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Not sure where I am with myself right now. I've been processing a lot of things that have gone on in the past couple of months and I think I'm beginning to get to the anger portion of my "stuff".
As many of you know, my A broke off our long distance relationship following his slip at Thanksgiving. Wanted to get his head in the program. Very good. (no - I'm not happy - but I'm making peace with it). At the exact same time, I had a disagreement, a failure to see eye-to-eye, with my father. Passive me has let my unhappiness with my father go on for 45 years. This time I stood my ground and he got angry and that's been pretty much the end of our communication. So both of these men were out of my life within the same week. I don't believe in coincidence, so I've been searching for the meaning in this "event".
Here's where I find myself. When my A slipped, my heart broke. Granted, I had my eyes wide open this time (the third time in my life that I've been involved with this man, the first time it's been from a distance). I know his history of sobriety and non-sobriety and absolute CHAOS and INSANITY. Anyway - I knew all of that but I crossed my fingers, and prayed that somehow, someway, we'd make it this time. When he slipped, that last piece of hope I had went with him. Part of me was angry. Angry that the only man I'd ever felt such intense love for, and that I had wanted for the rest of my life, had once again let me down.
When he did that, I drew a circle around me and looked around to see who was in and who was out. I knew he chose to be out. One down. Then my father and I had our battle, and I looked and found that he was out, too. In my mind at that time (and truthfully, still even now) people were either inside of that imaginary circle and were with me; or they were outside of that circle, and they weren't part of my life. No room for negotiation. That was my boundary. Hurt me and you're out. I had/have not the time nor energy nor inclination to beg (i.e. "negotiate") for someone to be in my life. (I once heard a televangelist say, "If someone can walk away from you. Let them go." And that has stuck with me.)
That "cutting off" that I did, insulated me from some pain (though far from all of it).
Today I had a non-confrontational confrontation with a co-worker who is toxic (well known and documented by all sources). Story is too convoluted to make sense here, but suffice it to say that because of her irrational behavior/reaction to something she didn't like which indirectly involved me, I chose to ignore her (punish her?) and cut her off. No talking. No negotiating. No communication. Hence the non-confrontational confrontation, if you know what I mean. I decided in my head that she's officially outside of the circle now, and I don't want nor do I feel the need to "deal" with her. And truthfully, she's not an employee that I ever see or have to deal with very much if at all, anyway.
I've been busy telling myself that I'm finally getting boundaries around me and not allowing people to cr*p all over me. But I'm feeling anger about so much. I know that so much of this stems from the fact that when my A had his slip, he chose to break things off with me via email and I never had a chance to talk to him or "get a vote" in how things were going to be/not be between us. My life changed overnight and I had no voice. I got to email him - and I did - and I was all adult and let him off the hook and was very understanding. I'm proud of myself for retaining some dignity, when all I really wanted to do was cry and fling myself around and proclaim how much I HATE this disease and how unfair all of this is.
So I dove into al-anon and learned so much and felt so understood. But now I'm two months out from the breakup; and from the fallout with my father, and I'm beginning to see a new "pattern" emerging with me cutting people out of my life if they cross the line with me. I guess I'm not truly DEALING with what I'm supposed to be dealing with - I'm just avoiding it?
I really need some feedback on this. Is it necessarily a bad thing to cut from your life those people who are not good for you? Or people who make you feel worthless or disposable? I don't want those people in my life. In the past, I've stuffed my feelings and continued to deal with those people (didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings or disappoint anyone). But now I feel like it's my life and I'm taking it back.
I'm sorry that I seem to have rambled on and on and on here. If you can make sense of any of this - please let me know if I'm WAY off base with my thinking. Part of me feels SO MUCH better to have freed myself from painful relationships, but part of me is just wishing that those relationships could just be "all better".
R3 you never fail to hit the nail on the head! I swear we must be occupying alternate universes?!
