So I've been thinking that maybe WAW just isn't good for me.
Dont get me wrong, I love her dearly but I think she's a "runner". Life gets hard, she creates conflict, and then she bolts.
She's also struggled with alcohol addiction. She wasn't the type of drinker to crash her car into the cereal aisle at the grocery store. But she would drink too much sometimes, and hide it. Before she met me, she had a DUI and had lost a few jobs because of her drinking.
I'm really trying to take her off of that damn pedestal. We've been through so much in 5 years together. And she was there for me when I struggled with life.
Who knows what will happen. All I know is that I'm tired of her bolting. Tired of feeling this way when I thought we had our whole lives to look forward to. What happens if one of us is laid off from work? Is she going to bolt? Death of a parent? Will she bolt? Health issue? Adios?
I'm realizing that I am a very loyal person by nature. I always have been. I deserve someone who will go through the sh!t storms with me and never waiver. Maybe that's just not her?
She's 40. Never been married and our 5 year relationship is her longest. Maybe these are red flags that I chose to ignore.
She's very codependent on her mother. And her mother would love nothing more than to have WAW all to herself so they could live together and raise D8 without men in their lives. I don't trust her mother with a 10 foot pole.
Maybe I thought I could change her? After all, that's what codependents do, right?
Maybe I idealized her? Looked at only her positive qualities and ignored the bad ones.
So many similarities Thornton, and have been thinking the same exact thought. My WW had a drinking / drug problem, thought all of that was over. I remember confronting her about the behavior years ago and like your sitch, she would run / avoid etc. I have definitely been thinking, like you, that I deserve someone with the loyalty that I offer. I still love my WW too, probably always will, but maybe feel like I deserve something more fulfilling.
M 43 W 45 M 10.5 T 15 S 26 D 17 (previous relationships) ILYB 12/25/15 + asks for D Confirm affair 1/10/16 W has D ready to sign, but agrees to wait for refinancing to go through (I get a house!)
It's like telling a dog not to bark, it's a dog. My mentor said to me who is the insane one. The one who expects the compulsive gambler not to gamble or the gambler who gambles?
The scorpion asked the frog to carry him across the river. The frog said 'no you will sting me" the scorpion said 'if I do I will drown"
The frog agreed to carry the scorpion across the river, half way the scorpion stung the frog, the frog said now we will drown and the scorpion said 'it is my nature to sting and your karma to be stung'
Until we resolve that attracts us to the wiles of the scorpion we will be stung. We have our karma.
That is my view
V
Freedom is just another word for nothing left to loose. V 64, WAW
Makes sense. I just get carried away by the good WAW. She's not a bad person at all. She has a wonderful heart and cares for people. She loves her daughter very much and goes to great lengths to take care of her and her family.
But she can also be angry. She can come home angry from work. She can get easily irritated. She can withdraw from me and create distance in our relationship. She can hold onto her anger for a long time to avoid feeling vulnerable.
When we are with a compulsive and their behaviour is off key our sense of righteous indignation kicks in.
How can they gamble away the rent, drink their blues, medicate their pain, harm our lives. We lose sight of the fact we signed up for an R with someone who can potentially gamble, take drugs, drink etc. It was our choice after we say yes to stay, then we get righteous and want them to change. The scorpion doesn't have to change its a scorpion.
Live with a scorpion either it removes its sting or expect to be stung.
So we give away our power when our happiness depends on another doing that which they need to do. We hang on to our happiness and justify feeling righteous when the addict doesn't do what we wish. They don't heal in the way we like.
The addict has the right to be an addict and they have the right to decide to stop being an addict. They can heal for themselves when they want to.
It is the deception not the addiction which damages us. Many spouses of addicts are ok with addiction. They are not codependent, they don't enable and don't believe the lies.
I am not like that, trust is essential to me. I need love and trust although I no longer need to be right. WH is an addict, perhaps on occasion a dry drunk, dry gambler, dry this, dry that, dry other. Not recovering. WH has already crossed the Rubicon to addiction and when it's out of control its abusive.
It's ok.
The abuse and lies are not.
Addicts in addicted mode can be charming, loving and exciting to be with. It's part of that personality part of the way they have to appear. Take the addict with the addiction, in recovery or in denial. The addict in addiction is inauthentic.
If we give a need to be righteous and the other to be as we would wish them to be in order to be happy. They can be themselves. When addicts heal and recover its usually after a lot of work then they may out grow us and leave. Our need to be right may hold us to the old image. We too can be addicted to the need to be right.
