How Can You Still Love an AH, ABF When... - Al-Anon Family Group

oldergal · Senior Member

How Can You Still Love an AH, ABF When...

jewel91 · Member

My answer is: I still love him bc the man that I married 15 years ago is still hiding somewhere inside him. Occasionally that man still is nice to me and can be funny and bring a smile to my face. So I guess he reminds me off the happiness and joy that I felt b4 his disease showed up. Plus we experienced many of life's lessons together. I still love him and still hate him at the same time.

AngieP · Veteran Member

For me I feel somehow my mind is distorted. I moved out for saftey, but still see him almost every day. I go At night & sleep at my parents - that way my A isn't able to do anything he'd regret again, I'm safe & my parents know I'm safe & no longer worry. It's a pathetic situation but I can not imagine my life without him in it. I know the true person he is inside and still see it too (as mentioned by above poster). I know it was not him that hurt me, that it was the disease & mental illness that was acting out at those times. It would be so much easier to be angry & walk away but I can not find the anger... Only sorrow for him. I can not abandon him, even if it costs me my life in the end. I know it makes no sence.. It doesn't even to me but I cant seem to change it.

Ebunny59 · Member

oldergal wrote:
They abuse you physically, and verbally, uses you, doesnt agree with you, hates you, takes advantage of you, manipulates you abuse your children etc. etc.? I am not sure I understand this, are people that instantly forgiving or what is it. I am sincere about this question. Please shed some light on this.... Oldergal

Hopefully some light shedding- My husband was not what you considered an alcoholic. He rarely ever drank, but when he did, no one cared to repeat those days. In My case, I am the poster person, of why a woman doesn't tell. I told someone what was going on. I ended up in a 6 month battle with children's protective services, and THEN i still lost in the fact that they put all 4 of our children into foster care for a year and 10 days (get this their grounds were for emotional abuse because we argued in front of the kids, and he threatned to hurt me). If I had known that was going to happen, I wouldn't have told someone what was going on. I expected someone to help me, and not one person did. Even after the kids came home, I stayed with my husband (their dad) and his controlling personality and emotional abuse, for many many years. I had it a lot easier than most women, because I knew that if I got rid of him, we would always have a house to live in, and that I could always hold a job. Most women can't be sure of that. 3 years ago, I finally threw my husband out. I spent months begging him to come back. At the point I started dating 9 months later, the emotional abuse got worse. It escalated to death threats, thousands of hours of the bull crap recorded from the phone, and a jail trip for him in which he spent two weeks over christmas and New Years in jail. I Had him at that point, and the prosecutor was actually waiting on me to turn in all those recordings. I just couldn't do it. He was the father of my children, we had been together for a very long time, and I was the stronger person. Forgiveness isn't about the person you are forgiving, it is about helping to heal yourself. When I was bitter and hated him, it ate away at me. It made me sick to my stomach actually, to even think about him. Once I forgave him, things started to get a whole lot better between us. I won't ever forget. I tell everyone that physical abuse heals a lot faster than mental abuse. And I even still recall some of the more dramatic moments, in horrifying details. But i choose to not let those negative thoughts dwell in my head for long. I allow myself an hour or two, every so often, to think about it. History tends to repeat itself, if it is not remembered. I am chosing to NOT let that ever happen again. I am not anyone's puppet anymore. I have thoughts and feelings, and likes and dislikes, and a mind of my own. My heart goes out to all those women who are trapped in relationships like this. I pray that just one person, can help each one of them out. If anyone is in that situation, please ask to get help to go to a safe house. Many times, I would have welcomed their help, had I known what a safe house was.

Answer any questions? It never made any sense to me either, until I was in the middle of it, and didn't know where to turn. Thanks for asking, as maybe it will give someone some hope.

Jerry F · ~*Service Worker*~

Aloha Oldergal...that was one lesson for me that took a long time to first get straight in my mind and spirit and then an eagerness to practice. I wanted to learn how to love my alcoholic/addict inspite of all the negative and sick stuff and it took the program and the suggestions of working the steps, attending meetings, getting a sponsor and using that sponsor and opening up myself to the fellowship for additional guidance. What I learned is this and I still do this today. "Love is a personal characteristic. It is about who and what you are all the time, done unconditionally regardless of who the love is offered to. I came to understand that unconditional love is a cultural behavior and then had a huge AHA!! cause I was born and raised Hawaiian and that kind of cultural, unconditional love was and is a part of how we live and what we do naturally. I had forgotten and I had learned how to practice fear and everything that comes with it. In one of my forth steps I discovered that fear was the greatest emotional character defect in my life and it replaced love. Today I have it back...it is what I live regardless of any condition. Mother Teresa wrote a small, easy to read book entitled, "Love Anyway" which I got in or around the 10th year of my recovery. That book is real guideance and can be duplicated. "How can you still love an AH, ABF when...." Do it the way your HP does it...always. Understand what it feels like to be loved by you and also love yourself that way...unconditionally. Then practice practice practice. Keep coming back (((((hugs))))) smile

el-cee · ~*Service Worker*~

good question. is it really love though, when we put up with abuse we are as sick as them. for me and my ex ah i never truly loved him i dont thinl its possible after a while in the madness. its madness to tell ourselves we love a person who abuses us as abuse removes it. our own sickness convinces us we still love because...... and we have so many reasons but is this love? it doesnt really make sense to me. when i got away then maybe some feelings came like concern or empathy but i dont love him. i could be cynical but i fear tjis idea of love keeps us locked in with abusive alcoholics.

Mattie · ~*Service Worker*~

To be honest, I think a lot of people stay with addicts because they (we) are addicted to the addict. The addict typically doesn't say, "I drink because I can't stop." They say, "I drink because I want to! It feels good! It works for me!" That's pretty much what we say about staying with an addict in a terrible situation. Not always -- sometimes people stay because they can't yet support themselves financially, or because they still have maybe realistic hope that their A will go into recovery. (When the A has been attending 12-step groups, that could be a realistic hope. When the A shows no sign of going into serious recovery, not realistic.)

I fooled myself for year about why I was staying. "I really love him." "I just want to see if I can make it work." "He's been there for me." "I made a promise." "It's only bad some of the time." Some of those were true but they weren't a good reason for staying in a terrible destructive relationship. The real reason was that I was just as addicted to him as he was addicted to drink. The idea of not having him to depend on threw me into terror. Not just worry or sadness, but terror. But I disguised this to myself as love. That's how it worked for me, and I have seen it many times in others.

Zimmy · Senior Member

I love the man not the disease. He didnt choose to be an alcoholic, the same as i didnt choose to become a co-alcoholic. Both of us becoming sicker and sicker in the family disease. I reached my bottom and it was only when i immersed myself in al-anon and its principles that I saw my part, controlling enabling, manipulating etc, that we both started healing. He is now in AA. one day at a time, no expectations and letting go of his drinking or not drinking meant that things have started getting better.

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