Detachment vs. Boundaries. It sounds like you want to continue on in the marriage, but you want things to change. That's a tough one. I guess in any relationships you either love someone enough to put up with or forgive their short comings....OR...the shortcoming become so overwhelming that they are not tolerable. I sense you fall back to the "but I do love him" after he does things that are intolerable. I can't say what your boundary should be but you don't have to detach from behaviors that are intolerable to you in a relationship. That is like ordering a meal from a restaurant that is something you know you don't like and trying to convince yourself it tastes good.

I suspect you'll never be okay with him being out at 4 am. That's a reasonable boundary to expect him home. It will help to pray to your HP for knowledge of whether or not you can really tolerate his behaviors, especially now that you have a bigger lack of trust than before. If you really want change - set the boundaries. If he breaks them, stick to the consequences no matter how much it hurts. He is either going to step up and be what you need and want in this marriage or he isn't. It does not need to be your whole life wishing he was different and/or trying to accept things that are unacceptable.

As far as him dating the young thing while you were separated....Well, he came back to you. I suspect you wouldn't be having as much of a problem with this if you didn't feel he was untrustworthy and possibly out cheating now. Hence, him respecting boundaries and him giving back to the marriage the same that you are putting in is the way to build trust back. If he can't do it, then maybe he doesn't deserve trust. Alcoholics will typically tell you to trust them, argue with you to trust them, but then they wont DO THE THINGS that are needed to have trust in them.

 

Aloha YF51 and welcome back to the MIP board...Were you going to face to face Al-Anon meetings?  I ask this because there is a truth in recovery in the AFG that "this works when you work it".  AA says that there is nothing worse than a brain full of recovery and a belly full of beer that works for me also.  Just for me it seems that you learned "terms in recovery" and not the "walk of the term", you thought you were practicing and was there someone else with greater experience like a sponsor or the board working it along side you, no? then you were self sponsoring and we've said that is like trying to think new solutions using the same brain and behavior we had when we got here.

How does the first step resonate with you now...is the second part of that step more contrasted...you life has   continued   to get unmanageable even when you had a new vocabulary of Al-Anon.   I know what that is like cause I did it also in the start...I talked the walk and didn't walk it and I got crazy like the same situation you are in right now.  If I didn't change my thinking "and" my behavior then my expectations were unfounded...I would and did get the very same outcomes and more that I came into the program with.  My alcoholic/addict wife...my choice for a wife and partner...my choice that would bring me the outcomes I eventually got...my addiction and my fixing career...my higher power then did what I should have been doing...setting goals and following thru on them while I wanted her to work my goals for and because of me.  I wanted to be her higher power the cause and the reason for "our" happiness and then the last word of the first step is unmanageable...there was no way I could manage that goal and expectation and proformance and still I tried until I was insane.   She had desires...drugs and using, drinking and using, infidelity as fun, she needed company while she was commiserating about how bad her life was and I wasn't the best person to be company under that condtion because I was the one that reminded her verbally and non-verbally (body language) that her life and behavior was soooo bad and she needed not compassion and understanding but a thrashing and punishment and reminders that she wasn't measuring up...she already knew that and told herself often.  The affairs she had wouldn't help her because they were in it for their own gratification and then so was I wasn't I?

Some of the basics I needed was a new definition for what love was...I got that from inside of the face to face meetings of Al-Anon and It still works for me.  It wasn't about tingley stuff or feeling special or having complete and total commitment by my "others" whoever there were, spouse, family, co-workers, fellowships and the like.  My new understanding was about a spiritual character change on my part and not anyone elses.  "Love is the complete and total -acceptance- of every other human being for EXACTLY WHO THEY ARE."  So I learned that love is about me doing and giving with out condition...some people call this agape love or God love, I don't know but what I do know was that has worked for me from the second I heard it from and Al-Anon member who told a story very near like your own.  She had learned how to love her alcoholic and he did not have to do anything for it and she was at peace on a level that I had never seen before I stopped her from leaving the meeting place and "teaching me".  When I separated from my alcoholic/addict and then divorced her I had come to learn love and when we parted she was sober and we loved each other and had no reason to be married...hows that for "return to sanity"...after the fact and yet that is what our recovery is...after the fact.

