So I live with my AH and my mother whom I would describe as an untreated Al Anon.  My mother has her own place in the basement.  The two of them don't get along very well.  Wait, let me revise that....when forced to deal directly with each other they are just fine.  When I am not present (at work or what not) and something comes up it magically gets sorted out.  The moment I am there in any way it becomes messy.  My old behaviour was to referee, interpret for them (you know explain what the other person means) and talk to them on behalf of the other person completely.  I felt an overwhelming responsibility to manage their relationship for them.  And my involvement in this just made them each behave however they wanted with no concern or regard for the consequences.  And I would end up fighting with both of them.  A while before I started going to Al Anon I decided I wanted out of the middle man role but Al Anon gave me the tools of detachment and letting others feel their own consequences of their own actions.  When I decided I wasn't going to be the middle man anymore I went to both of them and told them that I am not going to manage this anymore they are responsible for their relationship with each other.  At times my mom will start talking to me about something she wants my AH to know (I think she is secretly hoping I will tell him for her) and I redirect her back to him to speak to him.  My AH will often get upset about something my mom has said or done and I will redirect him to speak to her.  He goes a bit further and threatens to cause bigger problems if he has to deal with it himself and I just tell him that I trust him to manage things appropriately and he shouldn't be afraid of how he might behave because he is quite capable of behaving properly lol.  And the results have been amazing.  There is zero tension for me around this.  I spend no time anymore trying to figure out how to convey my AHs wishes to my mom and vice versa.  And I am absolutely shocked at how few things they actually choose to address with each other.  Very few things come to a head and when they do it gets sorted out quickly.  It has been like magic.....until last night.

Last night my mom came to have dinner in our space with a thinly guised point to prove to my AH.  My AH who is quitting smoking (don't even get me started on this choice lol) had very little patience and engaged way more than he usually does and started to prod her back.  They sat there arguing while I cooked dinner, served it to them, took care of my child who wasn't feeling well and cleaned up.  And when I finally got a moment to sit down and eat they wanted me to look something up for them to settle an argument.  I lost my cool.  I told them I wasn't looking anything up I was going to sit and eat the nice dinner I had prepared for them and they could sort their own stuff out (I used way more profane words than that lol).  Then I felt guilty for my outburst and fell back into my middleman ways lol.  I looked something up to resolve an argument and then got mad at myself for it.  And then my AH started this morning about my mom.  Your mom blah blah blah blah blah.  I told him his issues are his issues with my mother and he could speak to her.  He got mad and said "she's your mother you HAVE to be involved.....if you aren't I'm going to tell her she can only come to dinner twice a week".  I told him that whatever solution he and my mom came to together was fine with me.  This made him even more angry.  He expressed feeling abandoned when dealing with my mom.  I offered to tell her that I am sick of political discussions at the dinner table.  I offered this because I do believe this and it is something I think.  But now I am wondering if I shouldn't have offered.  Last night it struck me how quickly I can fall into my old ways.  I stayed up very late bothered by this issue and now I'm exhausted today.  At least I now know the solution to these problems.  I know that I need to detach with love from both of them and let them work it out.  That will give me instant relief.  I can also see the direct impact that not working my program has on me (fatigue).  It's amazing how quickly I can do something harmful to my wellbeing when something upsetting happens. 

I am going to step back again and redirect them to speak to each other.  I am going to go back to focusing on myself.  Thankfully I had a meeting last night.