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 trying really hard not to care what my A does. We are seperated and I still find myself thrying to influence him to do what I want him to do. Last night I went to a f2f meeting (the one in my town is horrible) and I asked if he wanted to go to aa (same place and time) he said he was tired, etc. so I said well you have to leave when I go, I don't want you here when I'm not here so of course he chose to go to the meeting - as was my intent in saying that. Granted, I would have gone to the meeting whether he chose to go or not and he could have chosen not to go and just go home to the house with no power and water.....
I find myself this morning worrying about whether he showed up for work or not and if he's doing what he's "supposed" to. I catch myself and I try to stop it and turn the focus back to me and what I'm doing but it is such an ingrained habit to tell him what to do and be waiting for the shoe to drop. When I realize that I'm doing it I think that's not my problem and try to distract myself with something else.
Any advice on how to get better at letting go? How to stop giving 'advice' and so forth. How to stop thinking about what he might or might not be doing so much? I have dictated everything for so long that I truly feel that he can NOT take care of himself. I am having a hard time waiting to see if he can but I really do want to see how he does on his own.
You know this was much easier when he was across the country and not visiting every day!
Carolinagirl, dear, boy I relate. We love them so much, know they are sick. So how come we cannot help them? We know it is a disease and then need help?? We are nurturers. It is not a bad thing.
It is what makes us who we are. For me Carolina, I have to say,"stop!" in my head and turn it into, I am going to do the dishes today. whatever. When it comes to mind," What is he eating, is he eating or just drinking? Did he go to work and,"STOP"I will take care of myself today.
I guarentee this will work. I have always been 400 pounds in my head. I look back at pictures when I thought I was so fat, gads i was not fat at all.
Well I went back to college in my fourties. I did not want to feel that way anymore. I wanted to like me just how I was. So I did the stop thing and put in, "I am ok just how I am." It took about a year. By then I was totally changed. I like me, I don't feel I don't deserve to live becuz I am not a stick, it is ok to have sex even though I am rounded, I am pretty, I am healthy, etc.
I learned to love the me the creator gave me. In a humble way, a grateful way. And I love others just how they are even more now too.
There was a gal on wife swap last night. A beautiful afro american woman. She smiled, and the room lit up. She was feminine, and soft and so in love with her family.
there was a gal who was solid muscle, but she was hard and unbendable. It took a while to find the love in her, but it was there.
All I know is the stop thing works. When I miss A so much my guts feel rotten, I say stop and I see wild irises. I can put in whatever I want.
After awhile it is just second nature. It is hard for me not to like me as I am. Now I am older and I do have too much of a tummy. But I still see the good in me too. I love being a woman.
It sure did not stop me with my husband in making love. He loved it too, and he adored me just how I was, and becuz of how I was. One thing about my a, he NEVER put me down, never. I don't know what made him not, but he didn't allow the disease to tear me up like that.
We as nurturers have to learn that to help them is making it so much worse, dragging it on even longer.
Hey sometime he will hit a place of awareness and be cold and hungry. He will get so miserable maybe he will decide, "dang I need to get it together."
But we will not have any part in it. IF we do, it won't last. They have to really want it. Just like we have to really want something to change ourselves.
Carolina if you knew how many times i have carried my handcuffs in my pocket to handcuff him to me.....lol I really have. But when I face him I realize, it would do no good at all.
He went to rehab for a long time, drank as soon as he got out. could not wait to get that feeling they crave, they love.
I have seen him do it a hundred times.
Your poor A inside that body, needs you to let go. He has got to climb out of that disease himself.
Debilyn is amazing. She gave you wonderous advice.
I don't know what changed in me, but the more I began taking care of me and not obsessing and making plans with him, etc. (we've been living together 17 years) - the less I worried. I still do worry if he is out drinking and driving, I pray that he doesn't hurt or kill someone on the way home. But now I can go to bed.
I was like you, I made the choices for "us", he got used to that. He asks me now to do something as simple as bring him his dinner plate and I don't anymore. I am realizing that I was MOTHERING him. I am not his mother, and I cannot take his burden anymore. I was paying the unpaid bills he was not paying, I was begging him to quit drinking, to go to AA, to read the Big Book that I have sitting on the table in plain sight for him.
He won't do anything that I suggested. So, I let go of that control. Every day I pray to God that he take him in his hands, and I have to trust that his God has a plan for him. He may never recover. I was so mad when I heard that for the first time here on the boards. It is reality. He may never find recovery. But you have to take care of yourself.
There is a beautiful world out there. I was used to spending this life with someone who made me so happy, we had such fun together. Now he is not there, his body has been taken over by an angry, miserable person who is sick and has no control over his disease.
Try to remember not to take things personally either. That is a hard one to realize, but you know, he does love you. He has a disease and it is a horrible one.
Please come back - this board helps more than I ever thought it would.... it will save your life....!!!
I think, in my experience, the closer I am to the person, the harder it is to "let go." I think the best suggestion I've heard about "letting go" comes from HOPE FOR TODAY : the pain isn't in letting go; it's in my intense attempts at control and my insistence that I can fix what is not mine to fix.
I have come to see that more and more the more I try to manage a situation, the more unmanageable I become; the more I try to control, the more uncontrollable I become. My emotional life becomes a disaster, and soon, my whole life is as if I was in the alcholism again.
I think the best thing I have learned about "letting go" goes something like this: I get busy. I focus on me. Whatever I'm doing, it has to involve me busy me. By the time it's all said and done, it's like "Oh geez dad, go get...(I can't say that online here)"
I don't have the energy, in other words, to fight or worry. I'm just too occupied with me.
Your post helped me so much.. !! I am having a hard time letting go too. My husband and I are seperated and I find if i dont talk with him a few times a day I am miserable. I love Debilynn's advice, I will try that too.
