As Mark gets used to working again and gets more and more sober he is starting to act out a lot. Mark is inspirational and an exceptional role model and miracle in how he has attacked his alcoholism and chosen the path of sobriety. He works all the tools of his program and this is how he is getting better one day at time...It is progress not perfection and I am glad that I have a lot of alanon in me to understand how to manage.
After returning from my trip Mark exploded at me and our son..They had such a great week together and when I came home he got angry at our son for telling me he had such a great time.. I was thrilled he had such a great time and relieved to know that I have the freedom to leave them together and not worry if our son will be OK..It is terrific...but mark got angry because he thought I would be upset.
mark gets angry at the chaos in our home and expects it all to go away immediately. He treats me sometimes like a maid and explodes at me when the house is not clean the way he wants it accusing me of doing nothing, usually when I have spent 2 hours cleaning up a messy dirty kitchen and taking care of our son...He tells me that I am boring and that he can't stand the site of me and other horrible verbally abusive things....
I ignore him as there is no way he can possibly be serious about what he says..AND when he is calmer I point out all the chaos he creates and has created and I point out all the things to him he does not do that make me nuts like washing whites with colors, leaving a swingset in our yard and not setting it up for our son, leaving bags and bags of soda cans in the yard to be returned but never returned, an much more...I remind him that I never call attention to all of this and I always look at what he does do and not aot what he does not do.
To Mark's credit, he is learning to calm down-albeit after the rage- and talk things through. He is learning to communicate with me and to listen to how I feel as well.
Last night he apologized for his behavior and had tears in his eyes....He felt so terrible for what he did....My response was not very warm....I looked at him in the eyes and said-you should feel terrible, I am glad you realize this and I appreciate your acknowledging that what you did was wrong and then I walked away.
There is NO excuse for verbal abuse...BUT I have the tools of alanon to guide me.. This is Mark's disease talking not him and as he works his tools of recovery he learns how to change his behavior one day at a time. I learn not to pay attention to the small things but to focus on the big things...The big thing is that we are finding our way through recovery and learning how to live a normal, healthy, loving life together....
Our home is a mess but nowhere near the mess it was a year ago. For this I am grateful. Our son had a sleepover party and one of his friends, who was not allowed to play at our
house a year ago because of Mark's drinking, not only came to the party but was allowed to sleep over-this was the boys first time ever sleepover! Now that is progress-not perfection.I am grateful for our progress and feel blessed. Nothing in life easy.
Warmest.
Hunter
