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.
Well weve only just separated after 6 years of marriage, hes about to go back off to his life of riley in the west indies which is just waiting there for him to do this when he couldnt bear the pressure of coming home and going back to AA, which is what he said he would do before he went away in January. AND now i do a stupid thing and find a photo of some young woman he must have met when he was away on his facebook, post having told me by phone he was leaving me (for the umpteenth time from that very same island). I know everything says they arent having fun but it looks like that to me...my sister says its just sad especially as only 5 other people on there either known since childhood and one of his little daughters friends. Has he not thought about how his daughter might feel seeing a photo of some woman in her bra and pants on her dads facebook! Im so upset, he told me there was no-one else, im not saying that she is someone else, but hes obviously meeting loads of people in this holiday destination and loving it, whilst he has left me with our dog, our home and left his business that he has built up by reputation to fold up, given all his clothes to charity...hell i feel like he is having fun and ive been royally deserted....The last thing i want to do is flirt and meet other men, why is it he seems alll too happy to be doing just that..i always trusted him when we were married and hes not a shallow person, but this is just driving me crazy......
This is a very painful time for you and I understand that looking at your husbands space book page has caused even more pain. Alanon suggests that we focus on ourselves because we can only know what we are feeling and can only slowly change our feelings and responses.
It may appear that your husbacd is having a great time. That is no doubt what he wants everyone to think. Alcoholics are great actors and we can never know what another person is truly feeling and why they do what they do.
Please try to take care of you, Be gentle with yourself and Let Go and Let God
LB, do you attend al anon meetings? I hope so because those are the people worth spending your time with. I hope that you feel a little bit better soon although I know it will take time. I know it did for me. My best thoughts and wishes are with you. Hugs, J.
Focusing on ur AH will drive u crazy... and that is just want the A wants us to do, to give up our precious energy and put it all on them. Even our worst feelings of pain and guilt, the A gets a power rush from energetically - I think of A's like psychic vampires.
Focus on you, consider & be thoughtful of you -- you deserve the very best of your own good attention, energy. There is nothing you can do to change, control or influence another adult - you are powerless - but what you do have power over is yourself. This is what al-anon is about, allowing us to learn how to get our attention off of our addicts/alcoholics and to fully focus on us, live our own lives, get peace of mind & sanity back. As long as u obsess about another, u are wasting your time/life.
Take care of YOU.
__________________
Light, Love, Peace, Blessings & Healing to Us All. God's Will Be Done. Amen.
I agree with kitty for years my focus has been on my A's life how he needs to change , improve , how i will be happy when he does. He loved all my attention no matter what he did I was there loyal loving trying to fix it. He knew i would forgive I DIDNT LOVE ME.
Then as i kept going to meetings, reading my literature and coming on here, WORKING MY PROGRAMME.
my focus shifted from him to me all I had tried with him hadnt worked anyway! And guess what the A started chasing me oh he still drinks is making lots of promises but i am not believing.
Actions speak louder his life may seem fun to some but I know how unhappy he really is and how he drinks and parties to feel better cause he doesnt like the man he really is. IT NOT ABOUT THEIR LOVE FOR US !
We are lovely, specialy people but just like the A we have to believe it our selves no one else can make us feel better accept us.
I used to drive past my A's to see what he was doing ect
Now I get busy doin stuff I enjoy and spend time with healthy people if HP wants us together it will happen I am getting healthy and enjoying my life hope this helps x
Jean asked about face to face meetings...that from my experience is the very best place to start. Literature is a close second as are the steps, traditions, slogans, sponsorship and all the other things that are available to friends, family, spouses and associates of alcoholics. One of the first subjects I worked on in the program was the subject of "Denial" which is said to be, "Not a river in India" among all sorts of other things. My sponsor worked long and hard with me to see and accept my wife as an alcoholic and her behaviors as alcoholic behaviors and not natural except to an alcoholic. He finally sealed the lesson one night with, "If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, the chances are IT'S A DUCK." I became a believer and denial started to dry out. LOL today at one location where I go to meetings we have many ducks and geese because we meet at the edge of a small lake, pond, river...whatever. They all certainly look like ducks and they all certainly walk like ducks also and they quack, quack, quack. I have to smile when they walk by and say to myself..."there goes my alcoholic." Thank you ex-sponsor where ever you are.
