I admit that I am powerless of my husband and his addiction.  My life has become unmanageable.  I amnot sure if I truly fell in love with my husband or if I fell in love with the potential I saw in him.  When he didn't meet his fullest potential as I thought he should, I felt my respect for him lessen.  I began to see him as an additional child in the house instead of my husband and partner through life.  Everyone time he made, what I considered a poor decision, my respect dropped even further.  I began treatin him like one of the children.  I was speaking to my husband on the phone one day at work and one of my co-workers asked me which of the children was misbehaving.  I explained that it was my husband.  He said it sounded like I was talking to a child. 

Anyway, I began making decisions for him.  Criticizing everything he did and wore, said and the way he acted.  I took his paycheck from him and monitored his friends and phone calls.  I told myself that I was doing these things out of love and concern.  When he went somehwere, I made sure he took along one of the children. When the children saw how disrespectfully I was treating him, they decided that they did not have to show him any respect either.

I find that I try to control situation and people and have throughout my life.  I guess, I felt that my life was so out of control and things kept happening that I really couldn't control, so I tried to take control where I could.  Controlling other people seemed easy because they let me.  Then the kids started rebelling and I found that even if I didn't give my husband a pennny, he would find a way to use if he wanted to.

I have looked at my husband without respect for so long and treated him like one of the children.  I would like for him to be my husband, but am not sure how to change the relationship around.  There I go controlling again...The only thing that I can do is to give him the dignitty to make decisions, not just for himself, but family decisions and bite my tongue.