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Does anyone else find themselves mourning the life they should have had?
I went home last night, once again, to my AH who had obviously been doing something that day, he showed all the tell tell signs. I did my job and didn't say anything, pretended everything was normal. He went to bed at 6pm and even though I had a nice quiet night I found myself sad.
I ignore his behaviors, he lies to be about what he is doing, we are loving to one another much of the time but I always feel like it is contingent on my behavior (not his), and sometimes the weitght of it all just crashes in. I look at other people's husbands, ones who are dependable, kind, capable, and I just get overwhelmed with where I am. I don't know if want to leave him, but I don't know that I want to stay. Just feeling 'blah' about it all this morning. Happy Wednesday!
I 100% believe in grieving the life I thought Id have. I go back and do that sometimes. I have to grieve that dream life when I the resentments I have come popping up like buoys in a calm lake. Its like its all quiet til I start thinking of specific incidents in which I was lied to and manipulated and then the buoys, boing, boing.. the resentments come again. I have to remind myself a couple things... The first thing I think about is whether or not what I am feeling is even from that day, because often my anger and resentment is from 6 months ago. Then I have to think of my husband as the soul he is and a person with a bad disease and put it into perspective.. if he had MS how would I feel about this? how about diabetic but he didn't take his insulin and ate sweets... how would i feel? I probably would still have some anger, but would I think about what other people's lives look like..maybe? but not in an embarrassment way that's for sure. I have really come to accept that many of the agreements I made in this life had to do with what other people thought.. does this shirt look good on me? If they think it does... is my husband a good man? compared to whom? Living in the moment and not comparing anymore that is the key. We are all just human, no one is perfect and especially not me. There have been times that I have tried detachment so hard that it wasn't with love.. I bended too far backwards. Sometimes its necessary to communicate my feelings, if I want a successful marriage that is. However, I used to talk about my husband's drug use in terms as if he could will it and as if he is a weak willed person or worse.. a horrible person, a dirt bag... and society seems to think that way about drug addicts and drop down drunks.. but the truth is.. my husband is not weak willed or a dirt bag... he is a wonderful man with a beautiful heart and soul and unfortunately he has been overcome by an absolutely horrid progressive disease.. one of which there is no cure and is out to kill him.. An addict can't will his sobriety.. but there is recovery; spiritual, emotional, psychological.... I am very blessed because my husband just celebrated 2 months in AA yesterday. I could not make him do it, I can't make him keep doing it... that is up to him.. But I learned I could help aide his recovery.. by getting my own recovery.
Another thing I think is important is to say what you mean, mean what you say.. don't say it mean.. that's what I do now. Before Al-Anon when my husband would not help me around the house, I would huff and puff and expect him to read my mind... now I look at him and say "Can you please take the garbage out?" He takes the garbage out, I do other duties, Im not angry, and he's not lazy. I am rambling on and on.. but what I want you to know, surfgirl, is that I think EVERYONE will at some point grieve the life they thought they would have because of the expecations we put on our life to be.. the only way we can feel anger and resentment toward someone or this life is if we put expectations on them... they did not let us down, the expectations we made for them let us down. When my husband relapsed the second time I was debating whether to leave him or not. When I decided I did not have to make a decision to leave my husband, I felt relief.. I would just say, today I am not deciding. I decided in the process that I loved my husband. I started saying "okay, just for today I will really focus on myself." I kept reminding myself that it IS a disease. I started to ignore all the societal agreements and expectations that I set for myself due to what others expected or what others seemed to be like.. I would just allow my heart and soul to be with my husband's heart and soul when we were together. When I had happy moments of laughter.. or when I just felt alive with him, I would smile and remind myself that that memory was now always mine.. no one could take it. And so I would live in the moment just for that day.
I hope I helped at least a little, take what you like and leave the rest :0)
-- Edited by Michelle814 on Wednesday 25th of January 2012 06:16:04 PM
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Michelle!
No one can take away your peace of mind unless you let them.
Oh, how I know your feeling. I have a lot of friends whose husbands are 'normal'. But, I do have a friend who I thought had the perfect life. She looks like Paris Hilton's twin, her husband is a pilot for an airline and does well and is tall, thin, and blonde. Her 2 children are gorgeous replicas of their parents. When I met her, I remember thinking that she had the life: good looking husband, great kids, beautiful home, they had a speedboat and a sports car. Well, after being very good friends with her for about 4 years and our boys were friends, too, I realized that her life was all smoke and mirrors. Her husband would hide beer bottles in the kid's rooms, she found empties on his boat while it sat in their side yard, she'd catch him drunk at dinner time thinking he was drinking water in a red cup but it turns out it was vodka. He had a few violent rages and there were times she would call me at 11 PM while she was driving, just trying to escape her own madness and his. I finally came to realize that just because people look 'normal' on the outside, doesn't mean that what goes on behind closed doors is peachy keen. The grass is NOT always greener, we just think it is because people don't want you to see their truths or what is their 'normal'.
