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.
I feel better. I still miss my ex. The pain, anger, grief is fading. The crazy thoughts are fewer and farther between. Still, I miss him. Now I'm going back in my mind to the last night I saw him when he showed up to my house. The day he left me messages to call him, that he needed me, etc. I didn't respond to any of it. I keep thinking if I had said what I felt. Come on! When I showed up at his place in agony and pain he said he was going to call the police. When I called him when I was in crisis over our daughter he told me to go to hell. Why do I insist on letting my mind replay the past and try to change it? Like I said I am much better but still not "cured". I want so much more than someone I have to take care of. There was no equality in our relationship ever. And I know there is none in his new relationship either. She is enabling him to the fullest just like the rest of us did. I can't even comprehend that a man might be able to take care of himself and that he could be an equal, an adult. My mind doesn't even begin to understand that. I've never seen it in real life and I sometimes think that maybe that's just a dream and that I should just enable my ex better than his new fling and then at least I wouldn't be lonley, or have some help with the kids and the house. Wow! that's worse than "settle-ing" How can I know the reality of what he is, what we had and still miss him like crazy? We had good times and we were close but there was so much bad insanity. I don't want to ever go back there. I won't say that I deserve better. I don't think it's a question of deserving anything. I am lonley and I miss him. The real him, not the manic him or the addicted him. The him who loved me.
For me, I missed what I never really had. I missed the idea of what I thought we were suppose to be together. Sure there were moments that it seemed like it was almost what it should have been, but they never lasted. The insanity won out.
It's not fair, but it wasn't exactly everything I pined over either. I can sit here and think about how my A smelled so good and snuggling and my heart just melts......or I can think about how I sat on the love seat stairing at a passed out blob who reeked of beer. Both were real...
Be honest with what you remember -- Look back to learn but live in this day, in this moment, that is where your peace will be.
I have been treated miserably by my AH. But of course it wasn't alwasy like that. We could still have some good times despite the bad stuff. But like PP said, the bad stuff was a reality too. For me, I am simply unwilling to take the mental abuse anymore. I have often heard in f2f meetings people say that we didn't have to accept unacceptable behavior. I had to ask myself if I was accepting more than was necessary. It's one thing to accept someone for their faults and quite another to accept someone being abusive. I asked myself, why would I want to be with someone that could say they hate me, call me fat, a liar, a thief, a slut, a slob, and lazy? Does this person honor the love I give so freely? If I stay with someone like this, what kind of an example do I set for our daughter? I finally decided that I would not accept this kind of behavior anymore. We are seperated right now and he is working on himself. We may or may not get back together. But I will only consider us getting back together once he has stopped drinking and accepted the commitment that he can no longer drink and when he can find a healthy way to express his anger. If he cannot do both of these things, I have no interest in us staying together. I would rather be alone than to have someone like that making my daily existance so toxic.
I agree with lunamoth. The hardest thing was missing what I thought our lives could have been like. I was going to miss having a "family unit". All the hopes and dreams I had never really exsisted. I felt like I married a lie. It was hard to swallow. I had to come to realize that there was probably a good man in there and I pray to this day for him because he deserves to be free, isn't that what someone who loves someone else should do? I think my praying is working because he's been sober so far now for almost seven months. Just pray for him and hope your prayers are answered. ;)
I don't post very often at all but when I do it is because someone has struck a familiar note in my mind. I read your post and I feel what you are going through. I don't know if you have kept a journal throughout all this but that has helped me so much to remember why I am not with my "A". I go back and read those journals sometimes every night for a week until I start to let myself remember what has happened and why. Hang in there!!!!
