Changing my responses

This is the oddest thing

This is what I’m feeling, not what I think or what I’m acting on.

I feel lonely, I feel like I’m missing her, I feel like maybe I contributed to this mess, maybe I could get through to her if I tried again, I’m worried for her safety, I’m scared of the pain she can cause me, I’m scared of the disarray she can cause, I’m scared of her showing up here looking for help, I’m scared of her destroying our financial futures., I’m scared that the kids need her and I’ve contributed to the alienation

Thats a very good list.

After i went no-contact with my mother, she was in the hospital a couple of times, and later she died (unrelated to the hospital stays). Each time - even at the wake - i was afraid of getting near her because i feared she would reach out and strike me, breaking my eyeglasses. Then i would be unable to get myself back home.

There had been a couple of times when i was growing up that she had struck me on the head. But most of the times she either ignored me or just pretended to listen to me talking about my day.

Anyway, i was surprised that this was my fear, but i held onto it - i didnt try to reason it away or otherwise bury it. I had the Charlie Brown football feeling too - maybe this time? But she had only ever shamed me (and my brother) and flaunted her upper hand - so i knew my fear was justified.

So yeah - feel your fears. Then courage is "doing it anyway", remember? Not an absence of fear.

It’s good that you are able to vocalize this list ((RD)). I think others can relate and it isn’t easy to step back and see the reality because it can leave a person to feeling very lonely and lost. This especially true for those who are loyal and really want to have a loving relationship.

I have a feeling that given that your mother developed a problem with alcohol you tend to see that challenge based on her. You said at one point that even though your mother was challenged, you knew she loved you. Your mother got help and fought this challenge. This is not what you are facing with your wife. Your wife is disordered and she never really loved you and she may not be capable of loving and caring. Also, when someone uses drugs and alcohol in an effort to regulate their emotions and insecurities, they stop maturing and gaining on their ability to develop healthy ways of dealing with challenges.

What I do know is that when I attended Alanon meetings the people I met were tired and lonely. YOU are not responsible for regulating your wife’s emotions or getting her to WANT to get sober.

Also, while you have these worries you just shared, it’s important to realize your wife doesn’t have these same worries and concerns. It’s unfortunate that your children have to see this reality about your wife. This is what your daughter said to you about her mother.

It’s a challenge to respond other than listen and say you are sorry this is happening. You are ALL learning how to see the reality and go forward in a positive way despite of it. It’s a challenge.

My brother said

Be cautious with your compassion. If she had $100,000 right now she wouldn’t go off and live her life. She’d spend it to ruin you.

I also think that children have a much clearer picture of their parents than we give them credit for.

I know growing up, I didn't want anyone to know that my parents were my parents especially my dad. I avoided being around him as much as possible from as young as I can remember. While at the same time my mom was full of nothing but excuses for his embarrassing behaviors & couldn't understand why I saw things actually more realistically than she did.

Kids that have never had the emotional attachment don't have a strong attachment to that person unless someone feeds them the expectation that they "should". While parents have built up their individual emotional attachment expections of each other before the child is even born. Seriously, the kids usually have a much clearer picture of a bad family situation than the parents do. Good to listen to their wisdom

Your brother is wise.

Ok

Ok

Hear me out

What if….

When I’ve felt stressed out to the max in the past, the way to fix it was to try to express sincere empathy to her and smooth things over. If I got it right, the reward was peace and companionship

I’m stressed out due to finances etc. she’s done stuff that’s hurt me and the kids.

So, this is a strongly conditioned response in me. Try to connect with her thinking empathetically. Reach out to her. Hope for peace and closeness after. Be scared of more hurt if I get it wrong.

I don't see how showing empathy to your former wife can serve to address your current financial problems.

In the past, showing her empathy brought "companionship" as a reward. What kind of companionship can you expect from an ex-wife?

Seems to me that a post-divorce relationship - where kids are involved - is best kept in a business-like way. As co-parents, reality requires you two to communicate. That probably shouldn't involve lengthy exchanges of heartfelt emotion. I think you want to shoot for a courteous tone in communicating with your ex. "Closeness" is no longer on the menu, so to speak.

[QUOTE=Rose76;7428174]I don't see how showing empathy to your former wife can serve to address your current financial problems.

In the past, showing her empathy brought "companionship" as a reward. What kind of companionship can you expect from an ex-wife?


I'm not saying it's a rational response. It's not. It's an emotional response that's been conditioned into me for years and years.

My stress and anxiety went up with these financial hits last week. I'm suddenly feeling empathy for her and wondering if there is a way to make peace. That's not rational. I'm trying to figure out the source of that.

RDMercer

You can divorce, or you can "make peace." You have to pick one.

You know the response to placate her is illogical and irrational so why are you trying to rationalize it? Nobody is saying you have to be mean but you need to hold your boundaries and let her deal with the fallout of her own behavior. As your brother says, if she had the power she would vituperate you.

Quote:

When I’ve felt stressed out to the max in the past, the way to fix it was to try to express sincere empathy to her and smooth things over. If I got it right, the reward was peace and companionship⁸

It might have appeased your stress but it NEVER FIXED the CAUSE or you wouldn't be where you are today.

