Bttrfly,
Wow, that post really hit home for me. I hear about how I am talking to the disease from my sponsor all the time, I realize it and then get sucked back into my own head. This post means the world to me as does your 2x4s smile please keep them coming. I will get working on the exercise you provided me, and post my results. I do not have everything written down, but do have all text messages from her and my ring footage downloaded. I do hope it doesn’t come to that and she gets better with or without being in our marriage. I will also be purchasing the book you recommended. I know that i allow the disease to cloud my judgement and then focus on how to save a marriage instead or how to grow myself. I’ve come so far and want to keep moving forward. The good news is a healthy me, can help create a new relationship either with her or someone else down the road. I have to maintain my focus on God and my growth. Thank you again for your post. More to come.
Thank you for keeping an open mind, digging deeper and really looking at this from a different angle.
Alcoholism and Addiction are family diseases, and each person has their part in the dis-ease.
Owning your part is the only thing you have control over.
As an exercise, take all the things you've downloaded and organize them chronologically. Do this for two reasons:
1. It will help you see more objectively both your and her parts in things
2. It will be something you have in your back pocket if you ever needed to use it.
Absolutely the hardest thing to live through is living with a loved one in the grips of active addiction. Give yourself a break. As they say in the preamble of every Alanon meeting:
"living with an alcoholic is too much for most of us. Our thinking becomes distorted by trying to force solutions and we become irritable and unreasonable without knowing it."
We cannot force solutions. We can only work on ourselves and our part in the family aspect of the disease.
We get to choose: live a life of recovery for ourselves and our families or continue to live a life of dysfunction, wrestling with someone else's addiction and losing every battle.
I have a lot of respect for you FM, that's why I swing the 2x4s. I know you can take it in the spirit it's meant, and grow from them.