Changing my view of women - Al-Anon Family Group

InspiredPhotography · Senior Member

Changing my view of women

slogan_jim · Senior Member

Hello, my name is Slogan_Jim and I am a grateful member of al-anon. I am 28 years old and have been a member for 2.5 years. I would like to share on my life experiences with the women in my life and alcoholism has affected my perception.

I grew up in a home where my father was the alcoholic. My mom developed schizophrenia when I was about 17 and my dad blamed himself. That's when his drinking really amped up. My mother distanced herself from everyone (her kids, her parents, her siblings, my father) and only called when she needed something. She became very demanding and at 17, I was overwhelmed with the prospect of taking care of my mother, who showed no willingness to help herself. She and her entire family are now estranged. We've spoken very sporadically in the last 10 years as she never answers her phone or her apt. buzzer.

My dad began to date another woman who was also an alcoholic. She moved in with us and used our family to win her custody battle. She was very nasty, verbally abusive, alcoholic and put me down for not being interested in my mother's well-being.

My dad began to date another woman, who was also verbally abusive toward me, also berated me for not taking care of my mom. She had 5 sons living at home and 3 were also alcoholic. She put her children on a pedestal, even my sister, yet she absolutely hated me. Never really gave a reason. I think it's because she was upset that I couldn't fix my dad, and neither could she. As the eldest, she thought it was my responsibility.

When I was 25, a friend introduced me to a girl. He did so with the intention of us getting together. Everytime I would talk to her he would tell everyone to be quiet and the room would go silent.....awkward :S.....even after i realized there was no chemistry, all the guys insisted I keep trying. She wound up falling for another guy in our social circle and I had to sit back and watch. A few then made fun of me. I felt so humiliated and rejected. Over time, I've found out she's made her way around to like 3 other guys I know. But, I just wasn't good enough.

I feel this has lead to me having a very negative perception of women. I realize that i am very lonely. This has resulted in me developing a lot of anger, bitterness, sexual frustration (it's been over 2 years) hopelessness, and arrogance. I get angry when some guy friends find mates, especially if I feel that I am 'more worthy'.

I have friends, an active social life, but I cant have fun whenever I go out because I show up alone, I leave alone and I come home to an empty apartment. I am surrounded by couples who I feel are laughing at me, judging me and thinking less of me because I just 'cant do it.' I cant get a woman to love me. There have been no signs that this will change. I feel absolutely hopeless. I am scared that I will die alone. I am tired of being alone. Tired of facing life alone. I cant do this anymore and I dont know where to turn.

Thank You.

Pushka · ~*Service Worker*~

Hugs SJ,

thanks for the share, .. I can relate in terms of having very skewd views of men.

Have you considered individual therapy in joint conjunction with your alanon work? As well as working with a sponsor and working the steps. The individual therapy can help and I use it in terms of working through areas I'm stuck in my own program. It sounds like there is a lot of self esteem issues to deal with. Why you think you would be better off with someone who has gone through 3 of your guy friends is perplexing to me even when you admitted there was no chemistry between the two of you? I don't need to know you to know you serve to be someone's something vs better than nothing. That is something for you to address and find answers to, I find with individual therapy it gives me an outlet and ideas to deal with whatever self esteem issues I have going on.

I can usually go back to me being powerless over people, places, things and the past. I have to really work those steps in order to move forward. I can't make someone love me or like me if they don't and chances are if they don't .. it's just so not about me. I can choose to take it personally or I can choose to have a different response to the situation.

The book that has helped me the most has been Melody Beatties Co Dependent No More. I don't know from a guys stand point if that's a book that would speak to a man the same way it spoke to me. KWIM? There is another book written by a man by the name of Andy Andrews The Travellers Gift you might enjoy and there is a lot of good stuff about life, responsibility for our choices, being a person of action and it goes on. It's a place ot start and it's an interesting read.

I have NO idea if that makes any sense or not, .. lol .. some days I have an easier time putting ideas into words than others. I just understand how difficult it can be to wonder what makes me unlovable .. again I have to go back to me and why I would think that when my HP made uniquely special, and I am loveable .. until I can find that out about myself then I'm not ready for a real relationship.

