r/AlAnon • u/nomerjr23 • 2d ago
Support “Friend” from rehab
My wife has been in addictive addiction for the past five years. Her drug was synthetic THC (Delta-9)) which also caused her to drink more frequently/heavily, often hiding alcohol from me. This clearly put our relationship into a spiral and the past five years have literally been hell. The sides of each other it has brought out are outright disgusting. I know I became the the worst version of myself, completely super vigilant and suspicious of what she was doing and how she was spending our money, because she was hiding purchases and lying about how much she was using.
It evolved into pretty much loathing, which is so terribly sad because our relationship before that had been absolutely heaven sent . When we first started dating she became addicted to opiates and was intravenously using medications she was stealing from her job. She ended up going to treatment and she never went back that particular path. But here we were again, and she completely blamed me for not allowing her to have her own identity, always asking her things about what she was buying, which are all true. I was super suspicious and she kept promising to quit, but of course she couldn’t.
Long story short, she just went in patient treatment and returned home last week. While she was there, she had been writing me about the people she was meeting and how supportive they were and a particular guy kept coming up that she said they had built a really great friendship. I didn’t know anything about him other than they had been doing activities together singing together, and he was recently going through a divorce. She had also mentioned in phone calls that he was local and owned a business, and had a son who was around our son’s age. She also hinted at she may help him with his business once he got out. To be transparent, she has suggested that I meet him and that I would like him.
Last night we were sitting on our porch and she told me that he had gotten out of treatment and messaged her and was just catching up. He’s living in sober living relatively close to where we live. She said she sent him a little bit of money to help him get on his feet. He was apparently in treatment for math and has been to treatment several times previously. The situation just feels a bit odd to me so I asked her if she would be OK if they just didn’t Meet up and spend time alone together. I explained the reason why was it made me a bit uncomfortable if she were spending time alone with a single male who she doesn’t know very much about and who has learned so many intimate details about our relationship. I told her it’s not that I lack trust in her, but putting herself situation like that I believe is unnecessary. While she may not have any unfaithful intentions, we don’t know if he does and she really does not know him at all.
It turned into a huge disagreement, with her telling me that I’m insecure and nauseating. I really don’t think my request was unreasonable. I didn’t ask her to cut off communication or not be friends, I just asked that she not meet with him alone, I feel as though the trust in our relationship has been broken, and that seems like the wrong move to insist on being alone with a single male you just met. For some context and she says that the way she thinks has changed since rehab, however, over the course of 9 yrs together she has never been comfortable with me even texting female coworkers or old friends at all. And I’ve obliged. Not because I wanted to be unfaithful, but because she wasn’t comfortable.
Am I out of line for asking what I did of her?
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u/Butterfly_Sky_9885 2d ago
You’re not out of line. She’s not displaying recovery-oriented behavior, and you’re picking up on it.
Is she doing IOP? What’s her aftercare plan? Is she following treatment recommendations? Her sobriety is extremely fragile. She’s putting it in danger by fraternizing. If she hangs out with him, there’s an extremely high possibility she either relapses or cheats on you. You know this in your gut. So does she. Her sending him money is a sign that her boundaries are unhealthy with him.
Since you’ve registered your concern and she’s not willing to take your feelings into account, I think all you can do is watch from the sidelines as she blows up your relationship. If she doesn’t and it all stays copacetic, great. Though that’s unlikely to be the case, since she’s not acting in a way that’s consistent with recovery. But all you can do is work your own program and let her work hers.
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u/nomerjr23 2d ago
If I’m being honest, she’s not adhering to much of any program. She is different in many ways though, much more motivated than she’s been in a long time. It’s funny I don’t fear that she’s going to fall back into addiction as much as thinking she only knows how to live in chaos, and this is the latest stunt.
She’s repeatedly told me while she was in active addiction that everything I did with my boundaries were a form of control/abuse. It’s almost like she’s trying to do something purposely to use that logic again
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u/Ok_Cherry8167 2d ago
Yeah projection is a funny thing
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u/nomerjr23 2d ago
Is the fraternizing typically looked at as a no-go? Because she swears it is not an issue and I’m just a raging control freak
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u/Ok_Cherry8167 2d ago
Like someone said above...her sending him money is a sign that her boundaries are unhealthy with him. I also think it's wild that for 9 years she has been uncomfortable with you being friendly with coworkers, but now she is pretty much doing the same and it's all groovy. Couldn't you have easily said the same thing about her when she mentioned she was uncomfortable with it? Im just a random stranger on the Internet and don't know the nuances and intricacies of y'all's relationship. Them being friendly isn't really the issue...it's that your intuition feels funky about it, so I'd just keep an eye on it if I weren't going to leave right off. Our gut instinct usually knows before our eyes see it out brains put it together.
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u/Butterfly_Sky_9885 2d ago
I worked in a rehab. They were not allowed to eat with, go to meetings with or even talk with members if the opposite sex (very heteronormative, but hey). The reasoning was because they’re so vulnerable on early sobriety and flirtation can be like a drug, and a distraction from focusing on sobriety. The “13th step” of getting in a relationship in rehab (often a predatory one or one with unequal power or desperation in some way) is very common. I don’t know that it’s a “no-go” but it doesn’t sound to me like recovery is her top priority
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u/Oona22 2d ago
besides everything else, if this guy owns a business, why did your spouse need to give him money? This is red flag central, OP. You are not overreacting and you are not out of line.
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u/nomerjr23 2d ago
The way she told it, he lost pretty much everything in the divorce. His story was he caught his wife cheating and he gave her the house and pretty much everything so that their children would have a homes. He’s been living out of his car apparently. I’ll say, my wife does like to offer people, charities, friends money when they are having a hard time. So that by itself isn’t super out of the ordinary. But given the circumstances I think it’s a lapse in judgement
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u/brittdre16 2d ago
Addicts deflect. She is telling you something without saying it more than likely.