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.
Did I do the wrong thing? I decided I wanted to make this year different than this by opening up a disussion with my A about what's been going on with us these past 3 mos. I did not intend to have a big disussion really - I just wanted to open the door so we can deal with it little by little since we haven't done that yet. I decided I don't want to go through separating evertime something goes wrong and we have a big fight. It would be either deal with it or end our marriage. So I called him New Year's Day starting on a good note. That was fine and then I lead into the topic of us and how we need to learn to communicate with each other and he agreed. But after a while he got defensive evn though I kept the focus on me more than him and I also used "we". But he told me he knows how moody I get and he pulls away to avoid it. He told me that after the blo-up we had 3 mos. ago, he could've drank but he didn't. Sounded like he wanted to hold me responsible if he did drink. I just said we are resposible for our decisions, both of us. I told him I got into Al-Anon because I want to account for myself, learn about me, etc. But then I said I had a bunch of old stuff buit up in me for years, how hard it was when he was drinking. Mistake! I guess I said it because I started to feel like a finger was being pointed at me. Well, he got very mad at me for that and said don't bring THAT up. I am so sorry I did but that was the basis of misery since our marriage. He wants to bring up old stuff about me but I don't know how to respond to that. Do we make an agreement to not talk about what hurt us?....jaja
I don't know that there is a right or wrong way to deal with the past. I know for me I had to let the past be exactly that, the past.
In working my program I soon found that I truly can't change the past. I can only work on today. We too often want an explanation as to why things happened in our past when in fact there probably isn't an explanation at all, they just happened. (Too many people, emotions, personalities and events involved) However, we can look at each one of the incidents as a lesson if we step back and look at it honestly. I believe that my HP does give me lessons to learn in each event of my life that he puts me in, I just have to pay close enough attention to see them.
Once I let the past lay where it belonged I found that events slowly erupted in which I was able to deal with tiny parts of the past a little at a time. So for me, I let my HP take charge of when and how I deal with the past and the events that molded me into the person I am today. There is no quick fix for dealing with the past, it takes time.
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Everything I have ever let go of has claw marks all over it.
