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.
Divorcing the alcoholic...when it's over is it ever really over? I have been divorced several months now and the alcoholic is still trying to get back with me. I have been very ambivalent about the whole deal and I know I need to set better boundaries. I still am in love with him, but the drinking hasn't stopped and he hasn't supported us as a family while married and he hasn't been supporting himself (very well) while single, he has found others to enable his behavior (buy gas for his truck, medicine for him, etc.) So why am I still so attracted to this man that is "no good" for me?
I have read melody beattie's codependent no more series of books and I have read Women Who love too much. I don't think it's a matter of ignorance on my part of what I'm doing, maybe it's just stupidity. I compare it to someone who has an addiction to alcohol, I think the answer just must be in attending lots of f2f meetings and staying in the program.
I might add here that I'm not new to al-anon, so I DO know better! I just don't understand my actions. I had the same problem when I divorced my first alcoholic that I divorced when I was 24...I stopped by his apartment after the divorce hearing and we had sexual relations. Now how does that make any sense? Of course this was before al-anon and I guess I was a little more ignorant to what I was doing. It took me years to get over that divorce (he was alcoholic too).
I feel like in the time span of 20+ years I haven't made much progress when it comes to detaching myself from ex-A husbands. I don't know what dynamic is in place here, but I plan to talk to my sponsor about it and see if I can get to the bottom of my irrational behavior and try to get a grip on it.
Any insight or similar struggles and how you dealt with it would be appreciated. I know this is my first post here and I'm dumping a lot on you at the beginning, but e,s, & h would be greatly appreciated.
(((((Susie Q)))))....Aloha and you are soooo normal and qualified for this program. I've done that!! LOL The last word of the second step is Sanity. Came to believe that a power greater than myself, the alcoholic, alcohol, my mother, the church, my bosses, the entire universe could lead me to sanity. Alcoholism had affected every part of my being, thinking, feeling, motivations and body....everything. There wasn't a part it had not touched and I was dancing at the ends of the strings of this disease. It was all I know and what I knew how to do was enable it...to grow and get worse for the alcoholic and myself with the best intentions of having the very best of life LOL. One of the very first things I came to understand in my face to face meetings was that, regarding things alcoholic...I didn't know and I didn't know that I didn't know. Clueless and Braindead....so how could I arrive at an answer for why did I just stop by for sex from a person I didn't want to be around with anymore? All the other questions came with the same suggestion ...The answer lays within who Jerry F really is or Susie Q...I needed to find the answers to the why me questions.
You can do it in this program as suggested and then the miracles come when you leave the alcoholic as he is and start to change you. Saying "NO!!" to Susie Q becomes more valuable than "NO!!" to the alcoholic. Build a set of values for yourself and build a boundary around them with you inside. That's just a suggestion cause I use to crash my boundaries, evidenced by my feelings of guilt and concern and loss after I did.
Don't worry about perfection. Your awareness and experience must also include that we are for progress only.
You're soooo human and I for one am in support. Keep coming back (((((hugs)))))
PS...As long as you have memory...there is no such thing as a divorce.
-- Edited by Jerry F on Sunday 18th of October 2009 08:25:44 PM
Hugs to you. I was reading your post and I feel for you and honestly I have been there. I have come to recent realization... I have an A husband who is 2 years sober which is great but before he got sober I filed for divorce and "let go" completely and met another man this is infact what drove my husband over the edge and so he says is what made him realize he needed to get sober. The other man well he is the party guy bad boy and it has taken me this long to realized that I was jumping back into the fire... so to say. To make a long story short I am addicted to the caios of addiction this was my great realization that I have just recently had and I am angry at my self.
Deep down you know the many reasons that you divorced, which doesn't mean you stop caring or loving but there was a reason. I say stay strong and work on you for the key to letting go is concentrating on yourself. Well for me it was.
