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im wrestling with this question: what is my part in the abusive way my a-bf treats me. i meet him with compassion and understanding. i try to set boundaries. i try to work my program and yet beyond my continued presence in the relationship, i cannot identify my part.
is it enough to say i'm doing my part just to leave or do i have to keep trying to figure it out? weve been together almost 2 years and im absolutely exhausted by his crazy controlling abusive and bizarre behavior. my spirit and self feels small from our relationship... makes me sad.
Hi Bluerose and welcome to MIP! Are you attending Al-anon face to face meetings? I found meetings and finding a sponsor extremely helpful. You are smart to come here for ESH, but no one should tell you what to do or not to do. We all share our lives journey in hopes that it helps each other. The only thing I learned about my lifetime of being around alcoholism is it always gets worse without a 12 step recovery program and I had to stop obsessing about the A's in my life and start caring for myself since no one was doing it for me. I hope you get some great information from this site. Their are many smart people on here. Read old posts too that always helped me. I am praying for you!
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God grant me the serenity To accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.
Al-Anon/Alateen Family Group Headquarters, Inc. 800-344-2666
I think that identifying my part in things has been easier after I do a Fourth Step. Do you have a sponsor and are you working the steps?
I found that doing a Fourth Step was enormously helpful and beneficial to me in identifying my part. While I can't change the way other people act, I can certainly choose not to allow someone else's insanity to affect my serenity. It is up to me to protect my serenity. Nobody else is going to do it for me. I like to keep the mental image of me wearing a wet suit. The water (insanity) just rolls off me if I keep my suit zipped up. If I open my suit up, though, I get doused. It's up to me.
I believe that we teach others how to treat us. If we set boundaries and the other person invades them, we have to follow through with a consequence. For example, I told my ex husband that if he was verbally abusive to me on the phone, that I would hang up on him. It only works as a boundary, though, if I actually hang up should he start to become abusive. If I don't hang up, he will continue on with his verbal abuse knowing that I will just sit there and take it. For years I thought I was setting boundaries with him on this issue, but really all I was doing was making empty threats. He knew they were empty threats, too. When one day I decided to really make it a boundary and enforce it, he tested it once or twice but a funny thing happened eventually. He stopped the verbal junk he was dumping on me after I started hanging up on him.
My part in the relationship was I allowed unexceptable behavior over and over again , I lied for him ,made excuses for his crappy behavior and I covered up his mistakes , i believed the lies and forgave the broken promises -one of the hardest things for me to accept was that I taught him how to treat me . Boundaries are different for everyone what is unexceptable to me may not be to you ,boundaries are for me not them I decide how I will be treated and if someone is abusive my responsibility is to remove myself from what is happening , I no longer allow anyone to holler at me or tell me what a jerk they think I am that is insanity on my part to sit and listen . Until we step back and make them responsible for thier own stuff nothing is going to change . Nothing changes til someone changes .
Hi Bluerose...thank you for sharing your story...For myself I found the answers right here on these boards. When I get confused between loyalty and love and my own welfare i go to a meeting or read what others have said about similar situations...because HERE you will find someone who has already dealt with whatever you are going through already.
Everyone who has decided to seek guidance has already started making a decision. For me the key was detachment, and letting go. It eventually led me to leave to find the serenity and peace I really needed. I have never regreted letting go. I still speak to my AH everyday and I hear his disease taking over. Then I go to a meeting, for love and support....Good Luck remember...You didn't cause it, you can't cure it and you can't control it
I have often found it the most useful to ************call my sponsor**************
If you work a good program and still have not been able to sort out what your part is, a LOVING sponsor can see so much more than I could ever see in myself.
These boards are such a great support system, however, I am completely unable to comment in a meaningful way on what someone's part is strictly through black and white writings on the message board.
If you are serious about wanting to know what is your part, ask your sponsor for what they are seeing in you. You may get a very different perspective than what you found on this board.
Dear blurose 79, it sounds like you are already half-way there in answering your own question. You obviously have given a great deal of time and energy trying to "figure out" your answer.
Remembering how I have thought in similar situations with difficult people--- I thought: "If I figure out what is wrong with ME they will treat me differently"--making the assumption, of course, that it had to me MY fault.
It is as if your behavior justifies the abuse---and if you changed your behavior, the abuse would go away. The abuser is overstepping their right by being abusive. PERIOD.However justified they may feel--they are still overstepping their rights. Abusers often do what they do because they know that they can.
The more the awareness of your own rights (and the right to love yourself) strengthens, I predict this will seem clearer to you.
I makes you feel "crazee" , doesn"t It!??
Hope this is helpful.
Respectfully, Otie
-- Edited by Otie on Thursday 5th of May 2011 09:18:41 AM
Here's how it was explained to me when I was in similar circumstances, and this still makes sense to me today...
