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.
With all the lies and cheating did a real relationship ever exist? I was reading the text messaging post and it made me wonder. My a would text message me a lot and I knew if I got a text he had been drinking. He would send me "I love you and will do whatever it takes to make it up to you" At first my heart would melt and I'd text him right back. After a few times of that and him not doing anything to make it up to me, if I wouldn't text him back within 5 minutes or if I completely ignored it I would recieve one that said "i suppose thats funny to you" or something just mean. Then there was the cheating because I didn't call him back an hour after he called, he would call his backup woman. Did he actually ever love me or was all of it just a game? He would accuse me of playing a game with him and now I'm curious if he was just playing me. It really doesn't matter, we aren't together anymore, but I'd like to think my baby was made with love.
Kari 80 ~ I just posted on another thread about this. I sometimes get caught up in that "did he really ever really love me" question. I've come to decide that people love us in the capacity that they are able to love us. Maybe it wasn't the way you loved them, or wanted them to love you....but I have to accept that if they said they loved me (and there wasn't some large ulterior motive hanging there), then they probably did (in the way they understand it). But a MUCH bigger answer to what seems to be on your mind is whether or not your baby was made in love. If you loved this man - then YES, this baby was made in love. Period. None of us can KNOW with any certainty who loves us - but we can know who we love. And if you loved this man and had his child.....then that child was indeed conceived in love. ~R3
I read your post and my heart ached. I have often ask myself the same thing. While I may never know the answer, I have come to believe that with all his sickness and now I realize all of my sickness the two of us "loved" each other the best we knew how.
I agree with the responses so far. I KNOW my AH loves me only becuz I was blessed to be with him and marry him after years of recovery. I also knew him and me as kids.
I have a son with my A. Love or not, I am sooo glad that I have my son and am thankful for A for sharing that with me to make him. It doesn't matter to me if AH loved me at the time. I honestly believe using A's cannot really love as I define love. My definition comes from the Bible, as to ME, the creator is the one who created it.
I also must add, leo Buscalgia sure is a cool person about love.
I also want to say to you, when you share a child, for me, I see in that child allll the good that came from the A and I is there.
People adopt, have babies thru sperm banks. I still believe, becuz of the creator being love, the child was of course made by love.
MY Belief....:o)
also, blabbermouth here, I loved the A soooooo much the baby grew in me, so of course it was love.
I think for me I have to separate out a romantic view of love as miraculous and a more practical love. I love my dogs but no amount of love for example can fix one of my dogs, the beagle's bad eyes. I had some misguided idea that I could "love the A back to health. I'm not even sure he had health ever. I certainly didn't.
So for me its important not to get in did I do enough. I did more than enough. I did every single thing I could think of. What's important is for me to look at me. Do I love me. I don't think so. I think I was wanting the A to love me because I couldnt' In turn I thought if I sacrificed enough for him maybe something incredibly miraculous would happen. It didn't. Nothing I did could cure his alcoholism it was up to him to take action on that. He put it all on me but it was never mine in the first place to deal with.
In a similar fashion I dont' think that the A could necessarily "cure" my codependence which in my case is deadly stuff. I have to. So I have to love myself in order to take the daily actions to move ahead in recovery.
I have to agree with round3, and Codependent and Debilyn; and this is my explanation why I believe this.
Loving someone is like everything in this world, it is up to both parties and each party alone knows the love they have of each other. You loved your man and therefore the baby can only have been conceived in LOVE.
You cannot know for sure the depth of the love your man had for you, just has he cannot know for sure the depth of the love you had for him.
It is not like taking apples from a basket and weighing them. Love is only measurable by the one giving it for it is only the one giving it who knows the weight, depth and quality.
In all things it simply boils down to what we do, what we give, what we share, what we feel and remembering that you are made in the image of the creator who is love, so as you were created by love, so is your baby. Just my way of thinking through this wonder.
Keep on loving that baby and it will grow in love each day.
In love, with love and sending love to you today, Heartbroken.
__________________
"The highest form of wisdom is kindness." The Talmund
I think we watch movies and read books and get an idea of love as something much more powerful than it really is, much more "perfect".
When we see the reality of our lives, and that love most decidedly does NOT conquer all, we start to doubt if it is really love. I believe that it is - I know that I loved my husband, and that he loved me. As best we could. It wasn't perfect - so what.
Actually, I even believe those drunken messages. The fact the the A cannot change his behaviour, and cannot give us what we need, does not mean that he does not care. It just means that the love is not strong enough to make everything else go away. Again, so what? This is not the movies.
You can accept the love that is offered you, and return it, and still act in such a way that you take care of yourself and protect yourself from the dangers of the disease. If this means that you can say (or think) "I love you too" and still get the locks changed so he can't get in, well, that's reality, that's adulthood, that's living in the life you have rather than a fantasy world.
I ask myself if he ever loved me after 34 years. The answer comes from the book Getting Them Sober. He loves you as much as an alcoholic can love you. Oh, it is all relative. We created three wonderful sons together. What matters to me is that I loved him and still love him even tho he has left the relationship.
I've been thinking about this some more, and I remembered something from when we first moved in together, long long before I knew the drinking was a problem, but when I already knew that there was something wrong. (Hmm, what would have happened if I had listened to my instincts back then?)
My mom had been watching us together, and she said to me, later "He really loves you - when he looks at you there is such love in his eyes." And, I was a little ticked off at him at the time for something, and I answered "Yeah, he loves me, I know, but I'm not sure how much good that does me".
And that's it, really. I think for many of us, we are right when we feel that the A loves us. It is real. But, it's also beside the point. His love will not keep him from hurting us, it won't keep him from hurting himself. It's just love. It's good, we need it, but it's not *all* we need. It doesn't really make the world go round after all.
yep, this is really tricky because it plugs so deeply into a lot of deep seeded issues including the whole movie/tv/fantasy thing or the knight in shining armor thing. I tend to agree with Linn and with many of the other posts- who is going to define what love is/feels/looks like in exactly the same way as anyone else? and does it really matter if its "matched" or not? Are we here to judge anyone about anything? It is also plugging in (for me) with that mind-reading crap: "if he really loved me, he would..."
I find it more useful to focus on myself and my own questions about love and if I am capable of it/feeling it. I mean, I was raised pretty much by monsters (who I happen to love, despite everything and I have accepted them and made my peace with them, they did the best that they could, god bless 'em) and experienced a lot of abuse early on and frankly, its possible I AM THE ONE who needs to look at if I honestly mean what I am saying or if what I am calling feelings of love are actually feelings of pity or attempts at controlling someone.
Gotta turn those pointing fingers around and point it at myself. If I am getting whipped up about whether or not he loves me, ever loved me, loves me enough, etc. i gotta look at my own crap around all that, not his. J.
Good topic. Yes the Alcoholic is extremely able to love. Its the relationship part thats a little hard. Be careful, his accusation that you were playing him is actually a play on you. His guilt and remorse need to be thrown on someone elses back lest they break his own.
Good topic. Yes the Alcoholic is extremely able to love. Its the relationship part thats a little hard. Be careful, his accusation that you were playing him is actually a play on you. His guilt and remorse need to be thrown on someone elses back lest they break his own.
