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Today has been one of those days, I'm sure many of you can relate. For some reason, I am getting irritated at myself because I still don't trust my AH. I have forgiven him for all the crap and for the DUI, but I still find myself struggling with trust issues.
My therapist thinks that maybe he hasn't hit his 'bottom', whatever that may be for him. He was drinking the NA beer for a while, but I haven't seen him do that for a week or so. He has stopped his antidepressant and lied to me about taking it, but has started taking it again yesterday. I just feel like he's always moving the target on me, and that he's not even aware he's doing it. It's just who he is and I'm seeing everything as a 'trust' issue.
I am very filled with worry right now and I know it's not a healthy feeling. Most of it is regarding the future and how he'll handle the ignition interlock and how it relates to his driving restrictions in the future. I can already hear him justifying driving without the interlock because he needs to do it to keep his job, etc.
Here's what worries me and I keep creating scenarios about how I'm going to handle things because I know his nature. He most likely will try to circumvent the interlock(he already mentioned buying a beater car and putting the interlock on that car while he drives his regular car illegally) and I wonder how he's going to figure out the travel for work? He is a master manipulator and very good at lying. I guess I keep wondering where I set a boundary here: we have a 13 year old and if dad doesn't follow the law, what do I do/say regarding our son? I know it seems like I'm grasping at straws but I'm creating my scenarios based on things he's said in passing during the past few weeks. I mean, this is the man who purposely kept slamming his work laptop computer on the ground trying to break it and then sent it back to his company(broken and having sat in his hot car at the airport for a week), lied to them about how it broke, and did it in front of our son. And, when I challenged him on it he said that he was justified and he was just retaliating because of their change in commission plan which he felt punished his efforts. Yep, I sometimes can see the writing on the wall and I wish I couldn't. UGH! One day at a time, I know that, but I also want to be prepared for any antics in the future. I guess I'm tired of getting blindsided by his crazy making behavior.
I already know I need to work on me. I know I need to stop focusing on HIM, but today just happens to be one of those days, LOL! Two steps forward, one step back, but at least I'm making some progress!
Boy, do I ever know the worry involving my children and how addictive behavior will spill on to them. Keeping them from it feels something like trying to hold up a waterfall.
Is your son in alateen? I was thinking, instead of YOU having to tell him anything, maybe he could learn the very gentle lessons of self care there.
House Cat, welcome to MIP! I like your waterfall analogy, too! No, he's not in Al A teen yet. Most of the meetings are inconvenient but I heard at my Al Anon meeting that they are thinking of adding Al Ateen to a Friday meeting night at a location that's close enough to our house. For now, I just keep telling my son that he can feel free to ask any questions he has regarding dad and what happened, etc. Luckily, my AH was responsible enough to sit son down after the DUI and told him that he is taking full responsibility for his actions and that he will be using the DUI as a hard life lesson learned. We'll see how things go moving forward through the next few months, though.
You forgive at a much quicker rate than I have been able to .. even the DUI .. I still get angry over that only not so much now as it doesn't affect me now. In the beginning boy that was a toughie and it's not that it's good to stay angry, .. it's not .. it just came in waves for me. I would think I was done and then something would happen and boy oh boy .. off to the races again.
All my worry about what might, could, should and darn wouldn't it just happen already didn't change what was coming down the pipe. I still struggle with the other shoe dropping not as bad now. As my faith has grown proportionally my worry has gone down. I just don't believe that God is going to bring me this far to drop me on my butt. I believe that for all people .. and we all have different life lessons to learn as well.
You keep doing what you are doing and keep the focus on you. I know it's hard to stay there .. each day I stay a little longer and feel better about doing so. My kids are thriving considering the situation they are in it's not perfect .. you know what that's ok .. they shouldn't be perfect anymore than I am. The fact we laugh more, love more, argue less and criticize less, means more to me each day of what things would be like if nothing had changed.
It's so much easier for me to see that DUI as a blessing even though it's brought a whole lot of pain .. pain is a great motivator of change and no one could have told me this time last year this is where I would be at the moment and life is getting better all the time.
