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.
I haven't been posting much, but have been here every day-usually several times a day reading and seeking the ESH from everyone's shares. I guess I haven't been posting much because right now I just don't feel I have anything good to give back. To be honest I am angry and filled with so much resentment right now for EXABF. He sent my son a Christmas gift yesterday from Santa....of course we had talked about it prior to breaking up and agreed it was a good idea, however I had told him when we split, the day we split and he told me he had some thing for Christmas as this house for us, that I did not want ANYTHING from him. I gave him back EVERYTHING he left in my home as I wanted NO VISUAL MEMORIES of him here, and there were many. So now here's my son all excited because Santa got him this amazingly HUGE dart board.....I feel like he undermined everything I said, even though I am sure his heart was in the right place, but I had set a boundary and now I feel like I just have to look at the life size thing the rest of my life and be reminded daily everytime I see it that he's not here......Does he not get that I do NOT want that??? I don't think I'm being unreasonable. I guess it hurts to to know that we won't be seeing each other for Christmas and I had had hopes we would. Of course as that day draws nearer the anger I feel for him just grows and grows and I don't know how to make it stop..I know to focus on me and am trying but it is hard because for so long me was a part of us and I keep coming back to that...The anger is almost consuming today and I can't spend the day in tears again around my son ruining his and everyone else's holidays, but I just don't have the spirit in me....I just feel so lost, empty, depressed and angry.......and then knowing that I have a lot of things to be thankful for compared to others makes me feel even worse for sitting here writing this. I just don't know which way to go right now.... thanks for letting me share.
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Put down the magnifying glass and pick up the mirror!
shel, do you have a meeting near to you to attend? A sponsor you can call or an al-anoner to call and talk to? Sometimes it just helps to make face to face or voice to voice contact with someone in the program who totally understands!
I sure do understand where you are coming from.
I know that feeling like staying quiet as a mouse because you feel like you do not have anything to give back.
Is there a possibility that you might be trying to control your anger, to stuff it?
If so, please do not do that to yourself. You have every right to be angry and express your anger. Being angry is totally OK. Coming here is good but if you could actually talk to someone, that might be even better.
I think its SO IRONIC that he gave your son/household a TARGET. Like wow, what a metaphor!!!!!! Its uncanny!
MY ESH is to just sit with that feeling of anger and resentment. Do nothing. Just sit there with yourself, with it all and just feel your feelings. Cry, take a rubber hose and beat something that can take it maybe (like a footing in your basement) or a pillow and punch it real hard. Just be with yourself and your ugly feelings and get 'em out if you can. Scream. Yell. Say "I hate you for leaving me like this" really loud (I would not do this with your son around, btw), go running, go to the Y and work yourself into a slather-
This helps me and it might help you. Its not fair and its not gonna get fair. It sucks and its going to suck. Nothing you can do about any of it. The quickest way to get through uncomfortable feelings is to dive right in and go right thru them down the middle- its like diving into a cold lake.
We love you here no matter what flavor you show up in- its Ok for you to be exactly as you are. You have lots of good reasons to be mad. be mad. Be you. Hugs, J.
Personally for me I have to really watch the anger and resentment. I can be so so angry that the A left me the way he did. I also understand totally that for me personally the exA can never understand what he did, how it affected me and what the repercussions were. The A who I was with was so totally self absorbed, only he suffers!
For me personally the anger can be so toxic and contribute to my not seeing the world for what it is. Despite the fact I'm poor, in a really difficult situation and more I'm glad to be alive. I'm glad to get to meetings, getting out to them is such a help to me. I resisted tremenduosly going to face to face meetings for a long long time. The more I am out there with people who are totally honest about their lives the more enriched I become.
