Part 1

I've been wanting to write this for while but had to wait for the right time as alot of the things to mention are still very tender for me and I get myself too worked up.

But here goes ...

For those of you that faithfully supported me through my first weightloss journey I really, really thankyou for that. And I felt terrible that I just "disappeared". But things were not well with me.

This is what happened ...

In December of 2005 I made the drastic decision of taking my four kids and walking out on my alcoholic husband. I went to various places to stay and because I didn't want to be a burden on any one person I moved around a bit for the first couple of months after settling at my parents until I could work out what to do.

It had all happened so fast and being so unplanned I had to work out what I was going to do long term. I still loved my husband dearly and so desperately wanted him to get help for his drinking.

His drinking had gotten to the stage of damaging our family ... he never physically hurt me or any of the kids but in his drunken stuper he would play mind games with me. And it always felt like it was my fault even tho I never started anything. But he would have a way of making me feel so small and stupid.

As a sober person he is the most fantastic guy. And when I married him 12yrs ago I never dreamed that he could be an alcoholic. During our dating time we had a few drinks here and there but it was never every night and never that much.

But gradually over a period of 5 or 6 yrs his drinking got more and more. Until the stage just before I left when he was consuming up to half a bottle of bourben 6 or 7 nights a week.

As with most alcoholic's partners I hid his problem. Until one night when he showed his true drunkiness to my sister. I was staying for a few days with her at the time and he rang her claiming he knew I was going to leave him and hence he was going to kill himself. I had four kids at home with him at the time and I didn't want them to wake up with no one there.

And I also wanted him to admit he had a problem and get help for his drinking. Until that stage I had made no plans to leave him. I was depressed and had been for the previous 6mths, triggered mostly by the nightly drunken routine he had.

It would start with having a couple of beers at the neighbours place after work then he would come home and get out a few more drinks. I would cringe as he got out the bourben bottle to which he'd reply "It's alright, I'm going to be happy tonight, don't stress out". But drink by drink he would start to turn argumentative.

Before my husband and I split up I managed to maintain my weightloss by focusing on my food intake. But I found that after I left my focus totally shifted. I didn't care about what I looked like anymore. The thought that our marriage might be over was almost too much for me to take. I crumbled into a big emotional mess!

I just wanted my husband back, not the one with the drinking problem but the one that I married. I believed he was still in there somewhere.

Over the next 3mths he turned into an angry, bitter man. I'd never seen that side of him before. I'd seen him drunk and argumentative but never ANGRY. And especially angry sober. He started calling me late at night. Our conversation would start of polite but very quickly he would start verbally attacking me and try to manipulate me into coming back. I told him the only way I could go back was for him to stop drinking and go to AA. This didn't go down very well. He felt I was overreacting to his drinking.

My emotions went downhill. Thoughts of suicide started entering my head. I knew I needed to get help before I did anything silly. My sister and I had become very close during this time, she was a huge support for me. Times when I wanted to go running back to him (which was almost daily) she stood up to me and said no, sometimes even taking my keys from me. At times I hated her for that but knew she was right. I just wanted this big mess to go away, and go back to playing happy families again. And the answer at the time was to run back even tho I knew it wouldn't fix anything.

My sister is a paramedic and she sees the result of abuse daily in her job. She sees the mess at the end when guys have dragged their wives down the road behind a car by their hair. And she was going to do everything in her power to stop me going back, because she felt that if I did go back to him that would be me in the future.

Although I knew Bill had a drinking problem, he was never violent to me. He has never laid a hand on me in our 13yrs together and I just couldn't see him ever doing that. But the research I did about alcoholics told me otherwise. This spun my head. One minute I saw him as a victim of alcohol, the next he was the perpetrator.

I just couldn't see a way out of the situation, and the daily mental drain was wearing me down. I remember my sister saying to me "you need to divorce him and move on, if you ever go back to him no one will take you seriously if you ever want to leave again". I knew what she was saying was true about needing to do it once and do it right but I just couldn't face the fact of permanently leaving him. It's almost like a grieving process I had to go through.

But at the end of the day I really didn't want to leave him for good, I just wanted him to change his drinking. So I was torn between trying and move on and wanting to come back. I remember feeling like I was snapping emotionally. I couldn't stop crying. All I would do all day was sit and play patience on the computer while my kids watched tv. I couldn't face leaving the house, the thought of having to see or talk to anyone was just too much. I literally sat infront of the computer screen going over and over and over patience for 8hrs straight until everyone got home from work. The only time I left the computer chair was to get a sandwich or glass of water for the kids.

I think part of it was I had so many people around me wanting me to make major decisions and had so much conflicting advice and sometimes advice I didn't want to hear, that I just couldn't face making any decisions at all ... about anything!!! Even little things like deciding what to cook for dinner was just too much!!

