I have been hanging around this board for about a week and will attend my second f2f tomorrow. It has helped me tremendously to progress and I am incredibly grateful to everyone who has shared their stories because they have had a profoundly sobering effect on me. Consequently my relationship with my A has shifted dramatically.

I had intended to amputate the relationship….and tried but failed. Seeing that was not going to work…I took another tack. I told him I was bored…felt neglected etc. when he drank. Also that it frightened me. And I was not going to be at home worrying about him while he was out drinking. “I don’t want your problem,” I said. “If you can’t help yourself, that’s your problem and I don’t want it to be mine, anymore…”

He agreed this was wise.

I went on to tell him I was going to see other men, which he did not like, but there was little he could say, seeing as he dumps me when he drinks anyway…and I had told him point blank, I was bored out of my mind with a man who drinks until he passes out. He has (had) 13 years sobriety and I reminded him what he thought of drunks when he was sober and he could recall. He doesn’t blame me, you could say.

Now here’s the kicker. I did it! I have made a date with another man. A sober man, in recovery this years.. 13 years clean. And it’s like the universe is showing me another path…which I am going to take.

I am not going in that bottle with my A. I am not going to live in the shadow. And it’s not like I think some new man is going to cure me or anything like that. I just want something else to do but stand by while my A gets drunk! I’m sick of it. So the new man is a neighbor…someone I can hang with that is very eccentric and non-clingy. You know. He’s got a bunch of AA pals, so I would just be another one of them. Someone to have coffee with and if there is chemistry, well that’s fine. And if not, then you just have to interesting people, interested to spend time together.

So anyway, I told my A he was on a path I could no longer follow him down and I do feel there is a fork in the road and I am taking the path away from him….the path to the light. And I am sure this is right, even though he is the best man…I have loved him like I have never loved before.

And remains to be seen, as I head in this other direction, if our paths slowly divide, to where I can’t see his path anymore, or if something else occurs. But I am definitely heading away from drunkenness. And fighting the guilty feelings…survivor guilt, this is, as I know I have done everything…given everything I have, offered everything I am and he still climbs in that bottle.

And reading the stories around here, it’s clear things can and will get much, much worse. So this weekend, I imagine he will realize…find out that I am going on a date, as opposed to planning to go on a date. And no doubt, this will send him on a binge. ::sighs::

Meanwhile, I will continue to head in a direction that is healthy for me, thankful to a universe that I feel is supporting me….in the form of friends, this board, the f2f meeting which literally is held 2 blocks from my house, on the night I have a babysitter…and now this man who is hardcore in his recovery, and knows some jokes.

Thanks….