The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
After a long hard weekend in which promises were broken and boundaries were set (see previous post, "scared of running out of compassion") I am feeling tender and bruised and unsure how to act around A. He is entering rehab which is great but I am worried I don't have enough left to be there for the duration. I am considering whether I am going to be able to trust him again. I am wondering if I want to.
Meanwhile, A can tell that i am hurt and is desperately trying to make it up to me by acting very sweet. It's nice and I enjoy the time spent with him but at the same time I feel extremely uneasy because he keeps saying things like "you're not going to leave me right?" "I want to be with you forever/marry you/have kids with you.....(waiting for me to reciprocate with similar sentiments...)" and even "if you're going to leave, just do it."
I feel so stuck and helpless and frustrated. I don't know what I want. I want the trust to come back. I am very hopeful that it will. But I know that if it doesn't I will not be able to stay and that will be an incredibly hard decision.
My wife was hounding me for a decission and putting me on the spot about our relationship and I made a decission early on... and told her about it with a good concious.
I decided that I was not going to decide at all right then, not even think about it. Someone here reminded me that the decission to wait to decide is a perfectly valid decission.
Everything will become clear in your HP time and not one second before....
Take care of you!
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"Good judgement comes from experience... experience comes from bad judgement" - unknown
One thing we say here, and that he will also be told in rehab, is to avoid making serious decisions if at all possible in the first six months to year of recovery.
If I were you, (and I was in much the same situation, several years ago) I'd just wait and see how things go. Get to some face to face meetings if you can, in order to talk out your feelings, do some reading, but mostly just live your life. See whether your main feeling while he is gone is relief or do you miss him, if you miss him what do you miss - reality or fantasy. Take a look at your other relationships, have they been suffering because you've been taken up with his stuff. Just gather this information, and then when you see him later in his rehab, and after he gets out, see how that goes.
I agree 100% with rtexas. I have felt this same pressure from my qualifers. My sponsor told me that it is okay to give an answer just for today. For today the answer is x, y or z, but I can't tell the future. That helped me. I find it is often, too overwhelming to figure things out when in crisis and for a good period of time after that. Give yourself the time you need to make this decision.
rtexas wrote:I just did this. I called him and said that I didn't feel like there could be only two options (stay forever or leave right now). I told him that I honestly didn't know, that I loved him, that I hoped for the best, and that I was not going to make a decision and could we both just live in the present.
It seemed to be received well and I feel much better...
((((((((Tenacious))))))))
My wife was hounding me for a decission and putting me on the spot about our relationship and I made a decission early on... and told her about it with a good concious.
I decided that I was not going to decide at all right then, not even think about it. Someone here reminded me that the decission to wait to decide is a perfectly valid decission.
Everything will become clear in your HP time and not one second before....
Nobody has to have all the answers all the time or right away. I like what Leetle says: answer just for today. Remember he is an A. He is use to manipulating people because that's what his addiction teaches him. Don't let him pressure you into giving an answer that you are not ready to give. I would tell him: "I can't possibly know the answer to that. I am not far enough into my recovery to make those decisions. Or, I don't know." Love and blessings to you and your family.
Live strong, Karilynn & Pipers Kitty
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It's your life. Take no prisoners. You will have it your way.
I think that is what A's do ie put pressure on us. It might have to do with getting intensity in their lives without the drink. I tell my AHsober that he uses emotional terrorist on me. Really it is him that needs to make the decision. I like making a decison for today.
My A husband pressured me for a few months right after his 30-day rehab. It was not easy to tell him that I wasn't certain about the future; however, I knew that it didn't feel right to come back home. He kept asking me about the future; all I could tell him was I only know what is right for me now.
Tonight, my husband and I went for our first joint counseling session. The issue of trust was brought up. I shared with my husband (in the presence of the counselor) that the thought of coming back to our home that we shared for years made me tear up and get very emotional. I'd worry about what if he began drinking again? All the 'what ifs'.
Then, something dawned on me that was really significant: I realized that while I didn't trust him to sustain his sobriety, I didn't trust myself! That is, I feared that I didn't trust myself to uphold my new-found boundaries. I feared that I would fall back into the old ways - putting up with his drinking. I faced those fears by myself, questioning every one of them. As a result, I remembered that I do have choices. I do not have to stay if he decides to make poor choices. I have what it takes to move out again if need be. I no longer get emotional and cry when thinking about moving back.
I now know, if I do decide to move back, I can handle whatever happens. I know that I won't live like I once did. But for now, I know that going back would be the wrong choice for both of us.
