# Anyone have a spouse that was raised in an alcoholic family?



## QBall_1981 (Mar 19, 2013)

deleted


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## MyHappyPlace (Aug 11, 2013)

My H did, and he's become a bit of an alcoholic himself depending on how you define the word. What behaviors specifically are you looking at?


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## arbitrator (Feb 13, 2012)

*STBXW had an alcoholic first H, who died, largely due to it. I find it rather interesting, however, that STBXW is almost in lockstep.

On a normal day, she'll have 2-3 12 oz. bottles of Seagram's Ice in the afternoon, then at least a half bottle of Beringer's White Zinfindel in the early evening, then from late evening into the wee hours of the morning, she downs at least 24-32 oz. of Bailey's Irish Creme. Not bad for a rich girl!

Given that rich daily regimen of libations, why don't you tell me if you think that she's an alcoholic!*


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## Enginerd (May 24, 2011)

Both of my wife's parents were verbally abusive Alcoholics. Want do you want to know? It affects each child differently and there are different types of alcoholics, but generally the children have low emotional intelligence and have heavy denial.


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## Giro flee (Mar 12, 2013)

I grew up in an alcoholic home. I have had a lot of trouble with intimacy in marriage. Have you read books about adult children of alcoholics? That was a real eye opener for me and my husband.


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## movealong (Aug 9, 2013)

Lot's of good information in the threads in the Relationships and Addiction forum, including my post called "Remorse".

Relationships and Addiction


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## Middle of Everything (Feb 19, 2012)

Not really sure what you are asking. Does alcohol and/or alcoholism play a role with either of you? Or are you just asking for what growing up with alcoholics may have done to others emotionally and how they handle relationships?


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## Anon Pink (Jan 17, 2013)

Try this:
The Problem - Adult Children of Alcoholics - World Service Organization, Inc.

ETA, I can spot an adult child of an alcoholic within 5 minutes of talking to them. We are easy to recognize.


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## JustSomeGuyWho (Dec 16, 2012)

My wife grew up with an alcoholic father. Her parents divorced when she was young but co-habitated for a long time. She tells tales of stumbling over her father as he lay passed out in the middle of the floor in a pile of vomit. Frequently unable to wake him up. Her mom ... well, she is an adult-sized child. Interesting person. Extremely manipulative. She can take care of herself quite well but when she is around her daughters she seems completely inept ... incapable of doing anything. This is a woman who once broke down crying with my wife in the car because she couldn't seem to find her way out of a mall parking lot, requiring my wife to take over ... and yet she shops at this mall on a regular basis all by herself. This is a woman who travels to 1 or 2 other countries every year, frequently on her own. Largely left to fend for herself and her sister at an early age, they were forced to grow up quickly. It is unclear how much she was influence by her father's alcoholism.

My wife does not drink alcohol. She has never been drunk. I took her to a party once early on in our relationship and had too much to drink ... it nearly ended our relationship. I have never been as much as tipsy in front of her since then and we do not go to parties where alcohol is involved. She will take the initial sip out of the very infrequent beer I have but nothing more. In 23 years I have never seen her drink an entire alcoholic beverage. 

My wife was baptized about midway through our marriage. She is now a fundamentalist christian. Now, I was raised in the church and my parents and one of my siblings are devout christian ... but there was a while there where she was involved in what could only be accurately described as a cult. 

She is extraordinarily over protective of my daughters ... to a fault. She is momma bear on steroids. We were married for 9 years before having our first child and that was largely due to her fear of being her parents. Now that she has children, she has gone to an extreme driven by that fear.

Although unrelated to her father's alcoholism, my wife in one respect is becoming more and more like her mom. She is also a very capable person who around certain people, and especially me, acts completely inept.

The first few years of our relationship were very difficult. Her expectations of me as a husband were completely unrealistic and it took a long time to sort out those issues. It involved a lot of counseling for her. Now my parents have been married for 46 years and my mother was the head of the household (that has since changed). Their marriage is not what I wanted ... what I wanted was a more equal partnership. Instead, I married someone who expected me to treat her like a princess; she wanted everything that her father was not as a husband to her mom AND I believe she wanted everything that her father was not ... as a father. I had to makeup in many ways for both roles in her life. I have on several occasions had to resort to the statement ... I am your husband, I am NOT your father and you are not my daughter.


