emmab said:
long story short. married nearly 11 years and have 4 precious children. i am in recovery from eating disorder (17 year of it) and hubby has major drinking problem which he is NOT addressing. we had a counselling session last week and last night had a night away for early wedding anniversary... was planned weeks ago then hubby comes home from work having had too many beers so whole thing turned to custard. we had had first couns session two days prior where couns told him he drinks four times recommended max for a man.
now we pick kids up from his mother who APPEARS a support etc. then she tells me she loves me but adds how hard it was to love me but God gave her a love for me
so i feel like lower than crap
she tells me how unloveable i am, my husb actions show it. i am going to close my heart to them.
i am not going to run to eating disorder for love though, but give my all to my children and the rest of them can go away
i HAD thought his mother was a support the fake cow. what sickens me is she told my mother AS SHE WAS DYING that she would take care of me. what a crock of crap. am feeling really hurt and unsupported. to top it off its fifteen years today since dad died so i'm having an awesome weekend NOT
I was upset and said to her I am trying to change things and he isn’t. she said “oh like you just stopped your addiction like that (ie snap of fingers)” I said at least I am trying! She says all this infront of kids too the cow! i was crying and they were cuddling me and she basically ripped into me infront of them. i was totally gutted and to top it off my stupid husband doesnt think she did anything wrong. well considering he hasnt apologised for ruining last night i guess brain deadness and cruelty is genetic in that lot
just feel totally trashed and in total despair
can this marriage be saved or do i leave now while i have any fight left in me?
I cannot answer your question or tell you what to do with such problems- but am glad you are writing about them. Putting our complaints down on pen and paper first crystallizes in our heads what needs to be changed or accepted in our lives. Getting it all out and putting it all down is the first start of this recognition process that leads us to recovery. Without this recognition, that we are sick or something is wrong in our lives, we cannot develop the desire for change. We don't even know what is wrong to change!
Writing your complaints down is the first start to making the roadmap for restructuring your life. Restructuring our lives is very important if we want to get peace from our addictions. Those things that cannot be restructured need to be accepted. Either way we can find peace -- by change or acceptance. When you write, it uses a different part of the brain that mere speaking uses and I seem to get amazing results from writing as compared to just talking. Writing helps crystallize your thoughts, it shares recovery with other addicts and they can know they are not alone.
Just remember what the Buddhists say in the eightfold path about right actions. We have to use the right thoughts, the right actions and take the right direction with recovery. Just spinning our wheels in the wrong direction does little for recovery, so write about things that matter to you and your recovery. Some people use the list for jokes and other off topic subjects. While it is important to laugh once in while it still boils down to what my father used to tell me about living life "you only get out what you put in."
What I would do with posts that detail our problems is print them out and distill what needs to me changed in our lives. There is no better roadmap for change than this. Whatever we write or talk about that is eating at us needs to be changed or accepted. You have put in your inventory and thinking time to write our what is eating at you and have given it away to boot to your "list sponsors" all at once. Great simple living work! Now, all we have to do is finish the work we started.
Pages 88 to 89 of the 12 and 12 of AA underscores how important inventory work is to recovery work:
"When a drunk has a terrific hangover because he drank heavily yesterday, he cannot live well today. But there is another kind of hangover which we all experience whether we are drinking or not. That is the emotional hangover, the direct result of yesterday's and sometimes today's excesses of negative emotion-anger, fear, jealousy, and the like, If we would live serenely today and tomorrow, we certainly need to eliminate these hangovers. This doesn't mean we need to wander morbidly around in the past. It requires an admission and correction of errors now. Our inventory enables us to settle with the past. When this is done, we are really able to leave it behind us. When our inventory is carefully taken, and we have made peace with ourselves, the conviction follows that tomorrow's challenges can be met as they come."
When I first came to online recovery I saw how most people wrote about what needed to be changed, but then seemed to stop and not do much to change things. Years later some of these people are still in the same boat complaining about the same things. If they cannot change the problem then they must learn to accept it, these are the two roads to peace with a problem. They can gratefully accept it for maximum serenity or begrudgingly accept it as a start, but accept it they must one way or another if they ever want any peace. All we have to do is to look close at our writing and we will see what needs to be done in our recovery lives.
Now, some things will never be changed and the best we can do is lighten our load or work on accepting them. If we can see some light at the end of a tunnel, sometimes acceptance becomes easier if we know that a certain problems is for a short time only and can see future improvement in our lives. Be pointed in the direction of removing stress and problems in your life at every turn. If you make this your foremost purpose in life you will be successful at reducing your stress load. Remember, you are not recovering until you start refusing. Refuse your old ways that have been tearing you down all these years. When the individual has such conscious thoughts towards the cultivation of recovery, so that whatever action they are engaged in - it is always evaluated from that orientation - then they can find great success with improving one's life from applying this single pointed dedication to change and their practice and life becomes one.
