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.
Last night after my AH got home from his 3rd AA meeting, he came home and told me that one of his (heroin addicted) sons had called and begged for money to "feed his family".
I told him that I had heard a powerful thing in my Al Anon meeting, about a man who got on his knees and prayed for his kids, and he said "God, these are your children".
I was only trying for him to understand that he has to turn them over to God and stop feeling guilty about saying no.
Instead, he became angry and assumed that I was talking about his kids, and he was furious.
Now I am angry all over again, we have to take a second mortgage on OUR home because of all of the money they stole, and I am the bad guy for talking about them? UGH! It makes me want to cancel the loan and just let his business go bankrupt. It is hardly fair to me to lose my share of the equity in our home to bail him out of his poor business choices. Of course I am NOT going to cancel the loan, but I am stewing on it.
I do relate in a way; my ex husband was forever donating our very scarce finances to his alcoholic gambling addict mother and it drove me quite insane, especially during times when he was not working and I was.
However it does stand out that you say "I was only trying to make him understand that he has to...."
Trying to find the right words to "make them understand what they have to do" is something we have all tried to do again and again and again and the results are always pretty predictable for us; anger, resentment, frustration.
I'd invite you to take a time out to sit somewhere peaceful or go for a walk or something and take your mind back to your meeting and the positive concepts you were trying to express. He didn't understand you, so now you get to turn HIM over to HIS HP and release yourself from the responsibility of having to make him understand anything at all!
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If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see? (Lewis Caroll)
Hate to hear that Carrie. We talked about that kind of thing a little in the group I went to today.
It's really hard when there are so many factors and especially when there are kids. It's day by day, situation by situation.
My AW has a heroin addicted daughter (clean for 1 year now). Thousands upon thousands of my dollars have been spent on her without my consent.
It's not that I objected to help and support, it's that I had no say in how/when/how much help and support was given.
It was never done preemptively and was often just enabling or poor crisis management. Finally ended when there was no money left to bail her out of jail.
Took me a long time to understand how a mother could make such bad choices for her daughter, but now I see more clearly why an addict enables another addict.
With money now, I just say what I think the limits should be and when they are ignored and there are negative consequences I just don't say anything.
Yes, I suffer along with everyone else, but I find that the peace I get to keep for myself and the fact that everyone knows I didn't sign off on the decision far out weighs the damage that occurs if I try to say ANYTHING.
She knows why there is no money. If I say anything, the crazy beast will appear and sanity will go out the window.
She will not be forced to examine her actions because she will pull ANYTHING from the past or worse, make something up to attack me with and then go running to her bevy of enablers to bitch about how awful I am.
So in this way, I let her control the money (fail) and I control myself (win).
"But that's not RIGHT" is what my brain used to say, and still does.
and I answer "So?".
It's not as simple as I make it sound, and different circumstances call for different measures, but at the least the damage is only financial.
Before, I was killing myself.
Now I say "what are you going to do?" a lot more, and when the results are negative I don't get blamed.
And the thing is, the financial situation is the same as it was before. bad. But I feel better.
My wife is constantly giving things away that we cannot afford to replace to people who have the means to purchase said things for themselves. Why? I have no idea. I try to let it go, but it does actually bother me that she gives things away to people that we bought together (or that I bought because she is out of work and not looking) without talking to me about it. Certainly, her mother could have easily afforded to purchase a small tv for her kitchen, she didn't need to give away our tv, but there we are. She had given it away before I even knew about the conversation. And, this is on repeat with friends and other family members as well. When I am in a darker place, I think about giving away her game stations (since she doesn't really use them anyway) but that would be vindictive, and is definitely not representative of the person I want to be.
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Skorpi
If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present. - Lao Tzu
He's going thru a speed bump Saucy...no need to fix him. He is learning new stuff and resenting it cause he is drawn to the addiction which doesn't work. Pain is temporary and might he need a sponsor suggestion hopefully from someone other than yourself cause you ain't his sponsor. Speed bump...The entire family is affected by this cunning powerful and baffling disease and doing the same stuff that didn't work over and over again expecting different results is insanity which is cause for the 2nd step. AA and Al-Anon have the same traditions regarding anonymity...11 and 12 and of course in your program it is important to observe both steps and traditions which result in s a n I t y.
Keep coming back you got the moxie to do this. (((((hugs)))))
Yep, the give-aways. Mine does that too. I've had the same thoughts about vindictive actions but have never taken any. The funny (or not so funny) thing is that I've been accused of being vindictive. THAT kind of stuff is what gets me the worst.
"YOU'RE MEAN!"
"How am I mean? Please explain that to me because I don't want to be."
"YOU'RE VINDICTIVE!!"
"How so? What have I done? Tell me, please! What vindictive action have I taken?"
"YOU'RE JUST AN ASS####."