I do know that we are exactly where we need to be at all times. HP makes sure of this. I also know that "getting it" may take awhile and its usually not worth it to sit and try hard to figure stuff out- it will arrive when its going to arrive- again in HP's timing and scheme of things.
That said, boundaries and simply cutting people out is something I am struggling with massively right now, too.
OK, my AH who lives 4000 miles away is just pretty much a 100% of the time ornery person (in my presence) from what I gather. He is mean and an as*hole (diseased) and I can roll with that and not take it personally. BUT, I find that I never want to call him (I don't). I never want to email him (I don't). I never really want to text him (although I do). I no longer bother writing letters or sending fun packages of stuff. WHY SHOULD I? because no matter what I do, its never good enough, makes him mad, etc. and etc. So, I have basically cut him out of my life because he is just so darn unpleasant and my tolerance for his childish behaviors are lessening with every passing month I am in al-anon.
Yep, I have no one in the circle but me, too.
All I can say about this is 1.) its really sad and lonely sometimes, 2.) it is much more serene once I get past all the strong feelings of sadness and loneliness. The other observation is that maybe we need to cut out the deadwood in order to make room for the new growth which will be coming LATER? So, its winter for us, spring will happen at another time in our lives. We are in the ebb, not the flow? I dunno- anyone out there got any ESH on this? Did anyone lose everyone when you got recovery?!
I guess in a way it makes sense. As we get healthier the sickies look sicker and sicker until we just cannot hang with them anymore? So, this might be a good thing? Yeah, its lonely but we gotta cut back in order to make way for a new kind of relationship/friendship to enter our lives.
OK, I am clueless here, just grabbing at straws. Thanks for listening to me latch onto your trip. Hugs always, J.
I have had some long conversations and done a lot of thinking about the very place you are right now.
Setting boundaries and how that affects relationships in my life. And for me anyway it has been a growing process and one that change change as I grow.
I have had to ask myself how important a relationship is in my life. As my personal worth and ability to no longer accept the crap thrown on to me by others my ability to accept contact with potenitally "toxic" people has changed.
Now please remember this is my life. Take my father for instance. Our relationship has been bad for me for many years. And part of my solution as I gained the tools of this program was to limit my contact with him. He can be a very negative, domineering person. Everything has got to be done his way or it wrong. At least this is the way I saw things. When I was working my 5th step with a man who had a very similiar relationship to his father, I realized that when I am around my parents, and my father in particular, I acted as if I was still a small child, because in some ways that is the way he treated me. I learned to set boundaries about that. None of those boundaries had one single thing to do with my dad. I cannot control him. He will act as he choses. He will act as he knows and was raised to act by his alcoholic father. I came to understand that. I came realize that I had a choice. Now, when I choose to interact with my father I do so with no expectation that I will be treated in anyway differently by him that he has always treated me. But I can choose how I will act. How I will react to the treatment.
The other day I chose to help him build some fence when he called and asked me too. The great thing is, I know I could have said no if I wanted to...and that is so growth! But I went. And sure enough as I was tying some fence together at one point, he started telling me I was doing it wrong. I could feel the little boy in me wanting to lash out at him. Wanting to tell him I would tie it the way I wanted.....but I stopped those thoughts. And I really listened to what he was saying...and HOW he was saying it. He wasn't being judgemental or mean about it..he was honestly trying to explain to me a better way to do what I was doing. An act of passing on knowledge from a father to a son...a gift to me. And so I listened and I tried it his way. It WAS better, AND I thanked him for showing me the new way of doing something, rather than being angry with him and pouting and leaving the first chance I got.
I actually stay and just talk to my dad a lot now. Our relationship is changing even though he really hasn't changed all that much. I have. My perception has. I do not allow him to shame me anymore. I just don't allow it to stick to me when he slips back into that behavior. And because I have been reaching out, listening and not reacting...and here's the kicker!....because I have started thinking of MYSELF as an equal and adult not a child anymore, things have gotten so much better. We are becoming friends.