Keep coming back, hugs P :)

hotrod · ~*Service Worker*~

HI Slogan Jim

I am so very glad that YOU found alanon and are attending.face to face meetings I can so identify with what you are feeling Living with this disease we all develop negative destructive attitude and tools to live by.

These tools resulted in my feeling just as you shared. I lost all my self esteem,I was always angry, resentful full of self pity and fear. I viewed the glass as half full and held no hope for the future

.

That was before alanon, the tools,the meetings the Steps, slogans and a sponsor.

Slowly I began to feel my self worth. I began to stop judging others and then I stopped worrying about how they judged me. I learned to take care of myself one day at a time trusting HP and today I can truly say I am happy.

It is an inside job and when we work on the inside the outside changes Please keep coming back you deserve to be happy.

Jerry F · ~*Service Worker*~

Aloha Jim...don't know how much help I'll be and still want to say that I've been there and done that also and at times was glad I was alone when I showed up somewhere because I was with me...a person I could trust and who I had learned to love unconditionally and therefore didn't walk around very lonely unlike before when I was going thru separation anxiety or divorce or something similar which made me feel like what you've also felt. In time in recovery I came to learn the difference between loving someone and "needing" someone which was absolute rocket science to my scrambled historical way of thinking. When I learned to love without the need to "have" any "special" person in my life other than 1. My Higher Power and then 2. and 3. myself and everyone else the problem was solved. Today I'm married again for the 3rd time which as lasted longer than the first two combined to a person/woman who is perfectly okay as she is without needing to highlight my presence in her life. We have a lot of the same friends and sometimes we share time with them as a married couple and at other times individuals. We don't forget the principles of our marriage and our programs. We know where we come from regarding prior relationships with alcoholics and alcoholic/addicts and are pretty successful at not duplicating those events in our life. We have our program...our individual programs and don't get enmeshed in the others journey. We are not on the same trail together and have our own trails within sight and sound of each other. I love her...I don't need her. I've never needed her so marrying her was a sober, sane decision not a leap of faith. It was more of a leap of faith for her because in order to have me as husband/partner she had to come 2600 miles over the Pacific Ocean to a strange group of islands and ancient culture to do it. She has not regretted the marriage...she has regretted the move because of course her tap root is elsewhere. She gets to up and go back home frequently...sometimes I go with her. We do happiness together and sometimes apart...We do sadness together as sadness is often better handled in a bunch of spirits rather than alone...hence why MIP and the program working sooo well.

I changed my view of women because it was the women of Al-Anon who saved my butt. When I got into the program there were two other men around somewhere and then there was me and a bunch of ladies who treated me with honesty and unconditional love. They used compassion and understanding in order to be around me very often and for that I am beyond gratitude because I was a walking definition of insane when I came thru the doors. I won't speak about the women in my family of orgin other than to say that all of them where daughters of alcoholics and addicts. Life wasn't very much fun or happy for me from the delivery room onward.

Anyhow how about coffee after a meeting...the meeting after the meeting and getting to know the gals in the program...take your time...HP first ...you next ...then others. You don't have anything to prove. Keep coming back (((hugs))) smile

pinkchip · ~*Service Worker*~

You wrote in your share - "I just wasn't good enough" That right there is the one thing that needs to change. You are good enough. It's hard to build self esteem. It takes work and it takes stepping way out of your comfort zone. The thoughts that you are unworthy and not good enough are what separates your from others.

slogan_jim · Senior Member

Thank You guys,

I am looking to love someone and not 'need' someone. If I 'needed' someone I'd probably be in some dead-end miserable relationship. I'd rather be alone than in that. I value myself enough not to put myself through that kind of a thing. I know for a fact I deserve a happy loving relationship where we compliment eachother and not a co-dependant relationship in which our happiness is dependant on the other. Maybe that's why it's taking me some time. Deep down I want to do it right (for me) and I know I need to work on some stuff.