Despite all that, I do still long for what I feel I have been cheated out of. It was the first thing I thought about this AM when I woke up. My AH often asks me 'what's wrong?' Umm, the fact that you lie and I've lost respect for you and I find your behavior sad, etc. He'll say, "Oh, that. I thought maybe it was something else." I think he thinks that my ignoring his drinking will make me forget that he does it. So, I think he has a false sense of hope that I'm giving him freedom to make his own choices and that he won't be held accountable but in reality, I am doing it to protect myself and to put myself first instead of putting him first, at least when it comes to that issue. Anyway, this got longer than I expected and I just wanted to say that yes, I feel blah about it too.
You don't have to decide today. And yes, I used to feel that way in past relationships. That is not uncommon. We can only force something to work that is not working for so long before it leads to a serious resentment (not saying for sure this is the case for you but sounds like it might be).
Thanks for the quick replies! I always feel better to know I'm not alone. "Ilovedogs' thank you for your post, you are right. I know it sounds crazy but I keep hearing an old Meatloaf song in my head that always makes me smile, the end of the song where he is trying to get the girl, finally gets her by declaring his love till the end of time, then it becomes "so now I'm praying for the end of time, to hurry up and arrive cuz if I gotta spend another minute with you I don't think that I can really surviving, I'll never break my promise or forget my vows but God only knows what I can do right now, I'm praying for the end of time so I can end my time with you". A bit of levity for me in an impossible situation. Whatever it takes to get thru the day, right! :)
Oh, I absolutely know that feeling. Very, very painful. The disappoinment has, at times, been extremely overwhelming. My sponser reminds me to not compare my insides to someone else's outsides when I look at everyone else's "better" marriages and husbands. The serentiy prayer helps me too when i am having those feelings. Sending you support as you work through these painful, understandable feelings. big hug
I was told, "Compare and despair." I compared a lot and began to take notice, it did nothing to make me feel GOOD.
For me, the process of awareness and acceptance was accompanied by grief. It's normal to grieve what's been lost, I had to give myself time to grieve. To be gentle with myself, choosing thoughts that made me feel good. That was about all I could control.
Mark is right, you don't have to feel the pressure of "doing" anything today, no need to fix or avoid the pain, just "be" where you are. I learned to say to myself, "There is unhappiness in me." Just observing. And accepting what is.
I would go to the park during my grieving period, the trees and water and the sky soothed me, it's where I feel closest to Higher power, and when I feel most calm.
Step three makes me feel good too. When I can truly turn my will and my life over to the One who owns the universe... I can relax.
((big hugs))
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The prayer isn't for Higher Power to change our lives, but rather to change us.
At times I have a "resentment" toward my ABF. Why did he have to say and do all the right things to make me fall in love with him and hide the fact that we was an alcoholic. Yeah I knew he drank, we went out and drank together. But no I didn't know the situation was as bad as it was, and there was drugging involved too. When I figured it out I walked away. I wouldn't live that way. So why did he get clean and sober? Was it for me? Maybe in the beginning it's what started it, but it led him to discover he was screwing up his life and he needed to quit for him and his kids and his life. So here is this man I fell in love with, working hard to stay sober and I see the man he is becoming and I still want to be with him. It's a struggle every single day. The past three days he's basically slept because he didn't want to deal with the reality of life. But I get up and go to work and deal with it, why can't he? Because (in his own mind) he has an excuse, he's an alcoholic and if he has to deal with the real world he's gonna go drink.
So for the past two evenings I have sat by myself while he slept, hiding from the world. He gets up this morning and wants me to make him coffee and fix him lunch for work. I am thinking why the hell should I? You haven't done anything around here the past 3 days! I don't say it, I just tell him I don't have time and have to get to work. Then I think, that's not right. But I don't know what's right or wrong in these situations. All I know is he's not drinking and not drugging and even though this is not what I had expected our life to be, there is still hope. He's only 3 months into sobriety so it's still hard for us both. And I am new to Al-Anon so I have a lot to learn too.
