The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
I am new to this website but not new to al-anon. I have been attending al-anon and co-anon for the past year and a half. My A just celebrated a year of sobriety. and I am happy for that. But I am working on my 6th step and I keep clinging on to my character defects. I can't let god remove them. At the moment I am very resentful toward my A. He did a lot of crazy things....my part is that I let crazy things go on I was accepting unacceptable behavior. I went through emotional abuse, and some physical abuse from him. He denys that he did any of this abuse to me. He says that I am the crazy one. That he did nothing wrong. He acts like the stealing, hitting, lies and mistreatment didn't cause me pain. But it did it caused me so much pain that I still feel it today. Sometimes I can still hear his hurtful words. He would leave me behind at the house because I embarassed him when we went to his friends house, because I wouldn't drink. He would go missing for days at a time. On his birthday night he apologized to his parents and his sister about his behavior...but not to me. He said that he had gotten together with me at the begining because he had a fear of being alone and I took him in. Then that later on he grew to love me. I felt so horrible after this meeting....but I just acted as if and continued with the night like as if nothing. I am still very resentful to him. And he is also pushing me away from him. Yesturday he told me that I need to find myself a life and not to be bugging him. I don't call him anymore and I go to my meetings sometimes walking. I have detached from him but he doesn't want to do couple things anymore. He says he has work to do and that he has to stay late or that he has to stay for fellowship after the meeting. I hardly see him but for a few hours before bed and we have sat. afternoon and sunday to do things together. But this weeked he just kept saying I am bored I am going to the store, park, wash the car, etc. and I say can i go and he says no. So I don't want to argue and I let it go. I am confused and resentful. All this just started to happen, at the begining of sobriety he was helpful and always doing things at home and we were always doing service or going out as a couple to places. But recently it has been like this and I feel like I am losing my serenity that I once had. HELP!!
I would do just that work on you.Take care of you and make some friends ask someone to lunch after alanon go to a movie and dont center on what he is going to do or not do.Maybe look into some counciling for you.
I know you dont need me to say this and I am no one to judge cause been there.You dont deserve abuse of any kind if he drinks or doesnt drink.if he never sees it or not set boundaries and dont give in.
keep going to alanon alot of meetings ... as much as you can and keep posting i want to know how you are
Hi Texas , welcome . You don't say that u have a sponsor I really hope your not doing these steps by yourself. Letting go of the past is tough but necessary fr us to move on. A sponsor will listen to you and offer suggestions perhaps another 4th step on just your husb behavior would help.
Your husb will never completley understand what his behavior did to you nor will u ever really understand the disease he suffers from. i found that by talking things out with a sponsor or just good al anon friends most of my resentment left turns out I jsut wanted to be heard and it didn't have to be him that was doing the listening.
Something that helped me alot was i heard a lady say that she wasted alot of time waiting for her past to change. accept what happened and let it go. for me i was more angry at myself than him because I allowed the crappy behavior over and over again. No one to blame but me he was just doing what A's do. Taking responsibility for my part in the mess took away the anger towards him .
Some of the things that helped me do that was to look at the resentment , admit how it affected my life , ask myself what could I have done differently and then ask myself Why didn't I ?? hated it but it makes things alot clearer. good luck Louise
I am sure u have heard this one but here goes anyway. Carrying resentment and anger are like drinking poison and waiting for the other guy to die. pretty sick huh ?
I can definitely relate to this one. I have had tremendous resentment towards the A. My A is not in recovery and not likely to be in it. He sees nothing wrong with him. He has no interest in it at all no matter what the consequences are to his life.
I have worked really hard to limit the resentments I pick up daily. That is one tough battle being around an A. I try to live the serenity prayer being aware what I can control and what I can't. I also work on trying to keep my side of the street clean which means working the steps as best I can.
I do put a lot of my resentments out there. I do acknowledge how awful the A is (and ironically he is better than he was). I also work on ways that I am grandiose, petty, jealous, envious, small minded and more. I can collect resentments towards others as much as I can towards him. I find learning how others work the steps so so helpful in that regard. I listen to how they do it.
If you are on this board for a while you will see that A's often do splitting that is they divide their life into black/white, all good, all bad. Their spouses are either all good or all bad. That is not a reflection on you it is a reflection on how their mind works. I know how hard it is to put up with that. I used to be green with envy over the way the A put his mother and others on a pedastel. I have had to work overtime to detach from that.
I am so glad that you are here and talking about this stuff. Sometimes for me resentments are easy to let go of, others are like super glue. I know the less I cling onto them the more I have room for the good in my life and the more I can work this program the better I am.
One thing that is for sure is that we will never completely figure them out. Much of it is the disease of alcoholism whether sober or not. And sometimes it is worse with sobriety because they have no skills without the alcohol. Keep the focus on you and working the steps.
