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'm totally madly in love with this guy and I know he feels the same way about me but....I don't know why I can't just trust, why that evil little tinge of jealousy keeps popping up. It's so good and I don't want to ruin it.
So he's out of town right now visiting family and he tells me that Wed. night he's going out to watch a basketball game with his brother's ex girlfriend... I get nervous...
When I first met him he was sitting next to a girl at the bar and it seems very apparent to me that she really likes my guy - they dated a few times... she makes my blood boil every time I see her and me and my guy hang out at this place on a regular basis. Usually when he's there she hovers around him all night long and I notice he shows me less affection. Last night I went with my girl friend and the only thing she said to me is where's (my boyfriend)... GRRRRRRRRRRRR
So I know this is totally MY issue. I don't know why I can't just say ok he loves me truly loves me and he's totally not the cheating type at all and just get over it. I know this in my heart but my head won't let it go!!! I don't know if this is because of the misplaced trust I have given in the past that led me to despair or what. I know this trust is deserved and he would never do anything to hurt me or jeopardize what we have.
I have been telling myself over and over he chose me, he's with me, I'm the one who has him... etc. etc. etc. but I still feel the jealous pangs and I know it's only going to damage what we have if I can't rein it in.
I'd love to hear any ideas, stories of success on overcoming this, etc. I want my head to shut up and just listen to my heart!
So glad for you that you have a relationship (healthy relationship) with someone who finally sees what a wonderful person you are and who values you and respects you.
After the way that so many of us (including myself) have been affected by the disease and by living so long with active addiction, it usually takes time to work thru these non-trust issues.
For me, when those feelings come up in my everyday life now - I have to stop where I am at - find a quiet place and ask my HP to "Please keep me in today, God. Don't let me allow the scars, fears and past hurts continue to damage this wonderful life that You have given me. Keep me in the blessings I am living today. Don't let the past continue to have power over me."
This usually will give me the ability to focus on the reality of the situation - Not what "scary" stuff I can make up in "Ritaville" lol
Wishing you many, many happy days in your new life, Rita
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No matter what me and my God are going to be ok, even better than OK -
For me, I googled "toxic love", and read the amazing difference between true love and toxic love... It was quite an eye opener, and gives me encouragement and a goal to achieve....
Glad you are able to see that the jealousy is more about you than about him - that's a great first step... Working on you is the fun part, and just try to take baby steps towards the type of person you want to become....
Take care Tom
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"He is either gonna drink, or he won't.... what are YOU gonna do?"
"What you think of me is none of my business"
"If you knew the answer to what you are worrying about, would it REALLY change anything?"
I don't see you are doing anything wrong exploring your feelings. Knowing your are overreacting is key.
You have reason to be wary given your past experience. I know I was phenomenally jealous of the ex A's friends and assocations. I had reason to be. i could not mediate those reactions. Now when I see certain feelings come up I can work with them but I'm not trying to have a relaitonship. If I were I'm certainly sure those feelings would be right up there.
For me body language is the majority of communication. "I hear what you're saying and your body language is telling me something else." I'll go with the body language first everytime. And by the way? Body language is almost impossible to shield...don't even try.
My best ESH is to stay in the NOW, this relationship, this day, this minute if necessary. You're draggin that old stuff in to the new. Yeah, it's normal because that's how we've been programmed but when it happens to me I get in to the now as quickly as possible.
I was re-reading Tolle's book last night "The Power of Now" and made a mental note.. He was explaining that we confuse "our lives" with our "situations". Situations come and go, they are funny, hard, scary etc. But they are not our core self. Those things are situations that we deal with during our lives. Problems rise when we define ourselves by the situations, which is what most of us do. Asked who we are..we bring up the worst situations and allow them to be who we are. Someone might say, I am a child, spouse that was abused, I am married to an A etc. If those things were really what we were, we could never change them.
Tolle reads as follows: Some people get angry with me when they hear me say problems are illusions. I am threatening to take away their very sense of who they are. They have invested much time in a false sense of self. For many years, they have unconsciously defined their whole identity in terms of their problems or suffering. Who would they be without it?
A great deal of what people say, think, or do is actually motivated by fear, which of course is always motivated by having your focus on the future and being out of touch with now. As there are no problems in the Now, there is no fear either.
When you create a problem, you create pain. All it takes is a simple choice, a simple decision: no matter what happens, I will create no more pain for myself. I will create no more problems. Although it is a simple choice it is also very radical. You won't make that choice unless you are truly fed up with suffering, unless you have truly had enough. And you won't be able to go through with it unless you access the power of now. If you create no more pain for yourself, then you create no more pain for others. You also no longer contaminate the beautiful earth, your inner peace, and the collective human psyche with the negativity of problem-making. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It all makes sense to me. The book is pretty involved and there is a quite a bit of explanation leading up to those paragraphs. I don't know why I made note of them, considering that I've read the book before. So, in case HP wanted me to pass it on to you...there it is. lol
Christy
-- Edited by Christy at 19:20, 2009-02-10
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If we think that miracles are normal, we will expect them. And expecting a miracle is the surest way to get one.
I think you're right, the only reason to feel jealous is fear and that is totally living in the "what if" future. I need to just focus on the now. I need to learn some tricks for bringing myself back to the moment and enjoying the one I'm in now rather than worrying about what might happen next week, next month, next year or maybe never.
If the worst case senerio happened, then what? You have lived thru it before. So, if God forbid, it happened again, then.....what? You would be hurt, you would cry and feel bad, your kids would have to deal with the loss of someone they like, and the world would keep spinning and life would go on. There ya go. There's your plan.
Now, today, has the worst case senerio happened? Then, why stress? Why not enjoy fully what you have at his moment? Let yourself be happy!!
