A very warm welcome to you at such a challenging time that's leading you to dread feeling teary and anxious.
I'm wondering whether you have some people in your life whose nature you enjoy or take great joy in feeling around this time of the year. If so, do you think that shifting your focus more toward them could offer you a greater sense of ease to feel? While your husband chooses how he wants to feel, through the use of alcohol, what feelings do you want to experience and who or what can offer them to you?
While my husband's drinking can lead him to seem like a different person at times, I found the most liberating revelation for me was 'Do I want to be around his 'alter ego' or is that not the kind of person I normally tolerate in life?'. Short answer is it's not. While I spent years trying my hardest to tolerate that frustrating nature or that challenging nature brought to life through alcohol, there came a time when something said to me 'Why are you trying so hard to accommodate this?'. A fair question. I suppose you could refer to it as a bit of a 'Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde' scenario, while not being quite as intense. I should say my husband's not really all that much of a 'monster' when he's been drinking, just incredibly frustrating to deal with. I've told him that once he reaches a certain level of intoxication, my plan is to completely emotionally detach from him in favour of finding who or what brings me joy. While our spouse may deem such a move as being unreasonable or our fault or something along those lines, there's no denying that the ability to manage such a conscious shift in emotion is an ability. It's not a fault and it's not unreasonable, for there's good reason). Do we want to feel ease or do we want to experience dis-ease? I put my hand up for 'ease' and if you do the same, we may as well give each other a high five while we're at it ✋😊
While my dad was never much of a drinker, so there was no stress coming from that angle, I can relate to the the level of stress and dread I experienced when beginning to practice not going along with my husband's carefree or careless drunken state. When I first began practicing emotionally switching off, he used to get upset with me and I'd feel terrible and like a horrible person who felt torn between being intolerant and being a people pleaser. What I learned was that if I tap into the people pleaser in me it dictates 'Don't upset anyone'. This becomes the directive. If I tap into the intolerant part of me, it reminds me 'It's okay, you don't have to tolerate this. You have a choice'. Practicing tapping into the part of ourself we need the most at certain times can be hard at first but the more we practice the better we get at it 🙂.
I should add that while my husband can still feel challenged when I emotionally detach (when a certain amount of alcohol's involved) he's come to accept it as a consequence of his choice to drink. He's learned over time. Returning to the key question 'What do you wish to feel and how are you going to manage feeling it or getting a feel for it?'.