This story I tell just to let you know, that sometimes I have needed to escort someone out of my circle for a while, until I get more growth...even while they may remain stagnant...but that it is possible that sometimes, I can/may welcome them back into my circle.
I wil add in addition, sometimes there are some people that I may not ever want back into my circle. And that's okay too. I can learn to love them as the child of God they are. I can learn to stop giving them the power rule my thoughts and lives. And I can come to the conclusion that loving them from afar is just the best thing I can do for myself, and for them too.
Learning to forgive ourselves, and to forgive them makes this all so much more possible.
Learning that forgiving others was for me and not for them...wow...what a gift that was. Learning that until I can forgive that person, whether they are still in my circle or not, I will never find peace with them inside myself was the key.
Me forgiving them did not make what they did okay...it just freed me from reliving what was done in my head over and over and over again.
It is late, and I fear I may be rambling off the topic so I will stop!
Glad you posted this round, I hope you get some good feedback that helps you. Keep coming back and keep working it, it really does work!
Time and time again I have found that it is necessary to look at who is good for me. The thing is that I never actually did that for most of my life and I have spent hours and hours being battered by people who have not been good for me at all.
I realised this with my father and my sister, my aunt and uncle. All had good family lives, partners and no financial problems and went on holiday three, four or even five times a year, running households with at least two cars, need I go on.
Again and again I would let them batter me with their complaints about me, how I acted, what I do or did not do as they saw fit; how they complained when I got in touch, turning the communication into a whine whine whine forgetting that communication is two ways and that they had not got in touch with me but only making it my fault that communication had not been made as I had not rung/written before then.
I have an acquaintance that used to bang on my door at all times of the day and night when she wanted to talk AT me for hours on end, and I would hear the same old stories and gossiping and complaints about these wonderful people who were hurting her, or simply sitting there for an hour or more just listening to all the things she had done, or said and the praises she had received for the last thing that she had been involved with, and ranting about the community meetings that she had attended and on and on and on. 15 years have passed and I still hear the same old rants...but less often and not for as long. I am learning to detach and say "Sorry I cannot see you right now." Even when my house was locked up and no lights were on, she would bank of the door, the windows, ringing the bell until I got up and answered the door, and I would stupidly let her in, even when I had been in bed and asleep or was not well, and I would sit and listen and listen and listen and feel sick and listen and listen and four hours later she would say, "You don't look well, you should get back to bed." Derrrrrr
Well, finally, seven years ago, when I got so sick that I had to be hospitalised, where were all these people for me? No where in sight, and over the next seven years have they offered help, support, an hour of their time to sit and listen to me, hold my hand, go shopping for me, send me a card to say, thinking about you or get well soon.
NO, they have not. I have stopped offering the olive branch only to have it snapped in front of me. I have stopped opening the door after 7pm at night. I have stopped begging for my family to acknowledge that I am alive and need love/help. I have stopped being a dumping ground and letting anyone batter my ears for hours on end. It was all too draining and I just had to look at what it was doing to me.
I still love my family, I still miss them, I still send letters and cards but I DO NOT EXPECT anything back, indeed I get nothing back. That's okay. What I was getting back before was too hurtful and destroyed my inner calm, and did nothing to make me feel that I was appreciated.
I still see that acquaintance, however on my terms and I tell her I am not well and I cannot have her in at all hours of the night and day.
Slowly, she is leaving me alone, and that is good, for she was draining me of the little energy that I did have which I should have been using to get through the day and the pain and the recovery from surgery etcetera.
Now I assess each communication, each encounter I have with the people who drain me and really have no mutually positive input in my life, I decide what is best for me,. This is NOT my ideal solution though I know that I have to put ME first, just as they do. The difference is that I can accept that I do wrong, whereas they see themselves as infallible and never doing wrong without realising their totally selfish way of approaching life is not acceptable. Everything is about them.
