Why can't I get my Recovering Alcoholic husband to connect with me?

I am trying to build a deeper more fulfilling relationship with my husband who I love so much. He cares for me and loves me but he doesn't always show it. He isn't engaged with me and the kids when he is with us. When he does do things with us, he chooses what we do and how we do it. It has to be something that interests him or he doesn't participate. I feel like I get more compliments from strangers than him. He misunderstands me a lot and is rarely supportive of things important to me.

He becomes resentful of those things. He rejects my proposals to do things alone without the kids.

He has been sober for 2years. I feel like he is dismissive of my thoughts and ideas just because its from me. We've been married for 12years. I've expressed my frustration and desire to be closer to him and he said he wants that too, but he doesn't have time. He is an alcoholic and he is trying to reduce stress, not create more things to add to his plate.

It feels like he is growing distant from me and closer to his AA buddies. He thinks they are the only ones who can understand him. I figured I would just be here for him, but patience is not one of my virtues.

Is there anything I can do, or read about to

communicate with him better?

Many abusers are alcoholics. His relationship is still with alcohol, now it's just all the AA and whatever that goes with being a dry drunk. He is so used to not having a relationship with you because you tolerated alcoholism for at least a decade that there really is no connection. You need to make an appt with a therapist to explore all this and figure out your role in all of it and how his being a dry drunk is still affecting everything.

You can't fix or change him. However pull way back and get out of the enabling role. Start to doing more alone with your friends, family, kids etc. Start going to alanon to get support for yourself and start to understand your situation being with an alcoholic for so long and now dealing with his attitude, raw selfish personality and all the other things both of you covered up with alcohol. He drank, you thought that was the main problem.

I come from a family of alcoholics, and with alcohol there are other issues that were already there before the alcohol. IMO you are discovering that now. Alcohol helped him cope with day to day life, now that he is without it, he struggles. He doesn't know how to deal with it like how normal people would. He doesn't know how to communicate, doesn't know how to feel or how to make himself feel good about himself, etc.

My suggestion is that you both go into couples therapy, that specializes in recovering alcohols. They will teach you both, how to relate to each other/communicate, and help him with his coping skills.

My guy friend who is a recovering alcoholic for 3 years now, has discovered he too is struggling with his partner, but it's the opposite. She doesn't want to do anything. Well when he drank she disconnected from because of his mental abuse but he didn't notice because he was too busy being drunk. So they both are readjusting, and they are working on it through counseling. They are still together so it must be doing some good.

You can't fix or change him. However pull way back and get out of the enabling role. Start to doing more alone with your friends, family, kids etc. Start going to alanon to get support for yourself and start to understand your situation being with an alcoholic for so long and now dealing with his attitude, raw selfish personality and all the other things both of you covered up with alcohol. He drank, you thought that was the main problem.

Please do not misunderstand my request for information on how to deal with recovering addicts. I am not trying to fix him. I am looking for information so I can better understand the issues recovering addicts are dealing with. I know that I cannot change him. I want to know how to better communicate with him. Perhaps he has to let go of his emotional baggage and resentments before he can communicate and connect with anyone. I thought he was well on his way to doing that. Also, please do not get me wrong. My husband has made some incredible strides since getting sober. We do do things as a family. Certainly we do many more things than when he was drinking and I believe he decided to get sober because I drew boundaries and I took myself and the kids out and left him at home. We learned to live without him and he realized that he was doing it all to himself.

With regards to therapy, I am(or we are) going to see a therapist for our marriage next week. He first said yes to going (but reluctantly), then No, now he is back to Yes. Either way, I told him I am going with or without him. Also, we are taking a drive from MD to Ohio next weekend to attend Dr. Gary Chapman's marriage seminar. That is the author of the Five Love Languages and many very well written books. It is a start and we will see where it goes. In the meantime, I have to deal with my emotions and expectations and I want information as I want to understand what he is going through.

Ya that's a good start, you do what you can do. Like I said he doesn't know how to cope with his emotions...and well without the alcohol, he's very scared to face those emotions, that's why he won't go. This is something he has to discuss in his meetings with other alcoholics. I hope those meetings makes him feel comfortable enough to talk openly about his feelings. These things do take time unfortunately.

