Expert: Druideck - 5/8/2011

Question
I took vows to love, honor and obey in sickness and in health, before God.  And I married my husband knowing he was a "functioning" alcoholic.  Because he was never mean, always loving and we were everything to each other. Everyone who met Dan loved him, when he drank he would just go to sleep... but when he was sober he was the most giving gentle man you could know.  But the functioning part of his alcoholism ended 3 years into our 10 year marriage.  I didn't give up right away... there were  hospital stays and 4 rehabs, two drunk drivings, kidney failure, seizures.  And I kept him alive, rushing him to the hospital each time his heart went into a-fib, or his legs would swell. 7 months ago I tried the tough love approach.  I relocated to another state and told him he could join me when he was sober. We talked every day.  He loved me.  I loved him ... then I got a call ...he was in ICU with stage 4 liver failure.  I found out that he had spent the last 4 months, 24hrs a day, 7 days a week, sitting in a chair and drinking.  I rushed to him and he died in my arms 3days later.  Everyone tries to tell me I did what I could... but if I had stayed with him there would have at least been more time.  I know he could/would never stop drinking, but he wouldn't have been so alone and I know he would have lived longer if I had just taken care of him, instead of thinking if he hit rock bottom he would finally change.  Did I kill my husband?

Answer
Hi Nina,

The context of your question seems to
indicate you have not addressed your
co-dependence in this alcoholic relationship.

By that I mean you fail to recognize your
late husband as an adult and that he
was completely responsible for failing
to get help for his illness.

I do not know why you would think that
you are responsibile for another adults
life choices or problems.

You must see that you were two separate
people trying to have a relationship
where only one of you felt
responsible to keep your vows.
Part of marriage is being responsible for
oneself in realtion to your mate.

In no marriage is one partner the parent
of the other. You must both be
willing to take some share of what happens.
He does not sound like a person that
was willing to seek or accept the
conditions that would have led to his
sobriety.

You talk of God and making promises to
God. If you truly believe in God as
the supreme power in life then you
would realize that in questioning the
outcome of your husbands illness
you are saying God is wrong.

Life happens and none of us can
second guess that by saying
if only I had done this or that.
That is setting yourself up
in an impossible guilt situation
because the reality is
now not what happened yeasterday
or a year ago.

Don't let your regrets turn into
a life numbing guilt trip.
It is normal to grieve the possibilities
but letting the good memeories turn
into morbid guilt will not serve
anyone, God included.

Accept God's will in this and surrender
your overpowering self-will to him.

Life has decided that you must let go
of a man that was more ill than you
realized. Grieve him and then let
him go in peace to his creator.

You are not so responsible as to change
the will of life, you are only a human
and you will do some good and make some
mistakes, we are not saints, we just do what
we can with the varied circumstances given us.

You have done the best you can and
now you must let go and accept
you are not God and can not know every possibility.

Be gentle with yourself, guilt is a destroyer
of good and grief is a healer.
Learn to heal.


Druideck.
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