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.
... and it's not easy. I am tending again to become invisible, an i'm making wrong choices. I am not taking care of myself as I should, for I allow A to have contact with me again. Because I want to deal with things in a civilized and human way. Because I'm not a robot and can't switch in a month just like that from being with him, having hopes and dreams, to just plain nothing. Yes I realize, my hopes and dreams were probably only my own illusion.... for I ignored the signs. My self-esteem is crap, has been most of the time. I am 36 and I don't really know anymore where to start rebuilding.
A is pissed off with me for I shared my situation and the abortion with the people in my life. For that is my way of communicating. For he has been emotionally not available. He thought that I would isolate, and i didn't , for I know how dangerous that can be. He would probably be furious if he knew my Al Anons postings and sharing too.
He says I'm weak for feeling my negative feelings, like anger guilt shame resentment. He tells me that I'm a negative person, that I can't cheer up...like he does so wonderfullly, God knows how...after such a short time. But i know from experience that if I close down with those feelings, they rotten me from the inside, can't do that anymore. It's patter to have them out in the open, and I know that once I've felt them they with become less intense, and I can move on with a clear inner Self.
He says that he is fine with everybody else in his life , that everybody loves him the way he is....that I'm the only one seeing him the way i see him....that something must be wrong with me. He actually talks a little bit to me like I'm a mental case (and I have become in some extend), he also tries to turn the mirror around... he uses projections a lot, .... he has become me in a certain way, he uses my words, my dynamics, my dreams... even some of my expressions....and I remembered that one day, when he was still fully active, that he said he wants to be like me one day. So that gets me thinking now..... for I'm slowly becoming him...lost and depressed as he can be in his worst moments. It's spooky. He is angry that I made him look like an A-hole with the people around me... where he actually did that himself. I didn't have to say anything, he shocked everybody with his reactions and absence.... what can I do..people are not blind.
Now that I took a time out and got more self-focused (or trying to) , he shouts 'it's all about you you you.....you are so selfish'
I had to take decisions I never thought I would have to take one day, and never wanted to take. And I know I have put up with a lot this year...and I ask myself: why? Life is not supposed to be that hard. And why am i still in contact with him...why??? If i was my best friend, I would shout and kick my bud. I am standing beside myself. My friends and family don't believe their eyes and ears. They are helpless.... and most also don't understand the disease of alcohol.... so I appear quite crazy and masochistic to them.... so i get pity instead of compassion, which also makes me smaller than I am. I believe the day will come where I will be strong to simply plain walk away, instead of walking through with an armor that doesn't suit me at all.
I am changing.... and it's scary, for I'm wasting a lot of precious time as well. I am not that stupid little crazy powerless helpless girl..... but it feels like that from the outside. i need to break through, but I'm scared to loose all about myself on the way.
He is unstable, with a violent streak, addicted and mentally unbalanced. So....knowing that, what does happen when you expend so much effort trying to understand, comfort and allow yourself to be influenced by such a person rather than healthy folks in Alanon and in the rest of your life? The tendency would be for your world to become crazy and unbalanced like him and his. Detach.
That stove (being him) is really really hot. And it still burns no matter how many ways you approach it.
I can be civil to a lion and try to understand it, but it is still going to bite me if I put my arm in its cage. I tried for 8 years to do the same as you are trying to do with him. I was trying to change him although I didn't know that at the time. I kept thinking my HP wanted me to stay married to him and if I could just figure out what it was I was doing that brought all that venom and insanity to the surface and try a different approach (although I had tried every approach I could think of in that 8 years), then there would be peace and we could live happily ever after together. Finally, I got tired of caring what the x wanted, what my HP wanted, what the church wanted, what my parents wanted, and looked at what I wanted. I stopped trying to change him and saw a way to get my arm out of the cage. I chose to respect the reality that I was dealing with a person who treated me like a punching bag no matter what I did or tried to do. I also chose to respect what I wanted for me and it certainly wasn't to live with violence, drugs, alcohol and consistent erratic behavior. When I stopped trying to change the lion and learned to respect its inability to reason with me or to treat me well, I started to relearn how to listen to myself and treat myself well. No why questions ever got me to the place in my own mind but listening to what I wanted and then the way to get what I wanted made all the difference in the world to me. I divorced him.
He stayed the same. I didn't. I changed.