Thank you Smackie9. I've often felt he should go to individual therapy. He has made the effort to do anything other than his weekly AA meeting, which his fellow addicts tell him he should be going to 2-3 meetings a week. I am sorry, but that just won't work for our busy lives. We both work full-time and have two kids under 8. I am also trying to finish-up graduate school so, we really cannot sacrifice more time away. I did offer to take our to cub scouts on Thursdays so he can attend another meeting, but so far he hasn't taken me up on that. I offered to do that as a peace-offering as I saw how important it was to him and he does come back from AA meetings in a positive mood.

You sound extremely co-dependent and while it is great that he has agreed to therapy and a seminar, you need to do work on you. You have been in a precarious and difficult situation for years and while you are very concerned about understanding where he comes from, his experiences, his feelings, he does not appear to be showing any interest at all in yours. You must get help to make yourself stronger and to take care of yourself. Please get a therapist who is trained to work with the spouses of alcoholics and/or PTSD survivors.

Good Luck!

You've gotten some good advice from Smackie and Wise. Yes, substance abuse usually starts because of mental issues.

This guy seems to be controlling and take you for granted. Counseling could help, if you could get him to go.

You could also try tough love. Cut off sex. When he asks, "What's wrong?" - then he'll be ready to really listen to your needs and change.

If he needs three meetings a week, please do not tell him he can't go!

If he (god forbid) had cancer and needed chemo or radiation three times a week, I doubt you'd tell him sorry, our family is busy, you can only go once a week.

This is just as important. He's trying to find a way to survive.

I agree that therapy is a fantastic step. And the seminar can be an eye-opener for the both of you.

But please remember he's trying to survive with a disease he'll be battling for life.

And I strongly disagree with using sex as a weapon. Please don't do that unless you want to make things way, way worse.

He may not know how to love you sober.

You should consider Al-Anon. There's a lot going on through his head, and takes a very long long time to process and work through things, making new associations. There are things he can share with his group that he can't share with you yet, and as much as we try to be open books our selves, everyone is different.

You didn't mention how long he had been abusing alcohol but during that time he was, his personal development became arrested.

While you and everyone around him were evolving, learning personal and social skills, he was not. Based on the time that he started, assume his level of maturity is stuck at that age. Add in he doesn't have the necessary tools to deal with frustrations and intimacy and it's no surprise that you are in the situation you are in.

It's too bad he's not committed to therapy. A lot of people are reluctant to it initially. It really sounds like he needs individual therapy along with couples counseling with you.

You need to view the drinking as a symptom of something bigger. He stopped drinking but you are now having to face whatever reasons there were that him got into the addiction to begin with.

Honestly, let him go to his meetings. That is helping him stay sober. YES you do have time in your busy lives for him to go to meetings 1-3 hours a week. And stop trying to get him to do something abstract like "connect" - what does that mean?? How can one do it? Just like saying someone wants a person to be less distant. What does that mean? Why not instead propose the idea of a date night every other week? Date nights and similar lead to connecting eventually. Or even just find something interesting to do and say "hey, we should go to this" vs WE NEED DATE NIGHTS. Give it time. Don't push him into therapy anymore for right this minute -- go on some dates, maybe the spark will return. Maybe you need to have less busy live, too. maybe give up an obligation to give you more free tme

I am trying to build a deeper more fulfilling relationship with my husband who I love so much. He cares for me and loves me but he doesn't always show it. He isn't engaged with me and the kids when he is with us. When he does do things with us, he chooses what we do and how we do it. It has to be something that interests him or he doesn't participate. I feel like I get more compliments from strangers than him. He misunderstands me a lot and is rarely supportive of things important to me.

He becomes resentful of those things. He rejects my proposals to do things alone without the kids.

He has been sober for 2years. I feel like he is dismissive of my thoughts and ideas just because its from me. We've been married for 12years. I've expressed my frustration and desire to be closer to him and he said he wants that too, but he doesn't have time. He is an alcoholic and he is trying to reduce stress, not create more things to add to his plate.

It feels like he is growing distant from me and closer to his AA buddies. He thinks they are the only ones who can understand him. I figured I would just be here for him, but patience is not one of my virtues.

Is there anything I can do, or read about to

communicate with him better?

