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A and I seem to be doing a really stupid dance. I invite him to come over and spend time with me when daughter is at her dads. He can't make it, every time and then he wants to come over a dew days later when daughter is home and asks a long, boring and predictable string of questions about "aren't we ever going to be a family again", "does daughter have to be away for me to come over" and "she's going to have understand that I'm still in your life". And so on. Yet he's always drunk when he comes here so he seems to just be pushing for me to allow him to relive the old nightmares. He doesn't want to build anything new.
In my estimation, after almost 9 months apart, it would be logical that if we were going to test the water together we would spend some time alone together and see how that felt and see what issues we had to deal with etc without a child present. I'm pretty sure that is logical.
He refuses my invitation to spend a couple of days alone together every time and then a couple of days later he announces that he is coming over to spend a week at my house when daughter is there and acts butt-hurt when I say no. This scenario occurs over and over and over.
I'm not going to ask if I'm being reasonable because I know that I am. I won't back down on this but it still hurts and feels crap when I say no and he says "well if you don't want to see me" every time I reject this request.
I don't even know what it is...he won't be alone with me but he wants to jump back into the horrible nightmare that was being a family?
Coming from a background of child-abuse when I re-read that I can see how it sounds but I am absolutely sure that's not what is going on with him. If I can say one thing for absolute certain about ABF it's that he is not odd with children. It's not that. But what it tells me is that there is no relationship to rebuild between us. There is no us. There is just his nice secure cocoon where I am the mum and he controls me by yelling at my kid.
I guess I don't need to understand what it is. I just need to understand that it isn't what I want and it doesn't meet even the most simple and basic requirements of what I would need from him to start again. I would need him to want to put effort in with ME, ALONE??? I would need him to want to be with ME? Not force himself into "my family"?
What he is asking me for is a fresh platform from which to be a bully again. For me to be "mother of everyone" again. No thanks.
If I can't even ask for something as basic as time together alone to see what we have and how we are together then there's nothing to work with. I need to step away when we are so distant. While it's easy.
Make the bloody choice Mel.
Put it down and walk away.
Why can't I?
.
-- Edited by missmeliss on Tuesday 21st of July 2015 05:34:44 PM
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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)
For me Mel....And I am just talking about me, I was terrified of being alone, single, and that nobody else would accept me. Yeah, there were things I enjoyed doing by myself and I could enjoy some private time, but truly single...that was scary.
Honestly alone, with no-one...
It's sort of akin to when I told my daughter we would go swimming with dolphins and they took us out in a boat to the middle of the bay and suggested we get out of the boat and float around in the deep green nothingness with miles of open water beneath us. Nope. Sounds great in theory, even sounds good while we are all in a boat together in the warm sunshine heading towards the diving place. But when it comes time to get out of the boat, nope. But mum this cost you $200. I don't care. Nope. I can't and I won't and nope. You go on and have fun.
Funny weird aside, I am very afraid of deep water (altho I'm a very strong swimmer and used to swim competitively) and ABF used to coax me out to sea and laugh at me going crazy trying to get back to him. I am TERRIFIED alone in deep water. Then one day we were a very long way out and there was an actual shark and he started shouting at it and pounding the water and he came back for me, got me to ball up so I had no parts dangling in the water and towed me back like that. Remembering stuff like that doesn't help. There were days when he was superman. He wasn't always a stupid drunk jerk. I could drive myself insane wishing for those days.
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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)
Thanks Deb.
Your avatar always makes me smile back.
You're right. Only my HP can help me sort this out.
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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)
Maybe this is winding down and you're coming to terms with what is. Time and experience in the program has a way of clearing the fog. He's not available for what you're asking. The daughter/family thing is his excuse in my humble opinion. He likely can't deal with true intimacy. Could rejection and anger be things he's using to have you believe he's the one controlling the situation and that you don't have the upper hand even though in reality you left him, you're in your own home now, it's your daughter and your choice to give him a chance not the other way around. Attractive?
In support of you as you sort this out. (((hugs))) TT
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Surround yourself with people and elements that support your destiny, not just your history.
I MsM, I can certainly identify with your feelings that at times your partner was very loving, supportive, and like "Superman". I experienced the same in my marriage and it kept me searching and searching for that same experience once again with him. Unfortunately, alcoholism is a destroyer and it took six years of him being sober in AA for me to rediscover that wonderful spark within him.
Please remember your assets, you are an intelligent, talented, compassionate, woman who is pursuing a degree and has a drivers license. Trust HP and know that you are never alone.
Maybe he's afraid to be alone with you because that represents something scarier than a teenage girl - intimacy on a one on one basis.
At one point with my A I realized that he expected me to be happy with the crumbs instead of wanting the full meal deal.
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I am strong in the broken places. ~ Unknown
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another! ~ Anatole France
FEAR...the greatest emotional defect in the disease of alcoholism and for me I have learned the acronym that says False Evidence Appearing Real. I am reacting to false evidence my mind is creating. My earliest Al-Anon tool against fear was courage and the latest is love. I needed the courage tool first in order to change and then the love now to face people, places and things with love. Its okay to move on Mel and stop hanging around stuff and people who causes us to be sick when we're involved. My sponsor told me that I was going to have to remove myself from all things alcohol which included my entire family and....my alcoholic/addict. I did the family much easier than the spouse which I did with tons of fear. Addiction works on both sides of the relationship that is why our program is for those who have been affected by someone else's drinking and using. There is no such thing as just alittle bit sick. ((((hugs))))
