We talked, sort of
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We talked, sort of
| Wed, 11-07-2007 - 12:03pm |
Hello and happy mid week to all.
Last night I talked with Blue Eyes on the phone. I was really very calm (the two days to collect my thoughts and make sure I was not reactive and accusitory really helped) as I expressed my dissappointment in how Sunday went down. It was a pretty long yet relatively calm talk (I did 95 percent of the talking...he just listened) but I will just say here what everything really boiled down to...my main issue being that I felt like I took second place on Sunday (as I have on previous occasions) and my feelings were hurt. I was hoping for an appology or that a light would go off in his head, a kind of understanding. Well, it was more or less like talking to a very quiet wall.

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When i was going to support groups with my ex I'd have people pull me aside and ask "why are you with this person?" "You can do better"... etc. etc.
I'll tell you what i told them and maybe you can relate.... First of all because I Love Him.. i'm not going to abandon him, especially not after he's asked for my help. He loves me, too. We'll get through this.. we'll be that 1%. I'll try EVERYTHING before giving up on him. Trust me, Pac, I am one of the most stubborn people you will meet... I felt like nobody really understood how i felt and that's why they'd so quickly say "leave him".
Secondly, i had a strong sense of loyalty... Even though i didn't know it in the beginning, I thought that my love could save him. He had a sob story about why he drank (disappointed by his mother or other ex lovers, etc.). I had a strong sense that if I stuck by him, that he would love me even more and I'd be that ONE person who didn't give up on him. I believed, it was somehow my job to fix him. I also believed, that if/when I fixed him, that somehow i will be more lovable and worthy.
I was wrong. It was not MY JOB to fix him... that's his job. Second, I AM worthy and lovable even if he doesn't get better. Even if he rejects me because i won't put up with it anymore. I am still lovable!!!
Another truth about Codependency is that I had to hit MY bottom... Like Alison described, losing everything... losing friends, money, housing, almost losing my job.. etc etc. I had to hit my own bottom.. This is enough!!!! My life does not revolve around your addiction and I'm getting my life back!!!
One blessing about that relationship is that it opened my eyes that Codependency or people pleasing affected all my relationships. I began to get help for my addiction to pleasing people and seeking approval from others. I owned my own childhood wounds (rather than focusing on his.) Rather than focusing on his problem and what's going on in his mind and how's he doing today in his recovery... I started focusing on my own issues... I had a Grandmother who hounded me to be perfect and i thought she wouldn't love me if i disappointed her. I thought i'd be abandoned if i wasn't perfect or living up to her expectation. I lived my whole life that way.... Desperate for acceptance and worried that i wasn't good enough. I thought, surely after helping someone beat his addiction, i'll be worthy of his love and i'll be happy... finally.
One of the hardest truth i had to accept was that I CANNOT change someone else... I can only change myself. "But i'm not the drinker, i don't need to change," i thought. "He needs to stop drinking and then our relationship will be fine. And i can help him stop and i can love him enough that he will stop."
At the same time, the truth WILL set you free... once I began changing myself.... focusing on My thoughts and My feelings... setting up boundaries.. Like I won't be around you when you are drinking. Nothing will stop me from getting to MY codependency (alanon or something else) meeting. If you start blaming me, then i'll hang up the phone or leave the room. We can't be intimate until you've been clean for xx amount of days. I will speak the truth in love.. my "yes" will mean "yes" and my "no" will mean "no"... (to name a few boundaries).
A great phrase to keep in the back of you pocket is "I feel _______ when you do _________." Because his drinking will make you angry but you have to own your own feelings.... instead of a statement like "You make me sooo mad." or "you make me feel _____" Nobody can make you feel anything.. you've made a choice. You have a feeling. What is it? Own it and think about what YOU can do about that feeling (usually setting a healthy boundary will make you feel better.)
LOVE is a choice! Pac, nobody can tell you what to do. Nobody has the magic words of advice. I hope you do discover more about Codependency and uncover more correlations from your childhood. Because yes, a lot of our behavior comes from the things we learned as children. When you discover that thing that happened and the belief about yourself you adopted... then you can see it from a new perspective. For me, it was realizing my Grandmother would never have abandoned me. She hounded me like a teacher hounds his best student. In fact, now i believe i was my Grandma's favorite. She may not have known how to express her love, and it wounded me. But as an adult, i can see it from a different perspective. And I can forgive her. And i have been healed!!!
3 1/2 years of recovery. I'm still discovering stuff and still recieving healing.
One day at a time!!!!
Love,
Loonybunny
Dang, loonybunny.
Wow... what a great, articulate, detailed, insightful post!
I want to add one thing I learned is that trying to help an addict or any other person you deem as having a problem by doing it for them then you are disempowering them, sending them a message that they are not enough to do it for themselves, and puts them in a "less than" position - a one up/one down relationship.
What I love about Mercy Corps, a non-profit agency that works amid disasters, conflicts, chronic poverty and instability, is that they learned that communities recovering from war or social upheaval must be the agents of their own transformation for change to endure. So they are out to empower the "victims" of Katrina, Darfur, Uganda, etc.
Mark
---
May your soul be at rest.
May your heart remain open.
May you realize your own true nature.
May you be healed.
May you be a source of healing for the world. - a zen prayer
or any other person you deem as having a problem by doing it for them then you are disempowering them, sending them a message that they are not enough to do it for themselves
Amen!
LooneyB, your post is so inspiring.
Looney,
Amazing post.
The root of most of our issues and problems is ourselves. True understanding comes from knowing that you cannot change the other person and that all you can do is support them when THEY decide to change. I have often had to tell friends that my great change (lost 35 lbs, size 37 waist to a 31/32, my career is humming and generally life is very good) was not due to the divorce, or because of the influence of my new girlfriend, but from working on those things in me that I could and working everyday to deeply understand and love myself.
I found my serenity when I realized that not everything selfish is bad. Putting me first and foremost, my mental and physical health, my emotional and intellectual growth, brought me back to the true me. And the true me is who everyone knows, likes, loves and cares about.
Too many people have bought into the societal mantra of "I'm a victim. It's not my fault." It becomes too easy to admit to a problem and ask for help, as the expectation
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