By being healthy we lose the need to be right, and we allow others to be who they want to be and do that which they want. We love them as they are and they can have their addiction. It isn't our right to impose our will, we do have the right to intervene if our loved ones are about to go under.
If they lie and manipulate we enforce boundaries. If the addiction overwhelmed them and it's not part of us, we observe. If the behaviour is abusive we escape to freedom. If we uncover lies then we are righteous. They are addicts or compulsive and it's ok.
There are consequences to behaviours, they can be bankrupt, lose their homes, their licenses, their children, their health and their R. We have the right to support, to get out, to DB or to join them. We can ask them to change although they make that decision.
When we become healthy then we don't need the drama of the scorpion. We heal and that within us requires a healthy partner who does not sting. It is our karma that changes.
First we heal the need to be righteous and to let ourselves just be and our partner to be.
Damaged people damage people. Righteous people control people. Healthy people just are.
V
Freedom is just another word for nothing left to loose. V 64, WAW
This is really good though provoking stuff. Thank you for sharing that with me. It really opened my eyes to some things.
Tonight I met with our marriage therapist alone. He was a little shocked by what happened but then said "isn't this just like the first time she left?". She was struggling with not being able to drink and then bolted.
It's just sad, really. WAW is a beautiful human being. But she certainly has her demons. I struggle with accepting that she might just be broken. I've seen her happy, acting goofy and dancing around. I've seen her glowing with happiness. What the hell happened?
When we were planning our future, house hunting, and looking forward to living together again, there wasn't a hint of anything wrong. That was 6 months ago. What happened???
A month and a half ago, we were looking at wedding venues. 2 weeks ago she told me she didn't love me anymore. I don't get it.
My goal is to now move forward with my life. Get back into my routine. Establish a sense of normalcy as much as I can. I will probably sell our house (the house is in my name so she wont need to be involved) and move back to my hometown to buy a condo there and be close to family.
I have no idea what the future holds for WAW and I, that hurts. But I have to get moving or I'll become paralyzed by our sitch.
I'll leave the front porch light on for WAW and leave the door unlocked but that's about all I can do.
Know that if you reconcile with an addict or compulsive, they are an addict for life. There is no cure
They have the right to be an addict if they choose until they choose otherwise. It isn't sensible to demand they change to meet your concept of R. That's you being controlling.
You will love them and not trust them around their addiction.
You will lose the need to be right about them.
You will love them with their addiction.
You will lose the want of them being as you require them.
You will let them be the scorpion and accept you may be stung.
Nothing that your addict has done surprises me, she is an addict who is not recovering. She may abstain and that is not the same.
I have every admiration for addicts who accept they are addicts and who wish to manage their addiction. They know that one drink is one too many. They know that they are at risk and they have strategies to manage one day at a time.
All you can do is love your addict and cope for that single day, in active mode even if abstaining there is no planning for a future with an addict. You can plan your future but not a joint one. To do so is insanity. The addict is still the scorpion with the sting.
Some addicts love their children very much and will still drink, that love is authentic, addiction does render an addict incapable of love. Just as codependency doesn't render the enabler or rescuer from love. We cannot say that addiction invalidates love or care, it's just that some addicts prefer their addiction when faced with a choice. Others don't do so, they are functioning addicts. They may function in one area (motherhood) and fail in another (work).
If you R with your addict you can never MC them to change, they may say they wish to change and really mean it, but until they are prepared to manage their addiction for themselves it's meaningless desires in them.
If you R then you will have to choose to accept the addiction, and no I don't mean give permission for it. You can say your boundaries, no alcohol or other addictive X in the home etc. Acceptance step 1 is not condoning or permitting. It is saying I have no control over another's addiction, only over my own choices.
WH ranted and raged because he thought I required him to let go of his addictions. Other than smoking to which I have allergies that is untrue. I wanted him to stop the abuse.
My understanding is that this is core DB and core 12 step.
You work on you and your need to control and to have boundaries. You know this you have the T shirt already, you can chose to wear it. Bad behaviour by an addict is not ok, lies are not ok, addiction is a poor choice. Their choice.
Be well and at peace. Heal your life and your FOO and one of many things may happen, you may be at peace with your addicts choices, whilst encouraging change and providing the environment for it to happen or you may decide as I did that being with an unrecovering addict who chooses that path is not what I want.
Keep the road home smooth and the porch light on and understand exactly what you are doing. It's fine to do that, it's also good to want the best, to desire change. That won't happen until the addict wants the change know what that means and accept.
Big hugs
V
Freedom is just another word for nothing left to loose. V 64, WAW