I certainly feel the same way. I also spend mental energy pondering how someone I thought I knew could turn out to be so damaged, and yes - I do have the unhealthy habit of comparing him to others who seem to have their act together. I am actually having a lot of trouble banishing these thoughts right now. My way of dealing with it is trying to remember that I have lots to be thankful for. Living in the moment and trying not to overthink the negative is hard. I do like danni's sponsor's saying not to compare your insides with others' outsides. There is lots of truth to that. Hugs, nyc
I had this regret and then it abated. When my life got better, one day I realized when I live in the present it makes no sense to wish I wish I had always been this happy. I just want to experience it now. I no longer had the resentment. The mourning had tapered off. With several moments of happiness strung together (because of course my joy didn't endure in the same form), I could count on distress being temporary. I could make changes! I don't know a lot of country music, but the one about going to the high school reunion and seeing the old girlfriend he had tried to negotiate with God to "make her mine" sounds spot on. Years later, he has a life that would not include his high school girlfriend, and the same is true of the old girlfriend's life. Ha! It does get better - there's hard work ahead, but the goal is completely worth it. Jill
I have been doing that very same thing for the past few months. I think it is part of my recovery - there's nothing to say I can't have that "life" - I just need to work on me to get there but it sure is a struggle. I've been mourning the childhood I should have had and I fully believe if I had it my life now and the choices I made would be very different.
I have found the al-anon book Opening our Hearts, Transforming our Losses, to be a great help. It talks about grief in lots of areas.
I myself have felt the lonliness many times. Sometimes now I'll ask him to stay up a bit longer with me and then we go to bed together. It's like he needs reminding that the children and myself enjoy his company. That he is part of the family unit.
Not to discount your feelings at all, Lord knows I've been there too. But years down the road I have come to know that holding on to the dream of what my life should be felt likeself punishment. The more I held on, the more I could blame my husband for preventing it and I could build resentments..a bunch of them. I could continue to be angry and generally feel bad about my life
What I know now is that it was my dream. I can't make anyone play their roll in it. The other thing that dawned on me is that a dream isn't solid. It's invented, a fantasy. If one dream didn't work, instead of carrying what's not working in to my future, I was free create a new one. So, I asked myself what I loved. You always hear "follow your bliss". What in the realm of possibilities could I do? It turns out there were several small things that I could find joy in. I even pulled off a big one, which was living by the ocean for a while. It's truly amazing what doors open when you make a decision and work toward it
Christy.
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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.
You guys are all amazing! You help me get my head space back to a place of calm, hearing your stories and gathering your strength is an immense gift in my life. Thank you all, your words are powerful. Prayers to all! :)
I mourned the life I imagined and I lived in the fantasy that things would one day again be the way they were when we were at our very best and that fantasy kept me holding on for a long time. It's hard to see things clearly for what they really are and not what we want them to be when you're in the middle of the situation. They always say hindsight is 20/20. Things will get better because everything passes. The hard thing for me to get is that good times pass too and sometimes they don't come back.
Oh yeah, I've definitely been there. Not that I ever compared my life to that of others. But I was stuck in the rut of comparing my life as it was/is as to what I believed it should be. It took a long while to realize that my dream of life together with my A was just that-a dream. A pretty dream, but a dream all the same. We can plan and look forward to what we think our future will hold. But there are no guarantees. If my life isn't the way I thought it would be, that doesn't mean it would be what I think it should be even if he didn't drink. He could be perfectly sober and there could be other things to ruin the dream-legal problems, financial problems, health problems, etc. This is the life I've been given. It's not the life I thought i would have, but it's up to me to make the most of it.
before I found recovery, yes ... I often felt that way. recovery ... working & living the Al-Anon program has changed that ... and I am very grateful.
doing the 4th & 5th step was the key to opening up this new world for me ... I found that I had been the cause of most of my misery ... not consciously, of course ... I'm not a sadist/masochist as my Mom has said on more than one occasion ... but I have made bad choices, followed by more bad choices, most of my life. even when I knew a decision was bad, I had a tendency to continue with it to "prove" that I wasn't a failure. unfortunately, the only person I was truly hurting was myself!!!
my life now isn't all roses ... I still face plenty of problems on a frequent basis ... what's different is knowing that I'm not alone (my HP is always with me) and I have choices (to be happy, to be miserable, to be sane, to be insane, etc). my husband is in recovery but I know that he may drink at any time - he has a disease. the only thing I can do is live MY life the way that is best for me. I have accepted he has a disease and I cannot do anything about it ... or him.
I believe the answer to your dilemma lies in acceptance. Acceptance that you are exactly where you are supposed to be right now. Only you can determine what is and is not acceptable for you. Maybe you cannot reach acceptance of him/his disease ... then you need to act accordingly and make the changes necessary for YOU. If you are able to reach acceptance regarding him/his disease, then too you will be able to act accordingly and make the changes necessary for you to LIVE without the "should've been's".
hope this helps ... God Bless You
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There are people in your life whom you unknowingly inspire simply by being you.