Once you have put in the footwork, your job is done and you can release the issue to your Higher Power. It is much easier releasing things once we have done all we can comfortably do, then our job is done and it now becomes God's or Higher Power's job. I always end any request I make of God with what step 11 says; "Praying only for Gods' will and the power to carry it out." Then get your complaint or problem list, date it and put it in a God / HP box and fully release it to your HP.
The 3D's and Divorce
I get a lot of letters from people that have to deal with a sick spouse that is tearing them down. (Sick with addictions or an unhealthy lifestyle, not physically sick) When you are talking about the sick spouse, they must first recognize there is a problem and that they need help with changing their life. As I wrote below, "You cannot help someone without the desire in them to be helped." Personally, if the spouse does not have this recognition and desire for a new life, I would have to get out of the relationship if their behavior was taking me down with them over the long term and there was no effort on their part to change. We all have to judge this effort and how the relationship is affecting us by our own standards. I have little leeway since I am in 8-12 step programs and it is a full time job just staying de-stressed and keeping myself in line.
In the end, all we can truly be responsible for is our own program and try to be good examples for others when it comes to change. An important thing to remember with recovery is the 3-D's: Desire, Determination and Diligence--but it all starts with recognition and desire. Since I talk about being transparent in a relationship a good start on our effort for transparency might be telling the sick spouse that something has to give if we want to continue in this relationship as the sick spouse's behavior is starting to take its toll. Counseling is also a hope, although many counselors don't suffer from the sickness we are seeking help for and give advice from this non sick viewpoint. Personally, I like to recover with like kind - alcoholics - drug addicts - compulsive spenders - debtors - clutterers - gamblers - sex addicts - rageaholics, etc. Also with some disturbed spouses the possibility of death arises. This is for the person contemplating leaving a relationship to judge. Will the sick spouse crack further and end up tying to kill me? Get some marriage or professional counseling - I don't have all he answers by any means, and your desire to move in a new direction could make maters even worse. All I can do is remind you of the options we have for change if we look for them. Anyway, lots of avenues to try before breaking up.
Desire:
Desire is the foundation for all recovery quests. You cannot help someone without the desire in them to be helped. Desire is what gets us taking that first step in the right direction when all seems hopeless. Have you every tried to give advice or help someone in need and they respond: "I don't care." They lack the desire or at least this is what they say. Desire must come from within, you cannot force someone to change, they must change themselves.
To develop a desire to change, we must first recognize there is a problem or sickness in us. Recognition or awareness is the fist step leading to desire. After we recognize we are sick or an area of our lives is out of balance, we can start accepting the fact that we need to take action in this area. When we label addicts or people as "in denial," we are saying the person is not able to recognize there is a problem in their lives that needs addressing.
Now some people recognize there is a problem in their life, but still don't develop a burning desire for change, but at least they have a somewhat true picture of things and just haven't made the crossover to developing the desire to change bad enough. Whether their block is out of fear, laziness or staying in a comfortable place, they will have to figure out what is blocking them before they can take the next step. As I said, we cannot force someone to change, they must change themselves and it must be from the inside out.
Determination:
Determination serves two purposes here. When something is "determined" it is accepted as fact. We have determined that we are powerless over our addiction and our lives are unmanageable. We have determined we must abstain from certain people, places or things that we cannot comfortably have in our lives. We are in the process of determining a new set of rules on how to live. We have also determined what injuries we have caused and what needs to be repaired through taking personal inventory.
Determination serves a second purpose and that is it keeps us on the long road to recovery. We cannot keep on this long road without being determined to change our lives day in day out. Whether it is debt recovery, clutter, restructuring our complex lives or losing weight it all takes time and determination to stay on the path of recovery. Many distractions, detours and set backs along the way, but we should always be determined to keep pointed in the direction of recovery.
Diligence:
Diligence keeps us from going backwards once we finally arrive at the recovery place we are aiming for. It takes diligence once we get to where we want to be to maintain that serene spot, otherwise we fall back on our old "natural" ways of living. Once you lose the fat, once you pay off your debts, once you lose the clutter, once you get sober and abstinent from your drug of choice it takes diligence to keep you that way. James Allen calls this watchfulness.
"Victories attained by right thought can only be maintained by watchfulness. Many give way when success is assured and rapidly fall back into failure."
As A Man Thinketh by James Allen.
Good Luck
V (Male)
A xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx living a life of Voluntary Simplicity and grateful recovering Debtor, Drug, Alcohol and Substance Abuser, Compulsive Overeater, Clutterer, Hoarder, Rageaholic, Speculative Gambler, Compulsive Spender, Sex and Sensation Addict.
