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.
It's been awhile since I posted. I am very active in my home town f2f meetings 3 times a week. One of them being an open AA meeting. Over the past 16 months since being in the program I am closing my mouth and listening and learning. I am reaching out to other members as well as my sponser. I spoke with my sponer the other night about a disagreement that my A and I had a few days ago. I let her know that I shake everytime my A raises his voice, or seems angry or tries to control the situation. She wanted to hear my story further to help me out with this so I told her. My A knew I was speaking to her, but he has no idea what I was telling her. He had mentioned to me that he has a hard time talking to me b/c I blab things off to my sponser and that makes me weak. If I cannot go to my sponser about an issue who am I suppose to go to? I am only trying to work my program the best way I know know how. I don't blab everything to my sponser, only when I am really stuck. My A has also told me that he thinks the people in our hometown in the fellowship has more respect for me than him. I am unclear of his statement, as I see people treating him no different than they treat me or anyone else. Is this a case of my A trying to control the people in my life and trying to keep me isolated? All I want is for me to be allowed to be me. When I dicuss an issue with my A I always put the "I" statement in my sentence so that I am not putting blame on him. So when I say I feel hurt that he says I am weak, he jumps in and says he's not responsible for my feelings. Which I know he;s not but how can I express myself without putting blame on him and for him to make the comment he does when I say "I feel......" I 'm a little confused about this. Can anyone help me out. Thanks
Im not sure how to help you but when I am in the situation I try to remember that either active, dry or in recovery the my husband is a sick person. He grew up in this disease and has no frame of reference on how to deal with intimate relationship issues such as this. Now that he has been in recovery for the past 1 1/2 yrs things are better. It is hard not to react (and I had a slip last night) but when I sat back and thought about what it was we were discussing I know that his reactions are his inability to communicate effectively so the yelling starts. Putting things into perspective like that has helped me tremendously over the past few years. Just remember not to take it personally and it sounds like you are doing all the correct things to take care of you. Karen
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Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care. Love you all!
Karen
HI Alberta,Well my thought is, our sponsor is a personal relationship, for support, guidance and friendship and more.
My question is, what would make you feel like you have to tell your A what you tell her? It is his disease doing its best to cont. to control you.
I would use the boundary chip, "what my sponsor and I talk about is between her, and me." If the A says something else, repeat the statement one more time,and read,watch tv whatever. You are not going to allow the disease to pull you in.
Many of us are here to get back to standing on our own. How dare he question anything that you do. We learn to stay out of their stuff, so then we learn to look at our own inventory.
I know it hurts when the disease says that bs.
I know it is dumb, but in my head I learned to keep it light. When the disease said that kind of stuff you described,my head was saying,"I am rubber you are glue,let your crap bounce off me and stick to you."
I shook my head a lot in disbelief when the A tried to control me.He was not dealing with a young woman who had no experience in life.
If he was off the wall, I would say, "hey that is abuse, I will not allow anyone to talk to me like that."
I picture one of those fish who blow themselves up so their barbs pop out. When he was awful....POOF!! My body language made him back off.
There is a little blurb on Sci Fi channel.This pretty gal is in an elevator, this guy gets on and tries to touch her and POOF! All these sharp pokers come out of her dress. I loved that.
We can learn to do the,"don't go there" with out being aggressive.
So hopefully this gave ya some ideas. It is not so much what makes him do whatever, its more how can we change ourselves or ask ourselves what makes us allow it and how can we change that. Love,debilyn
