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Does the holidays bring chaos to everyone? My ah who I am separated from has been going to celebrate recovery, a therapist and a pychoanalyst for two months. He has been at the house a lot and we have been getting along ok..now the holidays... Originally I was going somewhere by myself since my daughter will be with her dad this holiday. Then my ah and I started talking and decided to go away together for the holiday. Lately there has been a lot going on and he has been negative a grumpy abit more than I'm comfortable with. He still has his apt but now he stays at the house about 5 days a week..for past two weeks. Now add one more wrinkle my family has decided that they are coming to my house for thanksgiving..kinda invite themselves.. I asked my mom if she would mind if ah comes for thanksgiving dinner and she said if he says anything to me I am going off on him. Basically it would be uncomfortable all the way around. So what should I do?? Run away and think about my sanity or stay and try and get through the holidays I which my family invades my house with tons of dogs and cats and chaos..Help!
Oh.....(((Hugs))) - I have worked each year to allow less and less of the drama/chaos to affect me for the holidays. I was sick last year for T-Giving, and it was a blessing quite frankly. I was sick again on Easter (oh....yes - another blessing)! I did attend Christmas and it was fine - there are many more who appear from out of town that I do enjoy seeing and don't get to 'see' except at Christmas.
So - I believe all of us have experienced LTP (less than perfect) holidays and don't look forward to them as others do. Having said that, I have seriously been considering cooking right here for my immediate family. It it includes just me & AH, so be it. If it includes my A sons, so be it. I haven't made a final decision and am not going to for a while - plan to pray about it and talk with my sponsor. I am the only one who truly wants to go to my family events. The others are not ever excited about it and I'm just not going to mention it.
Use your program tools to find your truth. Then, if necessary, un-invite everyone. That's an option and a choice. We work hard in this program to take care of ourselves and sometimes that happens at the expense of other's expectations. Do your thing - YOLO - you only live once (my new motto!!)
Breathe - Pray - One Day at a Time!!
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Practice the PAUSE...Pause before judging. Pause before assuming. Pause before accusing. Pause whenever you are about to react harshly and you will avoid doing and saying things you will later regret. ~~~~ Lori Deschene
The thing is I feel like I I'm torn a lot between what is, what I pray for, and what I am living with and it is three separate worlds. When he is comfortable he comes around, when family wants to come they come but two months ago when I asked everyone then no one will give me a answer. I get to be happy with whatever everyone wants or not. My ah is tiring but there is something missing... No passion just business and complaints and a couple calm moments. If I am going through something tuff he makes it worse instead of better, he jumps into anger over things that he should just let me talk about.he tries to but he is not getting it yet and I have an anxiety really bad when I want something and it is so hard for me to tell him. Really bad anxiety panic attacks no one cares they keep on being themselves and doing what they want to do when I am close to falling apart. I had to do something really hard today my depression and anxiety were really bad because of it and he really did help but there is this other part were he just made it worse. Making angry comments about things acting stressed out. I found myself trying to calm him down instead of concentrating on me. I know it's a habit and I stopped myself but it was just like really... U can't give me this one thing? He is really mad about thanksgiving but he is the one that has made it like this and doesn't accept that the way he acted when he was drinking is what has caused my mom to be like she is toward him. Now she can be over bearing at times but instead of him swallowing his pride he just passive aggressively says he will let me make up my own mind. But neither one of them really do that because and he pouts over it and will say things about my family like how dare they invite themselves. I am not happy and I can't figure out why everyone does this stuff..
I am thinking here of my thread about how I never stood up for myself and told people no and set boundaries. It sounds as if both your A and your family like to run roughshod over people (in this case: you). I know how much we want families to be wonderful people to share holidays with, and how we want our A's to be loving people to celebrate with. It sounds like there's a big risk that neither of these things is going to be the case right away for your situation. I think I too would buy that round-trip ticket. Or since tickets are expensive around Thanksgiving, I'd make a reservation at some lovely hotel you can get to without too much trouble, and maybe book a massage! Or arrange to see a friend in the area of the hotel later in the weekend. Sometimes we need and deserve a genuine break!
I vote for what Mattie said . In fact, that's exactly what I am doing this year.
Last year, both Thanksgiving and Christmas were traumatic due to the effects of alcoholism. I promised myself then that I wouldn't do it again this year, and I am not. For one holiday I'm taking myself to a hotel, and for the other I'm visiting a friend who lives near the beach. My adult kids will be fine with their own celebrations, and I'll be taking care of myself.
The thing is I feel like I I'm torn a lot between what is, what I pray for, and what I am living with and it is three separate worlds. When he is comfortable he comes around, when family wants to come they come but two months ago when I asked everyone then no one will give me a answer. I get to be happy with whatever everyone wants or not.
As mentioned, use your program tools to find your truth. The way you describe it sounds like everyone gets to decide what makes you happy except you. Talking this over with a program friend or sponsor could help with that. Everyone knows that we don't always get what we want for the holidays, and realizing that holidays are all LTP (IamH, I love that!) , we have to make our holidays as perfect as possible for ourselves. In fact, I have found that in these situations, it doesn't matter what I do, someone will find something to complain about, be ungrateful, etc, so really asking them to go somewhere else and hearing their complaining then is just getting all the trauma out of the way before the holiday, allowing me to have a peaceful one. That might include telling everyone to go find another place to host their party. I do like the idea of taking a vacation with your sanity, I like it so much I might be doing that myself soon!
This also reminds me of a saying that I am also going through and having to deal with right now: Your family of origin knows best how to push your buttons, because they are the ones who installed them! Sometimes repeating that over and over works better for me then the serenity prayer!
Kenny - TY - I also love yours.....'family of origin knows best how to push your buttons, because they are the ones who installed them!' <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< AMEN!!!
(((Hugs)))
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Practice the PAUSE...Pause before judging. Pause before assuming. Pause before accusing. Pause whenever you are about to react harshly and you will avoid doing and saying things you will later regret. ~~~~ Lori Deschene
. In fact, that's exactly what I am doing this year.