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.
Hi everyone.. just checking in. Things with me are great! Have been going to the gym 3 times a week for 6 months now..lot some weight, gained some self confidence. I am getting happier with me. Progress not perfection is what is driving me this time, so I am not getting discouraged by the fact that the scales do not drop 2 lbs every week. Things with the active AH, well, you probably all know... getting progressively worse as the months go by.. he still thinks he is in control and not hurting anyone.
I just wanted to post about a resentment that I hold, not of a person, but of a place. The garage. I have 4th stepped my resentment of that place. When we built it, (pre Al-anan days) I joked with everyone that it would be the cause of our divorce. But I have come to realize that I was speaking the truth. I fought and fought and fought to not build that building because I thought If he doesn't have a garage, he won't drink as much. I udes every stalling tactic, endured many fights. I fought and fought, until I realized that I would rather have him drinking in the garage than right in my living room or in the basement. So we built it. And my predictions came true. Increased drinking and increased withdrawl from our family in the darn garage. I HATED that garage. Looking at the darn thing with the doors open, knowing he was hiding in there drinking made me angry and sick. Recently he brought home a woodstove so he can heat it in the winter (just waht he needs, a warm cozy place to drink all winter while he is laid off...). At first my old ways reared their heads... How can I stop this... Can I say we don't have insurance for it...money for it???? How, how how... spin spin spin....And then I paused. Let go, and let god.
I see the garage as a new place now. A place where my AH's HP can get at him. A place where hopefully he will reach his bottom harder and faster than the slow and angonizing desent that could other wise happen. I see it as a place where he can do his thing without interfereing with mine... It is a good place. A place that helps with my serenity. And who am I to stand in the way of a grown man putting a woodstove in his garage. Not my business.
The garage and the woodstove may also get the situtation so bad that I will finally hit MY bottom and be done with this living with active alcoholism. And God will send me the sign that I have been wating for that it is time to leave.
So my fear and resentment of the garage, once I looked at it, was fear and resentment of AH drinking. I was able to release my fear and resentment of the garage, and come to see it for what it really is. A nice dry place to store lawnmowers and kids bikes! And through Al-Anon and the board, I have also learned to be serene even while he is drinking, because I did not cause it, I cannot control it and I cannot cure it (and neither did the garage). I need to go out to the garage now and say sorry to it.. I owe it an amends!
MissPoo, Thank you, My AH has a garage full of tools and he has a propane heater for the winter. I hate that garage. He used to drink only in the garage but has graduated to the backyard around the fire pit. Never thought of the garage that way before. Thank you debbie
I really loved your post. Thank you for it. Your Al Anon growth is readily apparent. Especially when you say that the garage may make the situation worse so that your HP will then guide you about leaving or staying. That is really wise, and also a brave thing for you to have accepted and admitted.
We bought a boat in 2009. My AH would always drink on the boat, and there were severaly horribly drunken incidents on the boat where I really hit my bottom. Also, because we were on a boat on the river, I could not get away from him when he was drinking. It was awful; I was trapped.
I came to really resent that boat. I actually feel sick to my stomach when I set foot on it, even though he has almost 3 months of sobriety now. (His only relapse also occurred on the freaking boat.)
Right now I am simply honoring my feelings about the boat. I go there as little as I can and use any excuse not to go on it. Before, as a codependent, I would have gone on the boat anyway, just to please him. No more. However, I hope to somehow get to the place you are where I can make peace with the boat.
Thanks for setting off some good thinking about this resentment today. Take care,
-- Edited by Cloudsea on Saturday 25th of September 2010 09:57:20 AM
I feel as though I've been hit with a "garage full" of insight!
For me, my garage, is the travel trailer I convinced exaH to buy in 2007 so that we could enjoy family camping excursions, without the bother of setting up a tent and camp each time we ventured out. Then I convinced him that we should get a seasonal site, so that we wouldn't have to tote back and forth all the necessary items, since we both loved camping so much. All this did was give exaH a place away from us, to run to when things got too much for him at home, or to take some time for himself at, when he was working late and I'd be in bed anyways, or to have the friends out to rather than them bothering me at the house. The trailer became the mistress. The trailer was an easier life than the one at home and exaH likes EASY. I came to hate that trailer. I felt very betrayed by it. Still do.
Like you and your garage, Ihope the trailer becomes a place where HP and exaH can work out where to go from here... I nor the trailer caused it, can control it, or can cure it.
. 
<--woot! woot!