Has anyone gone through this?-I sooo h=need help! - Al-Anon Family Group

meagain · Veteran Member

Has anyone gone through this?-I sooo h=need help!

Jerry F · ~*Service Worker*~

Aloha meagain!!

Here is how my wife and I do it. It's how we were taught here in the AFG.

When they come to us what ever or who ever the complaint...we listen.
While or after we listen we ask if we can give feed back and when given
the go-ahead (We get the go-ahead because loving parents and grand-
parents have power (LOL) and wisdom from age) we hit them with what
we have learned ourselves from our sponsors and the membership and
our own service to others. We ask them to identify their part in the
whole thing and offer what it is that we know and have seen without
judgment. Then we invite them to go further if they would like but
face to face couple to couple. If they don't take us up on the "going
further" (we stay involved and detached in each others lives) we continue
to love and reinforce that love for them and don't choose sides or ask
how such and such is going. When the bottom starts to loom they will
call again and someday they will want to go further because the pain is
so....painful?

They are grown ups and have and make their own choices agreeable or
not to anyone else and that's an acceptable fact. They have been making
those choices for years now agreeable or not to anyone else including
themselves. They are loved and know it. They are understood and know
it. They are supported and know that also.

They have to also know that if they don't give these things away there is
no way in hell that they can get it back.

Go sit with your Higher Power and see if you can find some face to face
meetings in your area that you can get to. It really really helps when you
can sit in a room of 15+ plus others who all have been or are where you
are at now and learn many miraculous ways to stay sane.

(((((hugs))))) smile

glad · ~*Service Worker*~

I have gone through it from the divorcing adult childrens side so I will share my experience.

My family pushed too hard for us to stay together and would not listen to hurts or understand the pain: Only said that "God doesn't like divorce". double Ugh!!- probably were doing the best they could?

His MOM only cared about him and said "well son you can always come home". When I tried to talk to her she said "well he's an adult I can't tell him what to do". Ugh!! Probably just loves her baby boy?

I would have liked it if either set of "parents" would have said WE care about you as a family, we care about you both individually, do you want to talk? How can we help?

I don't know if it would have changed the outcome but it would have been nice to feel support not only from my family but from his mom-as she had said she loved me in the past (but who knows what he had told her or what her point of view was at the time or is now? )

maresie · ~*Service Worker*~

How difficult it is to be on the sidelines. I think for me so much of it was believing that there was a HP out there. I lived with an A for 7 years. I have no idea how he is still alive. He drove like a madman all those times. I have lost count of the number of accidents he had.

For me it became obvious his HP had some reason to want him alive because certainly the A was doing the best he could to destroy himself.

I am sure you are ready to "offer" and jump in. The issue for me was whenever I jumped in and was too "ready" to help I was trying to control the outcome. I had to take a deep breath and sort out what "could" I do. Often my jumping in was volunteering resources I did not have and could not muster.

I hope you can organizer some caregiver relief for yourself. There has to be caregiver relief groups on the internet. Can you do some research on that and go get some support around your feelings. I do think it is valid. I saw such groups when I watched a movie recently "The Savages" http://www.foxsearchlight.com/thesavages/

For me personally my own health failing meant that I was able to say "no" for once. I'm sorry it got to that. If your blood pressure is high and you have your own fatigue issues you may want to really look at what you can offer and only offer that rather than to overtax yourself. There are many many resources out there for your son, tons of groups for father's who are divorcing, social workers, attorneys. You do not have to be the one stop shop for him, you might want to be, and that's great but there seem to be lots of red flags up there for that you can't be the be all and end all for everyone for ever. Detaching is hard to do but very very possible.

maresie.

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.