if I was you! I would wait till he is sober! Tell him how you feel about him! Then tell him, if you are interested in making a life with me! Then you need to get some help for your drinking or I need to move on with my life! You don’t want to marry this guy with a drinking problem! Trust me! Good Luck! jim

• This reply was modified 8 years, 9 months ago by jim.

Hi mapnerd,

This is what a wise minister said to my DH long ago when he had dated an alcoholic: “Sometimes people need little hurts”. When you leave and your (now ex) BF is confronted that it was HIM and the DRINKING and NOT you… Of course he will drink more that day, but ONE DAY all of those little hurts will add up, and THEN he will begin to think about fixing the problem.

It’s BECAUSE you love him that you will break up with him. The how doesn’t matter. Just leave him. Today.

Best,

Inky

Dear mapnerd:

The post above reads to me as very reasonable, written by a reasonable and realistic person. You feel good today and you know it will not last, that grief is on its way.

You wrote that a lot of people stay in unhealthy/ unhappy relationships because they are scared. I agree. Fear is a motivator of the great majority of what people do, I strongly believe.

About your fear of this being the calm before the storm: there is always some sort of storm, or bad weather coming in the future. A pleasantly warm, sunny day doesn’t last and last, there are always clouds to arrive in the future.

Again, reasonable, realistic. Please post again when you feel good and when the clouds appear. Maybe tiny buddha can be a bit like a shelter from the rain when the storm hits hard…?

anita

You feel like no matter what you do, there is always some heart-testing conflict that makes this relationship never just stay happy. “Why can’t he just be easy?” you think, because you can have the most WONDERFUL times when he’s fine and sober. Why couldn’t he just want that too?? Where is the appeal in drinking over quality time with you? Even when he’s not drinking, things like not agreeing on values test the relation and make the whole thing feel like one big test of faith, a test of YOUR resolve because you feel responsible and committed to being the one person who is there when he isn’t strong enough.

The first thing you need to do is realize that he isn’t going to change for years. Do you consider these the best years of your life? I say that because a lot of what he is doing is out of a lack of control. Avoiding blame, avoiding responsibility, admitting occasionally it is a problem but not worried about actively changing it because he already knows he has no control over it no matter how bad he wants it. He might only admit a problem in the first place, as an act to keep you around. If he can do just *one* significant enough thing, you’re so used to the worst that any kind of effort feels like a blessing and his attempt at hope for a future. You’re only looking for the best, out of the faith and pure love in your heart for him. But he isn’t doing anything, and that is the reality.

He primarily tries to love on you after a bad argument as another outward act of inability to control himself. Since he can’t, he controls you. All people have some need of intimacy with another human being, but are you sure the BEST thing you can do with this life the good Lord has given you, is take care of an unreliable alcoholic? This test is put before you for a reason.

If he loved you, would he care about you as much as he cared about himself? Well that level isn’t very much, because he can’t even help himself. He’s not going to ‘love’ you in the way of thinking you higher than him, so high that he must change. Only your ‘taking a break’ or leaving is going to fix that.

But you’re afraid to leave, because all of the other problems in the relationship might contribute to a sense of permanence. You’re afraid to rock the boat, afraid of that break, afraid you’re “failing” some greater good you set out to do with him. I have something very important to tell you: If he cannot empathize that you were hurt in the worst of ways as an innocent child, and still throws the blame on you to avoid his own cowardly weakness, he is mentally sick.

You can still love a mentally sick person, but in order to do that, you must realize there is something wrong with them and distance yourself from that. Don’t get involved and let their every short coming affect your heart as it is now. Take a step back, be the bigger person, make decisions for yourself, and if you two still get along, fine. If not, he’s not right for you, because darling it is -not- your job to try dragging him out of his hole. It is perfectly okay to try asking him to do it, to show support for his efforts, to be with him when he’s really trying.

If he is not trying, it is not your job to suffer. Take a break from this relationship, tell him you will be ready to live together (are you strong enough to show you are serious? Because he knows he can manipulate you into staying, and he does every. Single. Time. Because you don’t know what you really want from your own life any more than he does. It’s time to find your real purpose, and see that he will come with you when he decides it.) when he is ready to make some changes.

Give him a chance to actually change. People say ‘once an alcoholic, always’ and that is true, but they can learn to control the illness. If you love him dearly, support the efforts he makes, but you changing yourself will have the greatest impact. Wouldn’t a man rather try for a woman he respects? Because he doesn’t respect you, and no, you’re not enough to be worth changing for if you’re caught up in his irrational spiral. If you want to be the bigger person, take control, and show him the way. Nothing is going to change otherwise.

If you do get stronger, and become wise in the process, ask God to heal him and to prepare his heart. If this man DOES decide to change, and you are there to see his initiative and to help him through as you promised you would if he did, then you will be closer than ever before and those other problems will have to be a product of compromise.

No matter what you do, you can do nothing until you first help yourself.