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Again, new to the program so please bear with me. Is there a "program" way of dealing with the way my AH (and his whole family) use abandonment/ leaving as a tool. Quick examples: If I push my AH for emotional closeness he either leaves or starts acting like he will-bags by the door, in truck etc. I know this is in some way his fear but hurts like heck as I"m more of a lets look at this fix it and fix it good kinda gal. Anyway his sister actually keep large sums of money hidden in cereal boxes just "in case" she needs to leave her husband and his mom just up and left them with the stepdad when she got mad or whatever growing up. So it doesn't take a PHD to determine the cause- so how do I keep it from hurting me because I was feel exactly the opposite- Hard times I work even harder (which is obviously the problem) so if detaching is the key and maybe there are others too... how do you detach enough for that not to hurt- I find myself "snaping to" pretty quickly meaning whatever it i that bothers him I try to change it or make it better of course this keeps him in control.. any ideas-besides get a backbone?
for me i have a pretty serious fear of abandonment so when he pulled this on me it worked very well, he had a lot of control with this one. however, i was in therapy and as i got stronger he pulled the big one and left . now he is on a pretty self destruct mode and i got caught in some of it. which is why i am on this board. i still love him. i am slowly learning to love me. this is all so painful. i again am so grateful for you guys. i am learning from everyone of your shares. bless you all a million times.
Glad, if anyone here knew the exact answer to your question we could all go home and put all this crap to rest!!!! OH- if only we could!!!! : )
It is my understanding that detachment is the tool, not abandonment. Now, some would struggle to try to figure out the difference between the two- I know I have. I, too, was raised to always be prepared for the worst- and not trust anyone but myself. Part of this is my disease- my distorted thinking. But the other part is that I literally never learned what trust really "looked" like. No one trusted anyone in my family when I was growing up. Certainly there was very little, if any, sense of safety when I was a child growing up. I can totally understand the impulse to put money into cereal boxes although I do not do that. I have known others who have (and then died and then when relatives went through her house throwing out all the food- suprise!!!). There have been times in my life when I could have kicked myself for NOT doing something like that. I am in a bit of a spot like that right now, actually.
There is a fine line, when living with alcoholics and alcoholism, of being prepared and being paranoid/expecting the worst and therefore having a terrible attitude of negativity. I see it all the time in my face to face groups- we all struggle with this a lot. In several strings on this board there have been discussions around the notion of how our lives are not "normal" and never will be, and how we need to accept that perhaps things like putting money into cereal boxes is not such an insane idea...I don't know, I would love to hear from others about their perspective on this.
It hurts when those we love do and say things that are negative and withdrawing towards us. It hurts us a lot because its pretty likely that we grew up through abandonment time and time again in our childhoods. Some say that we seek this out in our partners in order to continue the only life we understand- a replication of our childhood.
Another way to look at it is that he has a disease and it is his disease that is doing all that negative stuff. Some of us are able to separate out the disease from the person pretty well, for some longish periods of time. Some of us cannot. We are all different in this way and have different levels of tolerance.
I know that its extremely difficult for me to survive under relentless pessimism and negativity- every single conversation turned into his victimization and 9 times out of 10, I was blamed for it (or someone close to him like his step mom, his best friends, etc.). I could not stand it anymore and so I left. It completely erroded me in ways I never thought possible. I have been gone for 2 years and have been in al-anon for around 18 months of that. All the erosion stopped and now I am working on rebuilding and keeping the focus on me. I do not know if we will get divorced or stay together. I do know precisely what I can and cannot live with anymore, that is for sure. I have changed, for the better. I know myself a lot better and I am more in touch with my honesty and have a growing self love through my HP. Bit by Bit, one day at a time and through this program I am making a better life for myself through ME, not through anyone else. Hugs, J.
My AHSober has done this for over 30 years. At first he would change jobs and then we would move. He would threaten divorce every 5 years. And then in every day conversations when it would get emotional he would say I am "out of here". (I got goose bumps just writing that). For alcoholics they call it a geographic that is moving to solve their problems. With my AHsober I think he must have heard it from his parents. I think to it is a way of avoiding their feelings. For the psycho babble, in therapy the counselor told us that we were in a co-addicted relationship - me with the fear of abandonment and him with the fear of engulfment therefore avoiding everything. My AHsober left almost 3 years ago. Just walked out the door saying he didn't love me and never did and that he wants his freedom from me. He has never filed for a divorce. I think that he gets alot of power from the threats and for me I jerk every time he says it. BUT I am getting stronger. I have learned so much here MIP and at face to face Alanon meetings. I don't want to live like this. I don't want to keep being "managed with threats". Hope this helps.
Wow Nancy, you are so strong. Do not listen to that "don't love you never did stuff" I think he is just saying something to hurt you. I wish I could take that away- take it back for him. He is broken, you didn't break him, you can't fix him. Thanks for responding to me!!! If he does have fear of "engulfment" that would of course be what he would say. Please focus on how great you are and not how broken he is only! I think I might want to punch him in the nose for you-- but that probably isn't healthy is it?
I hate it when that happens, I remember reacting to that, then finally I just started saying yes, please go. Funny thing is I could never get him to actually follow through and leave, I had to leave him.
Fight or flight. Given the choice, I'd rather take a hike.
I'm a guy on the other end of this. An active drunk just needs an excuse to go have a drink. Thats all thats going on. We didn't cause it, nor can we control it. No use letting them have the fight they are looking for. It relieves their guilt and we just can't have that.
A recovering drunk may just not be able to cope with the situation without a drink. A recovering drunk trying to stay sober will flee any situation that makes him or her uncomfortable enough to want to drink. Once again, Its not out fault. It could take years of working the steps and maybe doing service work so that they are exposed to working through stressful situations in a safe setting.
The drunk we knew will get drunk again. Sobriety is a rebirth of sorts and the new person is spiritually and emotionally immature. but... that new person has a chance of not getting drunk and growing up if they work the steps and the program.