"Ok, I'll just have to take you're word on that one, but how am I mean again? What do I do that's mean?"
"THIS!!!"
"What? Ask you to tell me why you think I'm mean?"
"I'M NOT TALKING TO YOU ANYMORE!!"
For me, that kind of stuff is the most painful because it demonstrates how sick she is and makes me feel hopeless. I'm working on finding hope for myself now, not "us".
I have hope for her, but it's not tied to mine.
I can still get sucked in, but less easily these days.
One of the early steps I took in my journey, back when I was living with my A was to separate our finances and refuse point blank to finance his habits any longer. I'll never forget the day I told him I was not going to buy him alcohol or cigarettes any more and no matter what he said to try to get me to open my wallet I just kept repeating "I don't WANT to pay for you anymore and I am NOT GOING TO".
I had to take it to extremes in the end to get the message across; he ceased working and sat in his room playing computer games day and night and didn't contribute to the rent or bills so, I told him clearly that I would not be paying these expenses any more unless he coughed up half. And then I allowed the electricity to be disconnected twice (I was prepared and had a small gas stove to cook, lots of batteries and candles etc)and I just let it happen. I let the water be cut off, I let us be served eviction notices and even when we were evicted I refused to pay his share even when it made my life very difficult. I refused to bail him out of his debts and he had property seized. I just decided that I was no longer going to pay for him and that he could contribute equally to the expenses or he could face the consequences. My focus became protecting myself and my interests and making sure I did everything I could to minimise the impact his choices could have on me. It wasn't easy as I was afraid, deep down, that perhaps he was only with me because I supported him so much but in the end he learned to pay his share and stop relying on me to be his fairy god-mother and he seems to still like me fine all these years later..
I do firmly believe that it's quite alright to maintain separate finances especially when one party is flakey or selfish with money and I found it incredibly liberating to finally just say no. I will not finance you any longer. Come hell or high water, I won't do it.
It sounds as though you don't want to finance him any longer, Saucy. Is it possible that you could in fact change the arrangements so that you are not? For me, it removed a lot of resentment and gave me a great deal of peace.
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If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see? (Lewis Caroll)
Thank you all for hearing me, and letting me vent. Miss Meliss, I actually did, recently, create a trust, and took all of my money/assets and put them into it. I mean stuff I had before I got married.
The house is something we bought together, only a year ago, but we have built up a lot of equity, actually, if I am being honest, it is because the house was forclosed, and not winterized, so the pipes burst and it was not appealing to others. He is the one who paid for and made all of the repairs.
Now he wants to "borrow" cash from me, but I said "No".
So, he is desperate, because he owes a vendor a lot of money. I guess it frustrates me so much because I kept printing off the income statement and asking how he could possibly think his company could survive when he gave his kids more money than the profit. I have been warning him for two years. And he responded by lying to me (and the CPA) about cost to complete projects. Well, that caught up and now, here he is.
I have issues about money, probably because my first husband started drinking after an industrial accident, and was unable to work, and he left me (for another woman) when my youngest was 6 months old. It was so scary. I struggled so much financially, at first, and became very controlling about money.
So, when one of those kids (grown men) call him trying to get money, it infuriates me, they do not care what they have done to him, and know he is in trouble, yet they still BEG. And, then all these vicious feelings well up inside of me, and I think of how much I wish horrible things would happen to them. In the past, I have even said those things out loud to my husband. How did I get here? I mean, how did I turn into a person who "hates" her husband's children? Those are only the type of people you see on TV.
Yep, the give-aways. Mine does that too. I've had the same thoughts about vindictive actions but have never taken any. The funny (or not so funny) thing is that I've been accused of being vindictive. THAT kind of stuff is what gets me the worst.
"YOU'RE MEAN!"
"How am I mean? Please explain that to me because I don't want to be."
"YOU'RE VINDICTIVE!!"
"How so? What have I done? Tell me, please! What vindictive action have I taken?"
"YOU'RE JUST AN ASS####."
"Ok, I'll just have to take you're word on that one, but how am I mean again? What do I do that's mean?"
"THIS!!!"
"What? Ask you to tell me why you think I'm mean?"
"I'M NOT TALKING TO YOU ANYMORE!!"
For me, that kind of stuff is the most painful because it demonstrates how sick she is and makes me feel hopeless. I'm working on finding hope for myself now, not "us".
I have hope for her, but it's not tied to mine.
I can still get sucked in, but less easily these days.
Oh my God!!! This could be a transcript of so many of my conversations with my ex AW! I would honestly want to improve myself -- to examine her claims about my faults and make sure I wasn't arrogantly going through life with a "meanness" I was too arrogant to recognize. These conversations went nowhere, because, looking back, I was not being mean and her recriminations were clearly projections.
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Peace comes from within. Do not seek it from without. Buddha