I learned also that I was my alcoholic/addicts husband, partner, spouse and not her cop and so I stopped being her cop.  Detachment included loving her and I reached that detachment on three levels. At first I detached with anger and resentment and my sponsor taught me that the emotions were doing nothing to change her and only to make me worse.  Then I did what another has mentioned here...I detached with disinterest and indifference...that is is far out from love that it made me sick and not her.  I learned that treating another with indifference is the same as diminishing their worth from child of God to less than anything.  I choked on that because I knew what it felt like to feel that was from my upbringing in the disease...I did not matter and had no value.  I moved on to the one I desired most that many in the program seemed to have and I wanted so badly...Detachment with love...allowing her the diginty of the consequences of her choices and practicing giving value to the child of God she truely was...I didn't judge.  No matter how bad my mind wanted to say she was and was doing I gave that up and loved unconditionally and proceeded on toward my life goals.  I stopped trying to drag her body along with me and turned her over...practice, practice, practice is what the fellowship in central valley CA. taught me daily and they kept critiquing my efforts until the fear was gone and the addiction with it's compulsion and denial and withdrawal was gone.  I ended up standing straight up and feeling strong and my Higher Power was right beside me.

Along the journey I was also learning about "the courage to change the things I can", along with the guidance of "Progress not perfection" and this helped me to temper my self judgement and expectations.  Part of that courage was changing my thinking, feelings and beliefs. My alcoholic/addict wife had a life before she met me (no judgement of it) and she had habits, thoughts, feelings, beliefs and experiences also.  I needed to accept and respect that and not judge it and I needed to move on to what it was that I wanted for me and what my Higher Power was wanting for me too.  I let go of what it was that I was demanding and took a look of what I was wanting and then what it was that I was needing.  It was amazing that with the help of the program and my Higher Power the list kept getting redefined and smaller with what was important for my life and I attended many meetings where the topic was "progress...not perfection" and I reached gratitude as a personal characteristic along with humility (being teachable from inside the rooms and the fellowship of thousands).

The inventory steps for me are where it starts...Who is NY51 and what does she believe and what does she know?  What are her experiences and the consequences of them?  What are her habits of thinking and feeling and reacting and what were her expectations before her present consequences?

It's time to look at NY51 and not your "other".  It's not about him...it's about you and always has been.  The program has always told me that and when I have problems in my life today I revisit it.  The alcoholic/addict is gone who is responsible for my peace of mind and happiness?  That is not a multiple choice question...it only has one correct response.

I am glad you're back and I look forward to your own ESH because that is what has always helped me in the past as it does now.  What I got from your share was my spouse is going to do what she's going to do for the reasons she's going to do them; what am I going to do?

Keep coming back cause this works when you work it.  (((((hugs)))))  In support.

kaybee wrote:

---

after being betrayed by my unfaithful X
I decided that I didn't want to be one of those bitter women that comics make jokes about!


I was the one who would pay the price for not forgiving him
he was gone
with her in another state
and wouldn't know anything about it
nor hear anything
nor see anything
nor suffer anything
care not one little bit
miss not one meal
nor one good night's sleep
for all my heartache
no matter what a rat he was
no matter how wrong he was
no matter how justified my tears might be

(geez! it even sounds melodramatic when I write it!)
so I'm gonna keep this real simple:

I pay a price when I do not forgive.

that doesn't mean I forget
it doesn't mean I sign up for more hurt
I am allowed to protect myself from further harm
I am allowed to limit my interaction with person(s) who are troublesome to me

life is too short
too precious
to give someone else that kind of power

---

 "you will come to realize that there is no situation too difficult to be bettered

  and no unhappiness too great to be lessened..."