"You can stay or leave your current situation - that is completely up to you. However, without recovery for yourself, you are more than likely to repeat these same behaviors that go you where you are, and may even choose your next partner, who will turn out to be very similar to your current one"
My wise old sponsor told me that.... then my counselor told me that.... and then a bunch of wise oldtimers in Al-Anon told me that.... After a bunch of tries, I think the message got through..... The old saying of "wherever I go, there I am" holds true.... if we don't work on ourselves, and fall back in love with US, we are kind of destined to repeat our own patterns...
Hope that helps - I know it helped me...
Tom
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"He is either gonna drink, or he won't.... what are YOU gonna do?"
"What you think of me is none of my business"
"If you knew the answer to what you are worrying about, would it REALLY change anything?"
For me I have reached a point where I understand that in an healthy realationship I need and want to be able to discuss and at least try and resolve our problems together, as and when they arise, I think I am beginning to understand where my resentments and anxiety come from, because we as a couple have never learnt how to do that, I have often thought I would be right as rain on my own, but? I know that it's not all his fault, I want to build my self confidence up so I know the difference, we have been together 30 years, I am a slow learner, perhaps when I get more knowledge of how to communicate and know I am doing the best I can, I might make a decision to stay or go, I don't know yet about that, but what I do know is I have to harden up, I would need to do that with or without him.
When I was with my exAH and I would meet him with compassion and love, he resented me for it. I did contribute a lot to the relationship in how I took on his blame and accepted the over responsibility of trying to own their pains or their behavior/thinking for them. The truth is we do have that thinking & behavior too, we are both codies (the A's and us) so yes, we think the same ways sometimes. We blame each other and feel overly responsible for the other and yet not at all responsible for ourselves, abandon and reject ourselves and our own needs.
I dont think it is so much - finding, what is my part in it - as much as, you are beginning to find your way through it. You have to stop listening to the disease, of course the disease wants you to feel blamed and overwhelmed and stuck. That is the victim's mentality. We are not stuck, we are not losers or to blame, if we get up and change that is. If we get up and change, you are immediately owning your part in it. Your part in it, is what you did that got you to alanon. It is all about you. Your part in it, is what you can do for you now.
Take actions that will allow you to feel your own self respect and dignity and give him the dignity and respect to solve his own unresolved feelings, issues and other baggage. Your part in it, is why do I allow him to treat me this way? Do I belive what he says about me? For me that was it, yes I did believe I was terrible, that is what happens over time when we listen to their incessant brainwahsing and still try to extend our love to them. It is said that the A feels worthless and they loathe themselves, so they think, if they are so extremely unlovable and here you come along, a nice primed codie, willing to enable him and belive what he says and love him so much in spite of himself, they hate us for it. They think something must be really wrong with you, if you can love them, they who are so unlovable. It is a form of sabotage and it is a hook to get you to feeling guilty and to try to love them more. There is not enough love in the world from us, to get them to love themselves. It is an inside job, that starts and ends with you.
I hope you stick it out and keep working a solid program for yourself. Get a sposnor, define ur needs, learn to establish boundaries that you can enforce and follow so that you can feel better about yourself one day at a time. Keep coming and sharing, this fellowship truly is life transforming.
I was terrified of upsetting my A's and everyone else in my life that I gave my focus to. They are always upset anyway! Detach from their feelings, issues, whims, attitudes and focus on YOU and allow you to be the center of your own life. You are worth discovering and recovery is self discovery! No matter what, you can only change YOUrself and control yourself. He will do what he wants anyway, as adults do. Make choices you can feel good about and dont believe him when we blames you, own your own behavior.
When I got boundaries, they showed me very clearly who was using me and who really cared about me. No one deserves to tolerate unacceptable behavior and if you are ever in physical harm, please be very careful & call a women's shelter for guidance on how to keep yourself safe. God Bless and take care of YOU, whatever that looks like. Be kind and gentle with yourself, welcome to alanon.
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Light, Love, Peace, Blessings & Healing to Us All. God's Will Be Done. Amen.
I think the hardest part for me in recovery is making it about me and not my wife. I can rationally recognize that I can't control her behavior no matter how well I work my own program, but emotionally I am still bargaining with god. I'll work the program, but you have to give me what I want in return. I'm kind of reading that same feeling in your post. We can't find recovery for our qualifiers, no matter how much we care about them. I'm definately finding it easier said then done.
I am so appreciative for this topic, so much great ESH here for me to process. Thanks everyone for your contribution! I am hearing my HP loud and clear.
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God grant me the serenity To accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.
Al-Anon/Alateen Family Group Headquarters, Inc. 800-344-2666
What's my part in it is an inventory of everything I do and why; the action and the motive cause when the consequences are negative (for me) I'm the problem. In the disease of alcoholism/addict they were always negative for me because until I got into the program I didn't even know it was alcoholism and drug addiction I was dealing with. So part of my part was attempting to change the things I couldn't change without knowing the rules and how to go about it. What "I" did was making things worse "for me" my alcoholic/addicts just went about doing what they were compulsed to do anyway.
Suggestion of a sponsor contact...marvelous and worked(s) for me. Listening to the fellowship with a very open mind also worked(s) for me. Practicing something different that I hear works for others priceless!! Keep coming back (((((hugs)))))