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## JustHer (Mar 12, 2013)

Anon Pink said:


> Try this:
> The Problem - Adult Children of Alcoholics - World Service Organization, Inc.
> 
> ETA, I can spot an adult child of an alcoholic within 5 minutes of talking to them. We are easy to recognize.


Well, that is a depressing list. My H and I both have alcoholic parents. I don't drink, he does occasionally.

Still don't quite understand why the op asked the question.


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## James C (Sep 6, 2013)

Anon Pink said:


> Try this:
> The Problem - Adult Children of Alcoholics - World Service Organization, Inc.
> 
> ETA, I can spot an adult child of an alcoholic within 5 minutes of talking to them. We are easy to recognize.


My Father was a functional alcoholic. He had the ability to drink almost every night and go to work the next day. 
That list is very accurate. Most,but not all, would apply to me. But I'm curious if that list would apply to people not 
raised by an alcoholic parent. 

I've had my bouts with Alcohol. In my youth it was disguised as a weekend warrior, 
party guy personality. As I get older, it's not so attractive and I've had to grapple with it. 
My wife drinks occasionally but only a glass or two of wine. I shut myself down
otherwise I would go overboard. Its not something I'm proud of and it bothers me 
because it makes me feel so weak when otherwise I'm a very strong person. 

To the OP-I would say that if she is drinking that much, she has a problem. 
If she is drinking alone, double it. Luckily, you are recognizing the problem
and get professional help that will be tailored to you and your wife's unique
situation and life experiences.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Anon Pink (Jan 17, 2013)

JustHer said:


> Well, that is a depressing list. My H and I both have alcoholic parents. I don't drink, he does occasionally.
> 
> Still don't quite understand why the op asked the question.


It's not written in stone. So we have a tendency to do this, or be that...once we become self aware we can round those edges.


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## QBall_1981 (Mar 19, 2013)

deleted


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## scarletto (Aug 20, 2013)

Anon Pink said:


> Try this:
> The Problem - Adult Children of Alcoholics - World Service Organization, Inc.
> 
> ETA, I can spot an adult child of an alcoholic within 5 minutes of talking to them. We are easy to recognize.


Wow. My father is an alcoholic and H's father as well. H is an alcoholic and I'm married to one! That list of traits describes me very well.


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## Anon Pink (Jan 17, 2013)

Yikes! I would suggest you check your boundaries. Understanding the "whyfors" of behavior is not an excuse to behave badly. 

Aside from that, what you describe sounds like a LOT more than ACOA behavior. 

Back to my point above, in an alcoholic family, boundaries tend to be ill defined with the exception of continuing to enable the alcoholic. Be firm in your boundaries and do not turn understanding into excusing. THIS is what she will need to become healthy and you will need to remain healthy. From what you describe above, if you two are really trying to reconcile, know this: the anger comes before the hurt. It is safer to be angry than it is to be vulnerable. But this doesn't mean you take her anger as reason to rethink everything you've done or said nor allow her to indulge in misplaced anger. If you are trying to reconcile, do not rise to her anger, but remain calm and steadfast.

My guess is that there is more to her family history than just alcoholism.


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## thunderstruck (May 9, 2012)

My father was a physically and verbally abusive alcoholic and my mom finally left him when I was 11. It F'd me and my older sister up in different ways. I accepted my issues, worked on them and I'm a better person now. My sister hasn't accepted hers, so she's about to destroy her 3rd marriage. She hides her misery and low self-esteem behind a glowing facade.

OP, what do you want to know? If your wife has issues going back to her childhood, she can choose to address them, or she can use them as an excuse to continue down a dark path.


