your wife can not be trusted to provide responsible parenting, that impacts what she can get in financial support. Perhaps that is where you might want to concentrate your focus. You can provide the judge with concrete examples of times your wife was impaired in supervising her kids because she was inebriated. You want to keep such examples very factual. A diagnosis is not a fact. It is an educated "guess." What really holds sway in court are facts - concrete examples of irresponsible behavior.

I struggled myself with understanding alcoholism. I learned a lot because it affected my life because it was present in family and my husband. Plenty of alcoholics can function while drinking, it is not just a falling down and incapacity issue one would think.

Sadly, many with the problem don’t reach out for help until they lose everything. Many even die of the disease, I have seen that happen too sadly.

My concern for you is that you don’t blame yourself.

@Rose76

I’ve said true things I’ve experienced. Yes I’ve valued what my therapist said more than my own assessment

That’s because I’ve been told, and felt, for a very long time that I’m at the root of this. Everything was ultimately my fault. The guilt I’ve carried for years has been overwhelming

Trying to come to terms that it isn’t is still hard, and I go through low points of ruminating and over thinking. That’s part of all this.

Yes, my lawyer suggested a psych evaluation and I spoke about that. I said to her, What does it mean if they say she has a personality disorder vs something else, like alcoholic dementia. It’s not worth the risk or the cost. The truth of what happened should be enough.

OpenEyes references alcohol use disorder. Like I said, I never viewed it as such, but if I saw all these things in someone else I probably would. She blamed everything on illness, physical pain, and the hardships of having children and being married to me

Interspersed with a some normal, and occasionally some really good times.

That’s why it’s “covert” I guess. And we’re left questioning analyzing and ruminating for years,looking for proof. That’s the gaslighting part.

I’m not trying to back handedly cast her in a bad light and me in a good light. I’ve shared my failings and sins.

If this is akin to online group therapy, then there has to be someplace I can voice the things I’m feeling and trying to sort out.

This is hard to stop thinking about. It’s hard to accept what this all means. I solve things. That’s what I do, all day, and outside of work. That’s my nature; to study, read, and try to rationalize things

RDM

I would never advise anyone to stop thinking and analyzing. I thought you had reached a decision to divorce your wife. If you're not sure you want to do that, I would never say you should. The only one who can make that decision is you. You are the one who is an expert on what living with this woman is like . . . at least what it was like for you. Your therapist and your lawyer are not.

If you don't see your wife as an alcoholic, you don't have to. It's not like she has to be an alcoholic, as a precondition for you having a right to divorce her. You seem to think you have to establish that your wife has a psychiatric disorder or an addiction, in order for you to have a right to get divorced. There's no such requirement.

If you go to some Al-Anon meetings, you'll meet some members who have remained married to alcohol-abusing spouses. You'll meet others who have left their heavy-drinking partners. There is no right or wrong decision in this matter. You have the right to leave your marriage . . . or not. You say you have spent "years, looking for proof." What is it that you would like to "prove?"

Even if you feel certain that you want to proceed with divorce, it is still perfectly normal for you to have uncomfortable feelings about ending the marriage. Feelings of grief would be normal.

You totally have the right to voice your feelings. Feelings are neither right nor wrong. Feelings simply are. With all that is at stake, of course you are thinking about her and about the marriage. It's okay to do that, even to an obsessive degree. You probably won't begin to relax mentally, until the divorce is finalized, custody decided, and the marital assets split up. Probably most people would be chewing their fingernails, until those matters get resolved.

If you're trying to "sort out" whether your wife does or doesn't have alcoholic dementia, I don't think it's your responsibility to make that determination. You can wonder about it all you like. Even if she had no dementia whatsoever, you would still have a right to divorce her, if you believe you need to leave this marriage.

If you want full custody of your kids, then I guess you have to make the case that your minor children are unsafe in the care of their mother. You don't make that case by gathering opinions from mental health professionals. You tell what you know. For instance, a judge will care, if your wife has a history of operating a motor vehicle, while "under the influence." If she ever got arrested for that, her arrest is not an opinion. It's a fact. If she has been abusive toward the kids, the judge will need to hear specific details of that. You might want to start a notebook where you start organizing your thoughts about what you remember, with respect to her behaving badly toward the children. If you end up forced to share custody, then that notebook could become a place to record any irresponsible behavior that she displays, with dates and times. Child custody arrangements do get renegotiated from time to time.

From my therapy experience, she helped me understand what I went through including why the people (parents & husband) made life so difficult for me & that helped me understand that it was NOT me who was the cause. Yea, the way I responded to them never used good interpersonal skills & were the skills I taught myself as a kid to survive & thrive in my own very independent way.

It was important to understand the past, the cause (dealing with a dad that was most likely on the spectrum) & then a husband who was actually diagnosed with aduld ADD but missed the spectrum diagnoses that knowing the past history of him made the dot connection even if not formally dx'ed.

It was only with the information of all I had gone through & where I was after all that was no longer in my life & how I functioned without it that my T was able to help me integrate that past with my present & finally understand all the pieces of my life. Knowing that my reactions to those people in my life were what normal people would experience even though I could have responded in a healthier way, truly has helped me heal. I also learned healthier skills to respond with (though sometimes I choose not to use them if I really am pissed off).

We need to know what we were dealing with because sometimes it gives us a better feel for what we are legally dealing with & the direction we can help our lawyers understand to take when necessary. Like my now ex would never respond to any of my lawyers. Didn't show up for the court case & was/is in contempt of the judgment the judge ruled. Given that knowledge my current RE lawyer in Calif knows what she is up against & can plan accordingly.

It took me years after I left my marriage to figure out whether what I went through was abuse (emotional/ financial). Whether it was intentional or not. Why I responded to only those people with anger but no one else. I needed to sort through it all for my own understanding. I knewvwalking out on him was the best choice I had ever made in my life but I also needed to know why. I have always been the kind of person who needs the "WHY?" answered so I know & so that I can put words to my feelings. It took me years after leaving before I had words to truly explain my feelings & the only feelings I identified were anger. Being able to have words to explain the anger in my marriage opened the door to find the words to express what I had felt toward my parente growing up.

Knowing & understanding what you have been dealing with all your life & understanding the attached feelings at least for me was the only way I have been able to heal.

I never cry but from the time I left (2007) until 2011, every time I came into theraoy I burst into tears....once I started to grasp a real understanding of the emotions/anger that caused the tears & understood what I had actually dealt with all my life, that was when real healing started.

MD, do what you need for your own healing process to remove the guilt & shame. I didn't learn this to excuse away their behaviors but so I could understand the effect their behaviors had on me all those years & finally take control over that. Knowledge is power even when applied to yourself