I have been working for 3 months now and so far the A has not conned me on any level out of money. Tonight I find out he made only a partial payment on the rent (he has done that for months I think) and we got a three day notice. The landlord is fed up with getting only partial payments and a song and dance (which the A is really good at).  The A thought he was buddy buddy with him and they were in some codependent dance.  Now the landlord is mad and guess who has to sort it out while the A plays victim. He is so great at paying victim, so very adept at it. Of course before I played into it with raging at him. These days I don't rage at him why bother its just another excuse for him to act out. I know the reason he behaves as he does. It works for him, he knows nothing else and guess what he wants to know nothing else either.

Meantime the A as usual is being hero to his friends (oh the A and his friends what a tour de force that has been for me) and providing them with work and camaraderie and they are all off in some reverie about starting a business together.  The A is full of plans and they are grandiose including going off for 3 weeks and leaving me to take care of everything while he gets the vehicle and takes care of nothing.  Meantime he allows things like the electicity to be cut off.  I didn't bite that one.  He paid that bill. I did not offer one cent which is new for me. Before I offered, paid everything and then he 'd turn around and tell me to get out when I didn't have a penny. Oh and he'd say he wasn't even my boyfriend and barely knew me too.

I know how it is to get behind on the bills. Believe me I have compassion and sympathy and understanding. I go nowhere, do no socializing, can not justify going to face to face meetings because I spend all my money on my commitments and my goals (getting a real job is a goal for me).  I am responsible he is not, never will be probably and he is currently employing someone who is connected with one of the biggest drug dealers in the area I live in. I know drugs are just around the corner if they are not already in his spending plan.

So right now I am fed up to the gills with the A but I am not doing my normal codependent behavior of raging, weeping, feeling sorry for myself, agonizing, blaming myself, blaming his mother (that's a good one) or feeling envious of his friends. I am just fed up with him and his games and his friends being the most important and his dodging stuff and leaving it to me then denying it.   And of course using me for all his worth and then acting like I owe him all the time and how generous he is to me.  Tonight he met me exhausted, I bought him a nice drink at Starbucks.  I have to say this he NEVER buys me a thing.  Not one day did he ever meet me with a nice drink.  He does not consider me in any way shape form unless it suits him unless it is a way to manipuate me.  And the hurt is he never did. His whole seduction number and his not being able to do enough for me when we met was all to get me here.  To get me stuck with him and having to put up with him and being fed up with him.

These days of course I do not give him an excuse to act out around me. The raging and the screaming has gone. The remonstrations have gone, the raising my voice has gone. The showing envy at his friends has gone. The being fed up that he leave the taking care of the pets to me has gone. The being fed up that he does no housework (he blames me that the house isn't clean when he is home all day most days) is gone. The being fed up with his mother comes before me every single holiday including the 4th of july to be here soon) is gone.

What's left is someone who is determined to find my way out of this.  Whatever it is plan a to try to find a way out in 6 months (if I have to work 3 jobs I will do it), the 3 years (then I would qualify for senior housing) the thought of having to give up my pets for adoption or board them or find somewhere to put them is very difficult at the same time it is realistic. 

I am exploring options, I have options, I may not like my options I have them.  I did not have them without al-anon I allowed his alcoholism, his manipulation, his acting out to paralyze me. These days it irks me, it makes me mad but not rageful, it does not cause me corosive resentment, I can detach, I can detach from him and his lies (after all everything is a lie for him, and a way to manipulate and a way to get back to using because after all that is all there is ...using).  I can have a life not want to end my life as I did when I got here. I can live, I can enjoy things, I can be separate from him and his acting out and his crisis after crisis. Lately there has been one a day.  I can know that I can rise above this.  I can also know that this absolutely not be forever.  I can know that I learned a lot about myself in this relationship and I gained a whole program.

Maresie.2