For me, everything has to be about US - usually their needs first and then mine - now I realise that that approach has done a lot of damage to me and I have to look at damage limitation for simply because my energy resources are so low, my physical resources are limited, my emotional resources have been battered and I have been beaten so badly for many years that I have to be kind to ME so that I stand even a chance to recover and find some quality in MY life.
Ok, I have taken a look at self, which is something I do not like doing, I have learned that I do not have to take on board the whole world's needs before looking to my own. Others forget I have needs, because I have NOT shown them I have needs. Now I am beginning to learn, I have a right to have needs too, and I DO NOT NEED TO BE BATTERED by totally selfish people who have no thought for me except to use me be it to make themselves feel better or as a sounding board for all they cannot cope with, with no regard to what that does to me.
Gosh, I did not realise how this subject had buried itself so deep.
What I like is that I too have my say, and am listened too. I do not expect everyone to agree with me, I never say I am right and others are wrong within this family where as in my world I have never been listened to, never been allowed to have my say and this is quite amazing so please forgive me for venting this here.
You probably got more than you bargained for in my response, so thank you for allowing me to get this out.
R3, love you, HUGS Heart B
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"The highest form of wisdom is kindness." The Talmund
I think sometimes boundaries work and other times cutting people off is the only way to protect ourselves from doing something stupid. I didn't have any friends with the A, still don't really. It's not that I isolate myself so much as that I just don't have time. I can think of several examples where I walked away from unhealthy people and bad situations over the past 18 months. I know exactly what you mean about the loneliness and isolation. It is just something you have to work thru as Jean said.
I also like David's story, I have heard it before and it really is all about perspective and how you choose to see things. I also like the idea of the circle being something that fluctuates. People can be in or out at different times. That reminds me that I am allowed to change my mind about something at any point I choose. Just because you were in the circle yesterday doesn't mean you are in today. I know with my A, he is out, he needs to stay out for MY sanity and safety from myself. The more time that has gone by, the less I want him in. I think when someone is IN the circle they get so close to you that they are blurry and it's hard to see them clearly but when they are out it's a whole new perspective.
I still fight loneliness but I have decided, I'd rather be lonely than live with an A ever again!
Boundaries are something I struggle with a lot. I struggle with them at work in particular but I really struggle on the level when I feel I don't have much choice. I grew up in an enmeshed tremendously abusive family. That is pretty much all I've known all my life, enmeshment. When I set boundaries with the A, when I told him categorically I had no more to give, he left. I have not heard from him much since. There have been no calls to see how I am. When he did call at Thanksgiving I told him I was ill, there was nothing after that.
i have really struggled a lot with boundaries since I have been in Al anon. i really do put a lot of work into them. There are times I do better than others. i try to assess what my needs are and what behaviors I will accept and what I won't accept. I was incredibly tolerant and basically a doormat all my life.
I became hugely depressed around the A because he absolutely refused to honor any of my boundaries. In time, over time in detaching and setting limits, and focusing on me I began to have boundaries with him and hold to them. Over time I started putting more energy into me than into him.
I will probably be working on boundaries for a long long time. I find work in particular very very challenging. I also find isolation a really hard deal. I am incredibly isolated at the moment and this group is a key support for me. I know I will always find someone here to relate to and that is so essential.
So, I am thinking- I have choices about who is in my circle and who is not. Who is in my life and matters to me and who is not and does not. There are some I have no choice about- immediate blood relatives.
My mom, for example, who is an A who does not drink and is not in recovery, is someone I have come to accept and love after many years of intense struggle. I know who she is. I am not interested in changing her anymore although i did for many years. She no longer tries to change me, either (she used to). We are both kind and accepting of each other now. We do keep our distance. There is only so much we can do together and there is only so much time we can spend together. I feel good about that relationship although it took YEARS and YEARS of work for me to get where I am with her. Like David said in his post- I grew up and my perspective changed a lot. I changed, she did not.
