Abandoned by alcohol
Q: I married an older man when I was very young. He didn’t want kids, so I left him. Then I met my present husband, whom I loved dearly. After we were married, he drank a lot, something he had never done before. But we loved each other and worked together on the farm.
We had a daughter later on. She grew up, went to live with her boy-friend, got married, had two children and then separated.
She and I have argued about her father’s drinking and my yelling and swearing.
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She found another man.
She told me she didn’t need me any more. I was hurt. Then she wouldn’t even let us visit. It hurts that our daughter rejects us and we can’t see our young grandchildren. We are afraid they’ll soon forget us.
She is all we ever had. But she hates us so much. She has told us she is embarrassed about us.
I have apologized for my past behavior. But it is almost as hard for me to give up criticizing as it is for an alcoholic to give up drinking. I told her about her father’s drinking problem and that she should try to help him. What did she do? She turned him in to the RCMP. He got picked up three times, lost his licence and eventually landed in jail.
He stopped alcohol, but now drinks coffee and chews tobacco excessively.
Our daughter moved away with her boys. No goodbyes, no address. We didn’t know where she was for a long time. We miss her terribly.
We are both pensioners now. We rented our farm out. We have time to spend with our grandchildren, but can’t see them. I want to have a normal life, but I am destroying myself with worrying. I have forgiven my husband for his drinking. My daughter won’t even read my letters. A friend made up a story that I would kill myself if she didn’t come around. She phoned me and called me every dirty name she could think of.
Won’t accept apology
She said we were unfit parents and that she didn’t want her boys to see us. I apologized in writing and on the phone, but that didn’t help.
I’ve thought of leaving my husband, but I’m scared to stay alone. I almost went crazy when my husband was in jail for a week. But it opened his eyes. He stopped drinking. But our lives are destroyed.
My daughter wanted me to separate from him years ago, but I still have feelings and respect for him. I’ve always loved this man dearly, and I think I always will. He says he feels OK about me.
I hurt tremendously. I wish she’d tell us what we did that she is so embarrassed about. Her father hurts also. I try hard to get along with him, so he won’t start drinking again. I want to be a family again.
A: You, your husband and your family life were all destroyed, in some way, by alcohol. Your husband almost killed himself physically. You, in turn, developed criticizing or manipulating tactics in order to try to survive in your marriage. And your daughter ended up the target of much of this.
Your daughter tried to resolve her problem, that of being raised in an alcoholic marriage, by getting into other relationships.
Your husband may have stopped drinking. But I doubt if he has stopped thinking and reacting emotionally as an alcoholic. And you are likely in the same situation, walking on eggs in case he drinks again. It takes years to recover from a long-term alcoholic marriage, and the only hope for such recovery is through AA and Al-Anon. Many people think you just go to AA or Al-Anon to stop yourself or someone else from drinking.
That’s wrong. The real strength and purpose of these groups is to help them heal emotionally and spiritually from the damage done by the alcoholism. Some people don’t do this until years after the drinking has stopped.
If you and your husband undertake the 12-step recovery program of AA and Al-Anon, maybe your daughter will see you have changed, and will begin her own personal recovery and be able to forgive you. But you can’t do it for your husband or your daughter. You have to start with yourself.
