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 really need to try to detach from my 'estranged' AH....I have to for my sanity and to give myself 100% to my kids. I'm tired of every inch of my mind being consumed with the AH. I need my power back, but I don't know how to get it back. I know people who have been divorced from a relationship for years, and neither one was even an A.....but they still have so much anger towards the other, it's all they talk about. I don't want to be one of those people who years down the road is still holding on to the craziness of my AH. I guess it'll probably be inevitable as long as my A is 'around' If I never had to see him again...I think it would be so much easier to let go......
Is there any easy answers? Any easy ways to take the focus off of them and back on myself and my kids? I'm mentally exhausted from it, it takes up my every waking moment and my entiring brain while I sleep. This will be the first holiday that we won't be celebrating as a family, and it's very hard. Actually, I should take that back...there have been holidays in the past that he was either wasted or in a hospital, so we didn't get to celebrate those together...but this time it's different.
My daughter and I (she's the youngest of the kids..almost 8) were at Target tonight and just out of the blue she tells me our dog Dozer needs stuff for his stocking for Christmas. Then she says he needs a stocking. So what she tells me next is that we should take 'dad's' stocking, turn it around and write Dozers name on it! I couldn't help but laugh, it was so funny, and I see how she is so detached from her dad. How does she do it? Why can't I?
It's so hard, isn't it? They take up space in our brains and don't even pay rent.
For me, I've found it's useful to make a list of everything that went wrong and the ways he was dysfunctional. Then I look at it when I'm tempted to romanticize things -- which is far too often.
I've also found that moving on with my own life helps some. Like, building new traditions he's never had a part in, doing fun things that never involved him. They remind me that my life is separate and I can have a full, rich life of things that I create. My life was always bigger than just the part with him, but sometimes I forget that when I overfocus on him.
I read once that "Overfocusing on one thing is a way of underfocusing on something else." And it's true that overfocusing on the wrongs done to me is a way of avoiding my own life and what it's lacking now. I think when we struggle with an A's problems and behavior, we end up neglecting a lot of other parts of life. Then there's nothing left to think about but the A. Building those other parts back up is part of our recovery.
It took a while, but I think of my X as having his own path and am grateful that I have my own. I had to deal with him while my girls were growing up. They are adults now and I no longer have to speak to him. What he does and what he has done is all his to carry. It does not belong in my head or on my shoulders. I had to come to a place that made me realize my part. He did not MAKE me feel one way or the other. It was me that turned his actions in to whatever my mind wished to see it as. He was just being who he is.
I did have many resentments and saw myself as a victim, but I managed to hand it all back to him on a silver platter. "Here is all your dysfunction. Take it, along with with all your craziness and be gone." With that, I could mentally choose what I wanted for MY life and quit allowing him space in my head. I asked myself who I wanted to be. Spritually and mentally. Did I want to spend my life wasting time on resentment? On things I couldn't change. Or did I want to seperate our paths and see my own as a learning journey, taking from it things that enhanced my journey. Mentally, he gets the plate full of his stuff to carry. He was/is not an alcoholic, just an a**. His plate seems to get fuller and fuller. I saw him recently. He is still carrying a huge plate of hot mess.
I gave myself a clean plate to put whatever I choose on it. So, I officially pass you your own clean plate to fill with whatever you choose. If you put something distasteful on it by mistake...just scrape it off in to the garbage. :)
Christy
__________________
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 are being unbelievably hard on yourself.
I know when the ex A caused such tremendous, unremitting harm to my life it was extremely hard not to obsess day and night. I had to really really practice detaching. At times I had to sound off. I still do sound off. None of us are perfect. Detachment is incredibly hard. Detaching from an A is like picking up a 300 lb weight before you can pick up the 5 lb weight. Practice on the small things and work up.
I'm three years out of a relationship with a now ex A. I think I am only now begining to let go. I know for me it was a long long time of detachment and a lot of working through to get there. Be kind to yourself. I know I was in a very long relationship and getting out was a tremendous undertaking. Maresie.