The women of al-anon (and there are plenty) have been a HUGE help. They are always excited to see me, hug me, say they are proud of me. Things not many women have done or said to me in a very long time. I wish there were more women my age in the program in my area, but I love them nonetheless.

Jerry F · ~*Service Worker*~

YAY!!! Lets give it up for the women in Al-Anon!!

Yip Yip hooray!!.... (many of them don't like to hear you yell Hip Hip...)

lol (((((hugs))))) smile

InspiredPhotography · Senior Member

HOOOOOOOOOOORAY! :)

Temple · ~*Service Worker*~

Bless your heart!
Congratulations on two and a half years in Alanon!
You are a very resilient young man, to have grown up with so little nurturing and yet you have the stuff to want to have a better life than was modeled for you.

I don't think anybody is judging you or laughing at you. And I can certainly understand how you could feel that way, with all of your past experiences.
You can so have fun going out by yourself. Not everybody who comes to a party with a partner and goes home with that person is having a grand time. I think I have been lonelier being married to a dry drunk than I would have been single. Because a negative spouse can isolate his or her partner from other people.

Your apartment isn't empty. You and your Higher Power are there. Good for you that you aren't living with anybody who is abusing you.

Have you considered doing individual therapy with somebody who is really good at what he or she does, and who fully understands the dynamics of the alcoholic family?
Do you live in a big enough place for there to be ACOA meetings? There's a board on here. I see some real recovery going on there, and their focus is different than AlAnon's. It is more damaging to have been hurt by alcoholism as a child, and ACAs need to be really, really gentle and so very loving with themselves. There are people who work both programs. I think there is a workbook.

You are very young. Time is on your side. Keep working on your first and second relationships--with HP and yourself, and the other ones will follow, in time. If you were with a woman right now, chances are she might be a rescuer, or a controller, and I know it's hard to see this, but you are better off by yourself than you would be in an unhealthy relationship.

Thank you for sharing. You have given us a lot to think about. For what it's worth, I think you are awesome.

Hugs,
Temple

ilovedogs · ~*Service Worker*~

I'm not sure how old you are but I know lots of people, both male and female, who haven't married yet and feel the same way. My cousin is in Denver and she's 34, she dated a paraplegic man for a while from a distance but had to break it off. She's a beautiful young woman, but I know she has her own set of misguided thinking when it comes to men and she doesn't trust them. My brother in law is 49 and never been married and my husband's tennis friend(who's a great guy, too, and good looking athletic) is 43 and never been married either. I have a friend on my tennis team who got married 5 years ago in her mid 40's. It was a first marriage for BOTH of them!!!

Anyway, I share these stories to give you hope. There is a woman out there for you.

Here's the other thing I got out of your posts: You say you want to do it right and need to work on things. Don't we all?? There will never be a perfect foolproof way to have a relationship so please don't wait around for the timing to be perfect or for YOU to be perfect. You are perfect just the way you are, don't look back, just keep looking forward and life will present a friend for you. Also, instead of looking for a mate or someone of dating material, have you considered just finding a friend? My friend (she's 42) just married her 'friend' of 10 years. She had never been married and her husband was just a friend for years, yet they started doing things together and spending time together and WHAM! they realized they were in love.

What about joining activity groups? Hiking/biking clubs? Book clubs? Singles groups at your local churches(if you're a church goer)?

My dad passed away about 9 months ago and I just spoke to my stepmother yesterday. She was giggling like a school girl. She's 63, has a great career, but she had spent the last 2 years tending to my dad as he slowly slipped away from us. She was tired of being a 5th wheel with her friends because they always went out as couples. So, she joined a few dating sites and met a man. She's been on a few dates with him and she really likes him. Yet, she said she had to weed her way through some of the stranger men out there, LOL. Anyway, I was happy for her but shocked that she found someone so quickly to just spend time with like that.

I guess my point is that it's never too late and to not give up! I'm 42 and I keep thinking that life is just beginning for me, whether I stay married to my AH or not. Hang in there and keep coming back!

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