I think you should join Al-Anon and the whole family go to Family Therapy. There is a lot more going on that needs to be worked on then him just not drinking and you're finding that out now. stopping drink is just the first step to being emotionally healthy... you all have to look into why he drank and work through how the drinking negatively affected all of you.

It certainly sounds like he is trying to do the right thing.

My suggestions. Encourage him and make him want to hang out with you. Don't bring up problems or scold him for not spending enough time with you. Maybe suggest and show interest in things you both like. If he doesn't want to go, go with the kids. He will see he is missing out.

He has to want it. You can't force it. You can however do things to make yourself happy and be nice to him. I'm willing to bet he will come around if he has came this far.

You've been writing about similar problems with him for over a decade.

-He's an alcoholic who sometimes is sober, sometimes is not.

-He sometimes holds down a job, but most often, does not, and you are expected to hold down the family finances. For years at a time.

-He's only happy when you are doing things that he wants to do, and basically uninterested otherwise.

You have probably 20 threads in your posting history, going back more than 10 years, with similar issues. You get the same advice you've gotten here.

I'm not trying to be harsh to you. But what I will ask is: What is it you want? You've received pages and pages of excellent advice over the years, yet you are here again, with the same issues. Color me confused.

My vote? This isn't/hasn't been a marriage for years.

^^^ In that case I can't stress enough that you get yourself to al-anon and/or a personal therapist to help you work on your codependency issues. No sense seeking out advice here because you're just going to get the same basic advice you've always gotten.

You have to actually look after what's going on with you because you can change you with 100% success if you actually do something to facilitate the change but you'll have 0% chance of changing someone who clearly does not want to change.

This is your thread dated 12/20/2009, basically the exact same issue you posted in this current thread.

In the last sentence of your post, you asked if you should divorce him now for fear of resentment later. So, it's later now.....10 years later. Are you resentful that you stayed for the past 10 years, or are you going to post in 2029 that you are still wondering the same things?

https://www.enotalone.com/forum/showthread.php?t=318889

 

Is there anything I can do, or read about to

communicate with him better?

Now seeing the bigger picture the question makes more sense. I think a lot of us have been here. `what can I do differently to change him'

Well, you can't. As you are learning there is only so much influence you can have on another persons behavior or interaction with you. At some point you accept that this is what you have to work with.

It doesn't matter what kinda of pretzel you twist yourself into or what choice of language you speak, you still get the same result because there is another person in this equation. It just so happens to be your difficult husband.

Agree. look at the whole picture. For decades you made it your job to deal with his alcoholism and now you have simply shifted to thinking it's your job to deal with his recovery. First you spent decades trying to understand his drinking and now you want to waste more years understanding his recovery?

You are leading the pack at making your whole family sick by making his drinking and now recovery the focal point of the family, when the focal point should be your kids and what his drinking has already inflicted on them.

No. It's your job to work on yourself and support your kids. It's his job to deal with his self inflicted problems, not yours. Provide a better environment for your kids, get them and yourself (without your husband) into therapy. Your focus should be on helping them cope not continuing to bend yourself around your husbands selfish behaviors.

my request for information on how to deal with recovering addicts. I am looking for information so I can better understand the issues recovering addicts are dealing with.

Agree. look at the whole picture. For decades you made it your job to deal with his alcoholism and now you have simply shifted to thinking it's your job to deal with his recovery. First you spent decades trying to understand his drinking and now you want to waste more years understanding his recovery?

 

You are leading the pack at making your whole family sick by making his drinking and now recovery the focal point of the family, when the focal point should be your kids and what his drinking has already inflicted on them.

 

No. It's your job to work on yourself and support your kids. It's his job to deal with his self inflicted problems, not yours. Provide a better environment for your kids, get them and yourself (without your husband) into therapy. Your focus should be on helping them cope not continuing to bend yourself around your husbands selfish behaviors.

I could not agree more. DO not "work" or force recovery. Be glad you have a sober husband and focus on your kids, and if he is willing, ask him out on dates or start to rejoin the community as a couple - only going to sober places that do not serve alchohol or if they do, its not part of the experience of going (ie, a bar is a negative, a museum that has a little area where they serve cocktails in the evening but not all the time and you don't have to have one to have the experience, ok). Or yes, focus on recovering the family. Have you been to al-anon?