The program starts with just one step Lily...The first one and then two and then etc. You get your sanity back and then your soul. That big gapping hole where your soul use to be gets filled up again. You get to say sometime in the future by how it does.
Keep coming back with an open mind and if you haven't already...go look for the hotline number for Al-Anon in your area.
Thank you so much all of you for your heartening responses. I have said this before, I would be lost without this board. I do have lots of support from my friends at least one of which has just been left by her partner of 13 years, she equates his behaviour to my AH but I know it is different, hes just changed jobs and girlfriends in the same town, mine is letting his business and everyone he knows go down the swanny...its different Im not sure at all about going to f2f meetings, this board really helps but when I went to my one and only f2f meeting, there were women there (no men) who had been going for years, long after their partners had left, I get such consolation here and words of wisdom, I dont want my ex to become part of my future... i want to learn from here and then move on, I dont want to be going to meetings 10 years after my divorce to get over my Ah, he shouldnt be that important...am I wrong..My hurt is huge now, but my friend lost his soon to be wife from a brian hemmorage, she was only 34, she just suddenly died one friday afternoon, no goodbyes, no warning, just a little girl aged one, hes had to move on, he doesnt have this kind of support.... i dont want to drag it on, i want to hear all the words of wisdom, they are so healing, but i can get it here, make of it what i will, take some on board, they have been invaluable but i dont want him to be part of my future...does that make sense to anyone.!???? Your in sincere gratitude and i will keep coming back because here is where people understand....
HI Lily, Face to Face meetings are invaluable for a number of reasons. Usually members find alanon because of the alcoholism of a loved one. They stay because they have found a place where they can focus on themselves, grow and change into the person they can be.
Living Life on Life's terms with Courage, Serenity and Wisdom. This connot be maintained alone (I know I tried) One Day at a Time we grow, Change and Face Life, Head up with Hope and in the company of others who are trying to do the same. It is not nor ever has been about the alcoholic.
Keep comng back and try the meetings held here weekly
10 years from now, you WON'T be going to alanon meetings to get over your ex AH - you'll be going because you feel so much better, and your life works so much better, when you go. Really. Go back to those ladies and ask them. They are not pathetic, far from it - they have recognized what they need to live happy healthy lives, and they are giving themselves enough importance to fill that need for themselves.
Having said that, every group kinda has its own flavor.... I go to one with 15% or so guys, and another with no guys on a regular basis. Feel free to check out different groups to find the one that's right for you - but also, don't give up before your miracle. Try 6 f2f, honestly and openly, before you make up your mind. And by all means keep coming here too!
I can only give you my ESH. In order to stop obsessing on the ex A I had to stop thinking about him. So I stopped talking to his friends, I stopped wondering what he was doing, I stopped speaking to his relatives. I stopped. When he called I did not answer. I stopped worrying, wondering, obsessing. I made it a one day at a time thing. I've now not spoken to him for a year. Of course he's called, I don't answer. The focus in my life is me not him, not what he is doing, might be doing, who he is hanging out with, what he is saying about me (I've heard all that anyways). Take a lot of discipline but eventually it comes easier.
Thank you all and Marasie, I will try and do as you say. I saw my sister in law last night and all it did was upset me...i couldnt help asking questions i didnt want the answers to etc. I then got home and had another formal email from hmy AH about a doc were signing so we dont make any claim on each others estates as it were. That upset me too, he was asking yet again for me to do something.....once he has left the country on sunday i hope not to hear from him again, sure i wont and i have kept contact with him to minimum, but obsessing is all ive done, and cry and cry..his rejection of me has been cruel to say the least and looking on his face book has been my own making of more pain..frankly it looks silly amongst his other few friends, but its made me feel all the more rejected, i may not be a nubile pole dancer but i am a lovely woman who cared for and loved my AH, hes the fool not me..he is the one who should be crying because of what hes lost, not me! Hes doing a geographic, running away for more exciting people who make no demands on him, he will have to come home one day and thats when he will realise he has to start all over again and maybe then he will realise what hes lost but by then i will be long gone!! Thank you all for your posts. Lilly.xx
