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Feeling Guilty about Husband Dying from Heavy Drinking

Q.My husband and I were together 25 years. We moved away to another state to live and that's when things started falling apart. My husband would have a drink to unwind, and then it would lead to more. I had planned to leave him if he didn't stop drinking. This probably caused him to drink even more. I came back and tried to get him help but he didn't want it that bad. He grew to be hateful and my daughter wouldnt have anything to do with him. I watched him get worse, so bad that he couldnt get ouf of bed. I prayed one night for God to take him because I didn't want him to suffer anymore. That day came a couple of weeks after that talk with God. I wasn't around when he left and I didn't get to say good night and hold him.Was it cruel of me to pray for his life? I could have helped him better. I should have been a better wife.

A:I'm so sorry to hear of the troubles you have had, and the grief and guilt you are having now.

Alcoholism is a disease, like diabetes, or cancer. You didn't cause your husband to get it, and you couldn't cure it, or fix it. When someone lives with an alcoholic, they sometimes become more controlling, because they try to make order out of the chaos of another person's alcoholism, and start feeling overly responsible for everything. Even if you were a perfect wife (which no woman can be, because we are human) he would still have had the disease of alcoholism that you could not make better, or fix. That was a choice he had to do himself, like someone with diabetes taking insulin, or a cancer patient taking their treatments, but he did not. I think in your rational mind you know that praying for God to take him was also something you really had no control over, and that his death was a natural progression of his disease, a fluke that it happened after you prayed for it, but you didn't cause it. It's the control issues that are probably making you feel guilty, but you didn't really have that kind of control. Your grief is a reason you are feeling this guilt. Part of the progression of grief is thinking about what you shoud/could have done, although you can't go back and make changes. However, if you find yourself obsessing about the guilt, you would probably benefit from some short term grief counseling. I write "short term" because grief doesn't get fixed all at once, you grieve, then feel better, then grieve again. It's a process.

When you start to get caught up in the grief, change the way you think about it. Substitute what you are telling yourself with something more realistic, a mantra, like "I didn't cause it, and I couldn't fix it", or "things work out the way they are supposed to", or something helpful that will help you to feel better, You need to change your thinking about it in order to start feeling better.

Grief can be life long. Even when it's resolved, you never completely close the door on it, and sometimes open that door to relive some of it. That's natural, and human. Be gentle with yourself. And get counseling if you are not getting better. I wish you the best. Let me know how you are doing,

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