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.
had a conversation with my ex this morning. he didn't call yesterday so i assumed he was "out there". he was. he was still sounding drunk when i was talking to him. now, i have assumed all this time he's been living with his mother that he's been using. i don't ask it's not my business. he shows up here with a beat up face and tells me and the kids that he was trimming trees and a branch fell and hit him. kinda silly but i don't question it. i don't really care. my best friend took one look at him and asked me later who beat him up. i said some tree and she said "oh they let trees in bars?" and we had a small laugh. yes i have resentments and sometimes it feels good to laugh at the absurity of his lies. but for some reason yesterday triggered alot of stuff in me and when we spoke this morning i asked him how he was and he said bad and i asked why he said he had a bad couple of days and danced around saying outright that he was using again. but i didn't. i said that i feel really bad for him that he has to go thru this. i can't imagine what hell it must be. i said that i know what i am going thru and i see what the kids are going thru. he thought i was being sarcasic so i explained that i wasn't. his disease has torn apart our family and i know that he never wanted to be the way he is now. i know the person he is wants to be a terrific dad and he was when he was sober. he has a disease and he knows what to do to get better. i told him that he's not dead yet so there is always hope and i pray that he gets what he needs. this wan't a momolouge, he had replys to what i was saying and sometimes "he" shined thru knowing that he was hurting the children and damaging them and doing the best he can at the moment. neither one of us knows what the right thing to do is to make the situation better. but he is trying to call the kids and he is trying to get here to see them even if he has to leave to go get high or whatever he does.
this sounds so sick compared to the life we wanted for our kids. but it is reality. and i guess i came out of a little denile i was hiding in and it hurts. alot. i didn't believe his lies but i didn't question them either. today he tried to give me some truth and honestly i didn't want to hear it. it doesn't matter anyway.i am supervising all visits with the kids so i don't want to know what he's doing when not here. i don't know i guess i'm trying to still be a friend to him. he has none that are real. i'm getting something out of it too but it's not healthy. that's ok i am far better than when i was before. my anger is totally directed at his mother for enabling him to live this way. silly i know but she has been in and out of our program for years. seems like she should know better. but she doesn't. she doesn't get it. and i really hate her for doing all that she has done. i don't speak to her. i can assume she is hurting also. but i have no compassion for her at all. her actions have had an effect on my kids and that is unacceptable. i honestly am far angrier at her than at him. sick but honest. i hope this saddness lifts soon and i just keep praying for the right words to come out of my mouth.
Wow, I applaud you for your truthful insight and honesty regarding your tough situation. I'm so sorry you and the kids are going through all this right now. I can see the compassion you have for your ex regarding how this disease has taken hold of his life. It's hard watching our loved ones live this kind of life.
One thing I wanted to say to you is this...you have that much compassion for him and the disease of alcoholism, yet you are harboring your anger towards your mother in law. I am the same way ~ my husband's brother, mom and dad enabled my husband in his drinking, keeping it a secret from me, and I had that kind of anger and resentment towards them for a long time. Just as I read your post, it hit me like a ton of bricks! How can I have the compassion for the sickness that the addict/alcoholic is suffering, yet have no compassion for the sickness of the enablers? Wow, that's powerful to me. Your post has helped me to see that they are sick, as well as the A, and that I should have compassion towards them, even though they know about Alanon (although my husband's parents aren't involved with Alanon, and never have been, but his brother is a counselor at a recovery center, of all things). If I can see them through that lens, I can start to have hope that they can change. But I can still love them even though they have enabled my husband.
You said that your ex knows what to do to get better. You also said that your MIL should know better since she has been in and out of Alanon. Funny, we want someone to take the blame for our loved ones having this disease, or at least for being helped along in it. I know I have done that, and I want to thank you for your post, for opening my eyes to the fact that the enablers are sick people themselves, just as the A is, and just as we are, and that they deserve the compassion that we give our A's. It's just a different kind of sickness, in a way.
Feel your feelings. They're real. We always want the best for our children. When we deal with the disease we don't always act rationally. My AHsober and I have said many times that we weren't going to help our son financially. We cave in every time. We know we are enabling him. Love doesn't help.
