The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
Today my son asked me to report his baseball home runs on a website, he couldn't figure out how to do it. I figured it out and reported them. I found myself feeling resentful again, I thought to myself, why can't my ex husband do this? Do the resentments ever go away?
Betty, this is good to hear as I am starting my 4th step and I, too, just posted about resentments. Thank you, Mercedes, for posting this question. I ask myself this A LOT!
Absolutely the steps and sponsor work and meetings...that is also how it worked for me and my resentments against the alcoholic/addict and the rest of the world. I hated feeling resentments because they consumed me and then my sponsor taught me about feeling the "opposites" where I get the "opposite" feeling. The opposite of resentment is forgiveness and feeling forgiveness is soooo nice. Try it...you'll like it. ((((hugs))))
Once I was talking to my therapist about having to do the work of two parents. "I have to do all that stuff for him!" I complained. She said, "You're not doing it for him, you're doing it for your child." It does comfort me (even though it's a bit nasty) that people generally get back what they give out. My ex-AH has a limited relationship with our child -- actually they're pretty close, as separated families go, but because my ex-AH is limited, what he can do with our child is limited. He can't model emotional health, he can't talk about how to live life, he can't model how to have a good relationship, he's only interested in limited things (TV, mainly). That doesn't make for a three-dimensional relationship. And that's what he'll get back from our child -- a limited relationship. I'm sorry for our child in that sense, but I try to make it up with relationships with other relatives, especially a couple who do dad-type things. I'm not sorry for my ex in that sense. It will come back to bite him. That's maybe not an enlightened way to think, but it helps me feel better when I'm doing all the heavy lifting.
I know I am full of resentments most of the time too. And I hope it helps to try to see it the way Mattie wrote above. I like her advice, it makes a lot of sense.: try to see it as you are doing something for your child instead of how you feel resentment that your ex isn't helping. I will try to think that way too. I hope it gives you some comfort. I know it's hard.
I really like the fact of doing this for the kids vs being angry at him. I have to say I do struggle with feeling like the only parent who is present in any way, I resent cleaning up his mess of broken promises and failed follow through. That's the one I am really having a hard time with .. I do know it comes back to me in the long term of my relationship with my children as well as the fact I choose to clean up the mess.
Right now I'm really really really working hard on praying for the willingness to be willing to pray for him. I ask other people to pray for him .. I have days where I do say that God, .. I'm really working on praying for that SOB (and I KNOW the God of my understanding knows exactly who I am talking about), please please please know on some level I really do want good things for him .. outside of dismemberment and/or disembowlment. Please God, know my heart that of course I really don't want that it just felt good to say for that moment. (Because the God of my understanding gave me my wicked humor, He knows where my heart is at and what I mean by those statements).
Anyway, thanks for the thread .. it's a good reminder of what is important and what is not.
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
but I am glad thye are gone