One where a work colleague from the company that I worked for recently (the one that XH has done a lot of work for) was being extra nice to me. IRL she barely even ever says hello to me. I get the feeling that she's never liked me. But in my dream she was being really nice. I was surprised by that but decided to go with the flow and go along with it.
This morning...feeling better. I'm really not up for being treated the way I was, for all those years. It felt like pretty much everything I said I was uncomfortable with, XH just carried on doing regardless.
I thought (and made the mistake) that saying it was enough. I thought that if I said it, he would hear it and act on it. Because why wouldn't you? If your partner said something about how they felt? Especially if it was something where they didn't feel comfortable.
Well, I guess I've learnt that being able to say things and then someone else's actions in relation to it are two separate things entirely. You might say something about how you feel, but then how the other person acts as a result of it is the other part of the equation.
One thing that struck me seeing the pictures was just how young she looked. She was, what, 25 or 26 years old when they met and started the A? She's maybe 31 or 32 now? Beneath the professional veneer (which is all I saw IRL), she just looked very, very young. So young to be dealing with all of that stuff to do with the A and D and whatever fall out there may or may not have been on XH's side of the family.
Anyway, the thing I feel happy about is that none of that is my problem any more. And I can't tell you how relieved I feel. Even just to not be dealing with the drinking feels like a huge weight off my mind. I actually feel physically lighter.
One of the things I'm enjoying so much in my R is how normal things are around alcohol. We can go out for a drink in the evening, and it's actually just a drink...one, single drink. And then we can go home together. And go to bed at the same time together, chat, hold hands, laugh and fall asleep together. I can't begin to describe how lovely that feels.
In my old life, if I'd been out with my XH, I would have had one drink, maybe two, or even have gotten quite tipsy, stayed out way beyond the point of when I felt tired and comfortable, and wanted to head home. Perhaps even managed to stay until closing time (1.00am or later), then I would have gone home by myself, while XH went out with whoever wanted to carry on partying and wherever, basically until he was the last man standing, which could have been at 8.00am the following morning. One of my colleagues told me he had the reputation of being 'wild'. I don't think she was meaning with OW at the time she was talking about, just alcohol really.
That was the case maybe 80-90 per cent of the time we went out.
I'm starting to see and really understand how lonely I was. And I'm starting to see just how much energy I invested in even just hoping he would tone it down a little. I mean, when we met, I just thought it was to do with being in our 20s, and living that lifestyle. You know, young, enjoying life, partying hard...Just that XH never seemed to grow out of it.
I think XH's uncle has the same sort of relationship with alcohol. He was older (maybe late 50s, early 60s) and remarried, with a young child. I get the feeling now, looking back, that the uncle resented having the responsibility of married and family life (as well as obviously finding pleasure in his boy), like the responsibility was somehow encroaching on his living the life he wanted to lead. Maybe that's why he used to go so over the top with the alcohol consumption when he was working away from home? He would he completely blind drunk at work events, be still drunk the morning afterwards, be really late (not just 5 or 10 minutes, but 45 minutes late) for meeting work colleagues because he'd drunk so much the previous night and slept in.
Ah, writing this...it all seems sadly familiar.
I remember being at an XIL family wedding, in 2014, and there had very obviously been some huge argument between X-uncle-IL and his wife. You could have cut the air between them with a knife. He was really drunk and obviously wanting to carry on drinking, which he did regardless. She was the one looking after their child, on her own.
I'm so, so relieved I don't have to deal with any of that kind of thing any more. I feel free of it, really free of it.
It's funny, I used to find it hard to have alcohol in the house after XH left. I think I was just used to not buying any because I knew (from experience) that it would never be there for long. Even bottles of spirits. I really panicked when the wonderful man I'm with suggested buying a nice bottle of gin and splitting it so there would be some in both our houses. It took me a while to get my head round it. And now it just sits on the shelf for months and months on end without me even remembering it's there, or even noticing it's there.