Hugs P :)
PS - you are exactly where you need to be in your own healing have faith that you will know what you know when you need to know it. :)
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Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation, which is not nurturing to the whole woman.- Maya Angelo
Sometimes it's just good to get it out here on the board and let it go. You didn't cause it, cant control it and can't cure it but you know that already. Your AH may not be ready today to be a good role model for your son. His thinking is skewed. You have recovery and can continue to set a good example and enjoy time with son while his dad suffers the consequences of his actions. TT
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Surround yourself with people and elements that support your destiny, not just your history.
P, I wish I could see the DUI as a blessing, maybe that will happen further down the road. I do know that it comes in waves, too. I just feel like I'm always suspicious of him and many times it's convoluted thinking and not fact that gets me there. I feel like this is going to be a long week!
Trust will not be so big of an issue when you really really trust yourself and trust your own higher power. You can choose not to worry because you are capable of handling things that come your way with your own higher power behind you. Yes, you have gotten feedback to "Stop thinking about him." I know it's not that easy. This is how you do it though. It's sort of roundabout but through increasing your faith and your self-esteem through alanon program tools and also the therapy, readings...etc... You will get there one way or another. None of these things you are worried about are really occurring today. Hence, you can rest assured that today has just as much potential as any other day to be the best day of your life.
The only thing I wanted to add is that at any time and this is true for all of us, we get to start our day over again .. now .. lol .. you may want to start it over 10x - 100x from time to time .. the best part of this program is knowing that I can do that any time as many times as I need to .. just to realign my thinking.
At some point you will see the DUI as a blessing .. that's when the anger truly starts to leave because as bad as it was .. you can see the positive out of it. It's not an easy task .. if you asked me Sept 8, 2010 if I saw the DUI as a blessing .. ohh .. safe to say DUCK (and there are a few things that rhyme with the word "duck" that I said as well, "muck" wasn't one of them) would have been the word of the day around me because I would have thrown something at someone .. lol.
You'll get there and you will get there because you will be working your program which includes exactly what everyone else has been saying. You will get the focus off of him, get the stuff out here or in the meetings and you will feel better about you, and you will trust your HP. If you have that .. everything else kind of falls into line. Now not to say it happens perfectly every day because it doesn't and I'd be selling a big line of BS if I said that or pretended that's how life works .. I do get to change my perception of the situation and come from a place where I can automatically do the 1,2,3 waltz to move through those times of starting my day over (and sometimes over and over again :)) My friend you will get there and you just need to have faith in you and your HP. You are exactly where you need to be right now.
Hugs P :)
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Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation, which is not nurturing to the whole woman.- Maya Angelo
My life literally hung around the ex A. I ate, slept, worked all day with the apprehension of what he might be doing. I called him all day and all night. I looked at his phone log all the time. I was absolutely obsessed with him.
For me when I got the point of being willing to look at al anon I had reached the point of total exhaustion.
Then I had to stop. The ex A went on to crash car after car. He was apprehended regularly and our truck was towed more than once (he hid that from me so well). Lies fell out of his mouth more than any notion of the truth. He had no conscience whatsoever at times.
What happened for me was that I had to let go of the worry, control and obsession because I was going under. I was by that time suicidal. I couldn't work out what to do next, think next, fear next. All there was was one unending fear.
So I had to stop. The now ex A actually liked it when I stopped focusing on him he got to party, have his friends over. I didn't say much. At the same time I was working on me not working on what he was going to do next. I could no longer throw myself in front of the truck.
Of course none of that happened overnight. I slipped all over the place. I could still find myself in a place where I was obsessing about him. The good thing was since I had stopped at certain points I knew I could stop again.
The now ex A did all kinds of things that he felt justified. Most of them were directed towards me. He labelled me as the problem and that hurt.
Now that doesn't hurt anymore because I know it was all about his using and his need to keep on using. I'm no longer in the way of that of course since I left him but I am also no longer at the brunt of alcoholism.
Give yourself a break, detach, work on it one minute at a time, detach, keep going back to detaching. Take care of yourself. Take the focus off him one minute at a time.