I wanted to get medication to treat my problems but had conflicting advice from my sister as she'd seen the bad side of antidepressants. It took me a few weeks to work up the courage but in the end I went on my own without her knowing.

I felt so much shame sitting in the doctors room, secretly with no one knowing I was there, and him asking me all these personal questions. For so long I had held it all together and this made me such a failure. Finally admitting I couldn't cope was just complete uselessness in my mind. Admitting I'd had suicidal thoughts again was failing. I'd grown up in an environment where you didn't air your laundry in public. Chin up and soldier on was how I felt I should be reacting. I was put on arrapax and hid them deep in my handbag ashamed for even having them.

Over the next two weeks my emotions slowly got better. It didn't take the pain or problems away but it gave me a clearer head to make decisions. And it stopped the continuous crying. I certainly still cried ... every day. But there became patches when I could stop crying.

What I didn't know about antidepressants is apparently a side effect is weight gain. So adding that to the "I don't care what I look like anymore" attitude my weight slowly crept up. It didn't pile on at first. In the first 3mths I had put on 10-15kgs ... ok yeah so it probably did pile on pretty quickly lol.

Given that we still owned a business together Bill was requesting that I travel home to work in the shop for a day as he didn't feel it was appropriate for me not to work at all. So once a week I began travelling back on a Friday night and leaving on Sunday afternoon. And every second weekend I'd take the kids so he could spend time with them.

This stirred my emotions even more. As I walked back in the house I imagined everything was normal. Looking back it was quite bizzare. I'd just act as if everything was perfect and we were happily married for that one day a week. There was definately still tension there and while his drinking had slowed down it hadn't stopped altogether. And I started to think that maybe I was over reacting to his drinking. Maybe it was just all me. Obviously everyone in my home town knew we'd split up but they had a very slanted story. So I'd get hounded from certain ones as to why can't I just come home. Then I'd go back to my parents and my world would change again. I felt I was being pulled from both sides and knew that everyone had the right intentions for their advice, but it was all too much.

In late March 06 I made the decision to move back together with Bill. I knew his drinking hadn't stopped altogether but I could see it had slowed down. And I truelly felt he'd changed. And I was tired of all the caotic advice that I decided to listen to my own heart which told me to go back. Whether or not I did the right thing I don't know and I still battle with that. Most days I say yes I did, but on a bad day everything changes.

On top of that our business accounts were a mess. No bills had been paid all summer and we had no money in the bank. With me gone Bill had to employ far too many staff and all our profits went out on wages.

For the next few months I saw Bill's drinking increase again and I felt helpless to do anything. This time I didn't have my family to turn to (remembering my sister words) I'm sure they would have supported me if it came to the crunch but I didn't want to be one of those women who leave and go back and leave and go back. So I decided for now I had to stay regardless of his drinking.

I had to find other ways of coping. And of course my old habits quickly returned. I comfort ate like there was no tomorrow. And I started drinking too. When I was drunk it dulled the pain. The pain of my marriage, the pain of being in debt, and the pain of being fat again!!! This is where my weight really started to pile on. My clothes were only fitting me for an average of 6-8wks before I got too fat for them and had to move to another bigger size. I so knew I need to lose weight but why? who cares? I didn't anymore.

Sadly with my weight piling back on I began losing friends. I know that sounds shocking and shallow but it was true. One by one they stopped calling and avoided my invites. I lost all bar a small few because I was once again fat. I was even told by a member of my ww meeting that they were chatting about me one day saying "have you guys seen Lyn? She's put on HEAPS of weight!!" One lady suggested they pop in to see me but was quickly squashed with the words "no we'd be the last people she'd want to see". And true to their word they all stopped shopping with us and avoided me in the street.

One night Bill's drinking was really bad and I needed to call the cops on him. They checked on him and he was asleep by this stage so they let him sleep. While I was waiting at the police station for my dad to come the police officer saw someone opening our car door. He ran after the guy and chased him down the back of a block of shops. The policeman was telling him to get on the ground but he wouldn't listen. The guy had a bottle of lighter fluid and a lighter in his hand and the cop didn't want to take any chances and pepper sprayed him, put him in handcuffs and arrested him. It was Bill. I told the cop to lay charges, hoping this would be the shock to change him. He was charged with "posession of a dangerous weapon with intent to use". His day in court resulted in a $150 fine and a piece of paper forbidding him to enter into any licensed premises for a period of six months.

I so wanted to believe that this scare with the law would shock him into not drinking but it wasn't to be. His drinking continued even with the liquor ban. He still found ways to get it, smoozing up to mates to get it for him.

Continued ....