I still think in terms of investment. Your ROI with YOUR sincere empathy only gained you momentary return. When I invest anything I expect long term gain not short term.

Your empathy was like playing the slot machines at vegas. You put in empathy hoping for a return but only a few coins trickled out to keep you playing & investing empathy, hoping & hoping that you would hit the jackpot that was never part of the programming on the machine (your wife) you were gambling on

I'm just trying to figure out the source of these feelings.

Telling they are illogical doesn't do anything. I know they're illogical. That's why I'm trying to figure out the source of them.


People experience things like anxiety, depression, phobias, hallucinations.... Telling them those feeling are irrational isn't the point. Typically, people know those feelings are irrational.

I want these feelings to change, so I'm going to examine them and try and figure out the source.


This speaks to me:
Your empathy was like playing the slot machines at vegas. You put in empathy hoping for a return but only a few coins trickled out to keep you playing & investing empathy, hoping & hoping that you would hit the jackpot that was never part of the programming on the machine (your wife) you were gambling on

Except..... That early on there were big payouts in that she WAS a good partner in the start, and very rarely there were other significant payouts in thoughtfulness, etc.

But that is all part of the "hook" of intermittent reinforcement.

But it's left me conditioned to try to make peace and placate her when I'm stressed.

And I'm also scared of inflaming things worse. The thing is, I don't know where her "off" switch is. Once I start actually fighting back, I can see her becoming venomously angry, and I'm conditioned to be scared of the emotional pain and disruption she can cause me.

What you are describing is exactly what a relationship with a narcissist is like. They don’t love, they are looking for a feed and they can’t regulate their emotions so they like to USE someone empathetic for that. You learned that the only way to feel safe is when she was satisfied in some way. This is codependency and she had your children do the same.

It all revolves around HER. Add her abuse of alcohol and that just compounds the problem. Alcohol abuse creates varying moods and as far as anxiety goes, alcohol abuse only makes the condition worse.

You don’t have the user mentality. You don’t like the power game and prefer to contribute to an overall positive. You try to keep things honest.

You developed an intense desire to win over your wife and you allowed her to treat you badly. That really bothered your oldest son and your daughter. Your son is so happy that you have been learning to stand up for yourself. Children get very upset if the witness a parent being abused.

I can relate to the feelings you describe and it’s taken me a while to learn to understand where my own emotional challenges come from. I know all about wanting the genuine love relationship and wanting to do what’s needed to accomplish that. I have learned some very hard lessons.

I do know that it’s important to listen and observe because people do tell you who they are.

Hiring a divorce lawyer isn't cheap. Try to get your money's worth out of the one you hired. Financial negotiations should probably be delegated to attorneys. Let your attorney tell you when your input is needed. Follow the advice of counsel on how to best insulate your financial affairs from her reckless ways with money, at least going forward.

You probably should not be initiating contact with her, other than in a businesslike way, as absolutely necessary.

Divorce is not a walk in the park for anyone. There's bound to be scarey aspects to it. The only way that might be less true is if neither party has any money and there's no joint assets and no children are involved. That's not your situation, so it would be very strange, if you felt carefree in the midst of all this. That would not be normal.

Your feelings will change, when your circumstances change. Only time will bring that about.

Personally, I've never been persuaded that feelings can be changed by analyzing them. Maybe that's just me.

Another thing to keep in mind is that none of us gets to control outcomes. We do the best we can with our inputs. Then fate, or God, or chance enters the picture, and you see where you're at. You can't deal with an outcome, until it presents itself. Prior to that, we don't know what the outcome is going to be. Where there is uncertainty, there will be anxiety. Where there is the risk of loss, there will be fear.

I very much appreciate these three new thoughtful replies!

This isn’t producing the same level of stress or anxiety that it would have months ago.

I’m stressed, but I’m ok.

Which is crazy to say…. I just swallowed a $5000 loss and my stress is NOT at panic level at all.

I’m scared of the feelings of gaslighting I get when I interact with her, and I’m scared of her ability to cause me emotional pain. I’m scared of her ability to cause me to act out-of-character, to prod a response from me, and THEN to act like the victim.

Things are good. Life is good.

RDMercer

After leaving my stress was always "what stupid thing is he going to do next that I am going to have to deal with".

Only thing that really saved me from more stress was the 2100 miles between us. However it is harder to deal with legal issues from a far distance. When I changed my phone number to my new location he didn't get the # & my daughter honored my wish not giving it to him but he has my email & never communicated via email or my lawyers. Good or bad, I think he was clueless that I am really good at finding out facts from that far away without him even knowing I know

I feel for you in that you have had to deal with someone you love having substance abuse problems all your life. It’s VERY hard because drunk or sober this disease/disorder always comes first. The person with the disease disorder has problems regulating their emotions and if you grow up with this challenge in your home environment you don’t really ever feel safe. It’s not something one can always put into words. It becomes familiar and it’s not really discussed, just one of those secrets one can’t really talk about.

Your wife has chosen to put her disease/disorder first. It can be cold and it can hurt every family member. Your wife has also been stealing money from her own children because she needs the money to support her substance abuse DISORDER and this disorder has many narcissistic behaviors to it. Narcissists can’t regulate their emotions and they take it out on others.

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.