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## QBall_1981 (Mar 19, 2013)

deleted


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## Anon Pink (Jan 17, 2013)

QBall_1981 said:


> I
> After the 'breakthrough' MC last week i can't tell if the R is so hard because we've rugswept for so long, because there's just so much hurt, maybe because she's naturally stubborn, *because an OM is still in the picture, *or because there are major family issues that will prevent us from ever reconciling.


As long as OM is still in the dynamic, she can and will continue to not look in the mirror. Why would she do something so painful when she has someone else who doesn't YET require that?

Your R won't go anywhere unless she's ready to look in the mirror.


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## JustHer (Mar 12, 2013)

OP, you are painting a half picture for us. You tell us that she was a loving and caring wife up until 8 months ago. You also tell us that you did something to damage the relationship but won't tell us what it what. Then you talk about how she is not putting in the effort and are looking for ways to blame her for all your woes.

I am not saying she doesn't own share in your problems, but what did you do? Maybe her actions don't have anything to do with her upbringing, maybe they have to do with you and that is why she is targeting you this time.

We don't know, as I said, you are giving us only half the story.


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## Blonde (Jan 7, 2013)

QBall_1981 said:


> because an OM is still in the picture.


^^this

I grew up in an abusive alcoholic family. That is not the driving factor in her anger toward you IMO. 

Read on CWI for how people act when they have OM. If I was you I'd back way off. Read this But what can a betrayed spouse do when the unfaithful spouse refuses to totally separate from the lover? That's where plan A and plan B come to the rescue.



> *any contact between the unfaithful spouse and the lover ruins reconciliation.* Even casual contact prevents completion of withdrawal from the addiction of an affair. Since an affair is usually an addiction, the only way to fully recover is to permanently separate the unfaithful spouse (the addict) from the lover (the source of the addiction). But even in the very few cases when an affair is not an addiction, total separation of the spouse and lover is a necessary act of consideration for the feelings of the betrayed spouse


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## Blonde (Jan 7, 2013)

JustHer said:


> > Originally Posted by Anon Pink View Post
> > Try this:
> > The Problem - Adult Children of Alcoholics - World Service Organization, Inc.
> >
> ...


Didn't depress me. Some of the traits are good (in moderation) such as being a very responsible person. Also, I see how much I have grown up, recovered, found balance compared to where I used to be.


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## QBall_1981 (Mar 19, 2013)

I deleted my posts because I'm still managing to hurt the person I love. I deleted the posts because, while it was the way I felt a year ago, it isn't the way I've felt in a long time. 

I deleted the posts because my wife leaving wasn't her fault; it was my fault. I had an EA while married; while she was pregnant with our last child. 

The marriage is in shambles because of what I did; not what she did. 

She acted in the way any normal person would have acted when they found out that their husband wasn't faithful and he broke the most serious trust bond that they could have with another person.

I take ownership of the things I did, and understand that i'll live the rest of my life with the consequences of my inexcusable actions. It's me that abandoned her and none of her actions actually caused any of this.

To anyone that looks at this; just understand that the best advice I could give is that you need to talk to your partner about everything. If you value your marriage and the bond that you've worked so hard to forge, then you need to constantly re-honor that and be honest with yourself and your partner or you'll find that your mistakes make you (me) miserable for the rest of your life. Especially when you realize that they are decisions you'll live with until you die.


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## Anon Pink (Jan 17, 2013)

QBall_1981 said:


> I deleted my posts because I'm still managing to hurt the person I love. I deleted the posts because, while it was the way I felt a year ago, it isn't the way I've felt in a long time.
> 
> I deleted the posts because my wife leaving wasn't her fault; it was my fault. I had an EA while married; while she was pregnant with our last child.
> 
> ...


Very confusing.

So her PA was excused and rug swept because you had an EA first?

Pretty damn low to have an affair while your wife is pregnant! Not that it isn't low at any time but while she's pregnant... I don't think that's something you can come back from. While she's at her most vulnerable time ever, you step out. 

BUT

This doesn't give her the green light to so it to you.

I'm guessing your R has stopped and you two have decided you've hurt each other enough. Best of luck to you both.


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