21 Sep Co-dependency. My life with an Alcoholic spouse.

We are all broken…some more than others. As humans, in our brokenness, we are wont to fill the void that only love and its alternative provide. Man is not an island after all. We chase after love because it provides all the warm fuzzy feelings and butterflies in our beings. Love is great. Love is potent. Love is important. We all need it. So what happens in our quest to find love and be loved? What parameters are drawn in the sand signaling “This is no good.” And why is it not good? Who gets to say and decide what is good or not? Do we approach love with our hearts or logic? At the end of the day…experience trumps everything. It lets you know whether you want more of that or none at all.

The heart can be relatively stupid if we let it guide our love life because love is a choice, one which we need to approach logically. When one does not, heartache becomes the order of the day. As my country people normally say, “Kazi ya roho ni kupump damu,hiyo ingine ni kiherehere.” I could not agree more. The heart can be easily fooled. In my opinion, we should not trust our hearts when dealing with love. Peg it all on gut instinct, the other individual’s actions, and brainpower. If I had followed this advice, I wouldn’t have known what it’s like to be helplessly dragged to the pit of the evil alcohol bears. As it is, I gathered my painfully acquired lessons, got out, and moved forward.

I cannot put my finger on when I transitioned from a ‘regular’ to a co-dependent spouse. I cannot recall when it happened.  Like everything in life, it sort of kept building up and was cemented in time. Man, Ohh man, did I drown! I was enveloped in all the feels of despair. When was it to end? Why was I dealing with it in the first place? Why couldn’t he put his family first? Was alcohol truly that important? Was I not enough? Was his joy only found bottom’s up? How much more could I take this? Why I’m I doing this to myself? Did he truly spend ALL that much? Where do we go from here? Is there an actual future in this relationship? What is it that other recovering alcoholics do to stay on the straight and narrow? Why can’t he? Again, is our union/family not worth fighting the urge over?

Urrrrgh!

Over and over and over. The worst bit was that he was never truly remorseful. He said all the right words and acted right for a few days, enough to quiet the storm raging in between us then go right back to the bottle. Life with an alcoholic is…debilitating. Peace is a foreign emotion. We nonetheless love them all the same, that is until the burden of having to hold everything in outweighs the love. Love is never enough after all. For the couples who weather the storm, I bow my literal and figurative hat off to you. For the rest of us whom baggage was heftier than our feeble shoulders, we live to fight another day. We live to love again…lesson learned.

People hardly, if ever, speak on the sheer weight of different kinds of abuse alcoholic spouses go through. Personally; I dealt with constant infidelity, financial abuse, emotional abuse, verbal abuse, gaslighting, silent treatments et al. Broken promises were a norm as well; on the mundane and the big-ticket life plans. It is sad knowing you truly cannot say with confidence what you mean to your spouse because his words never match his actions. Why would you constantly cause pain to someone you claim to love? Why would you brush aside any hurt brought on by your (in)actions and still claim that is the love of your life? How does that work? I never understood it, I still don’t.

That is why I got to researching while receiving therapy. He and I made a perfect dysfunctional bond. My toxic trait of being needed stemming from childhood trauma and his toxic need to be the center of an empath’s universe made a match. A love brewed in a toxic cauldron. We hit very high highs and had extremely low lows. He continued to soar up in the high while I sunk to the low. We became grossly miss-matched over time yet he did not feel the pinch because he was going about doing whatever he wanted, with whoever he wanted. He neglected his family/me and made the bottle his family. I sunk even deeper in the depressive pit that had been enlarging with time. You never really feel yourself drowning, one day you’re Okay, the next you’re eyeballs deep in trauma and unsolved piled-up issues.

Alcoholism is a disease, a proven fact. I vowed I would not let my daughters walk the path I walked. I am not being negative or lumping all (recovering) alcoholics into one box. More than anyone, I know how hard it is to walk the path. I am speaking from the perspective of one who was with someone who did not put all his effort to stay sober. That’s the platform I am speaking from, one which caused me so much pain and loss. To the individuals who give their all in getting clean, I applaud you, I am with you…A Day At A Time. It is not an easy path, but it is doable. Alcohol is the devil and it will cost you…everything. Broken homes stemming from alcohol abuse are on the rise. Fight for your family with all you’ve got, be faithful to your spouse and God. Connect to your higher power, He will guide you if you let Him. Follow your 12 steps, check in with your sponsor, and be open with him/her. Do not struggle with the urge or any other issue when there are people who can help you overcome it.

Where there is a will, there is always a way.