But I think that the reason this happened is because she is my mom. I cannot not have her as my mom. I have no choice about her being my mom. So, I stuck with it and kept working on it because its not like I can not have a mom when I do. With partners/husband/friends, etc. this seems super different (why?, I wonder? Because I choose to make it that way, apparently!). I can, do and have just cut them out of my life forever at various points. I just do not stay in touch, disappear, stop connecting with them, tell them I do not want them in my life anymore, etc.
While I had about 10 years when I was not in touch with my mother at all, deep down we still had this blood connection and eventually we did reconnect because of this: she is my mom and I am her daughter. I think this is the case with kids, too, even though I do not have any. I honestly have never really felt this kind of blood connection with anyone who was not my blood, I guess. Perhaps others have. I used to think that getting married would provide a structure like a blood kinship but that has not happened for me.
I need to carefully examine some of my thinking on this matter and re-evaluate it. Time for a RE-THINK! thanks for all the great responses. J.
I had some 10 plus years when I did not deal with my family either. I was in intensive therapy during that time. I did reconnect with my family briefly. Both my sisters are alcoholics. Even though the relationship was long distance I was still in considerable pain around it. i felt like I was not heard on even the most basic level.
I think for me the contact issue depends on my level of need. When I am raw and worn out (as I am now) I have to be particularly careful of my boundaires. When i am more centered I can be more flexible. Above all its my responsibility to get to a place where I take better care of me. What is so key for me is that when I cut others off (as I have had to ) its not as a result of being a victim its a proactive act which is to take care of me temporarily or permanently.
Jean - I found it interesting what you said about not cutting off your mom because she is your mom. I have cut off my dad (and he has cut me off, too) - and I've been telling myself "I don't have a dad." I'm sure that's the wrong approach. I just know it is. Which is where I struggle so hard.
My dad was never very much in my life. My parents were divorced when I was 10, and my dad remarried and got on with things in his life. We stayed friendly. We did holidays. A vacation here and there. Nothing close - but nothing particularly hostile. I always wanted the "daddy" - but just never had that. Nothing even close. I latched on to my A (before his A-ism showed up) when I was just 15 years old. He became "it" for me. Got the "unconditional" love (or so it felt) that I needed, from him.
That could be where the connection is between losing A this time, and cutting off father. If my A can cut me off (and take away that "unconditional" love), then what are the odds that the man who NEVER offered me unconditional love could finally "step up"? And believe me - he didn't.
So they're both now officially "out of the circle". Not there for me? Don't want to know me? Better off without me? Okay - I can put you out of the circle.
Maybe I'm moving toward what so many of you have described to me - which is having people in your life, who you can set boundaries with and still have communication with - but who aren't in "the circle". I'm just looking at it from hurt, anger, and self-protection, I guess, and I'm hoping that I will be able to "evolve" into someone a little more open to new ways of dealing with these people (those that I "have to" deal with).
I think for the forseeable future, though, that I need to keep up some walls. I'm just not ready to soften on this one yet. I'm simply not. But at the same time, I want to guard against becoming some bitter old woman (with 100 cats!). I know I don't want to be that person either.
Thanks all for giving me some really good perspective. I've clearly got some work to do on this front.
But I went. And sure enough as I was tying some fence together at one point, he started telling me I was doing it wrong. I could feel the little boy in me wanting to lash out at him. Wanting to tell him I would tie it the way I wanted.....but I stopped those thoughts. And I really listened to what he was saying...and HOW he was saying it. He wasn't being judgemental or mean about it..he was honestly trying to explain to me a better way to do what I was doing. An act of passing on knowledge from a father to a son...a gift to me. And so I listened and I tried it his way. It WAS better, AND I thanked him for showing me the new way of doing something, rather than being angry with him and pouting and leaving the first chance I got.
