Focus your lengthy story again certainly is indicative of addiction and the behavior addicts exhibit. Like much of all of this however it says far more about him than it does about you. Honestly, while it felt terrible to you and felt like he was doing it TO YOU, he really was just doing what addicts do. I don't excuse his behavior but I would no more take it personally for what he did than take it personally if he had epilepsy and had a seizure with you in public. I know it's hard to understand but it's just part of the disease process. It's why many say that addiction that the person refuses to get help and treatment for is an actual deal breaker for ending a marriage - much like abuse, etc. It's a terrible disease - but many of them are - cancer, heart disease, diabetes, mental illness - and yes, addiction is a disease too!
It's very affirming to hear you say this.
One of the hardest things in all of this has been to make my version of events.
I have pretty much kept that to myself. I mean, it only needs to make sense (emotionally, intellectually) to me, right? But I'm surprised how much it's helped having outside affirmation. I've not had much of that really, because I've hardly spoken about it to anyone.
My mum happened to remark about XH's behaviour over the weekend. She was talking about the wonderful man I'm with, and just how much more thoughtful he is than my XH ever was, and how he doesn't really drink at all, unlike XH who drank 'to extinction'. I was quite surprised at her comment. He'd always been quite moderate in his drinking when he was with them. I've no idea how she got that (very correct) impression. And the truth is, it was probably worse than she guessed.
Anyway, I've been looking through the Al-Anon website and listening to some of the podcasts, both the US and UK versions. Well, some of that information has been a revelation, for sure!
I'm talking in regards my own behaviour mostly, and the part I played in all of it. Were I in the same situation now (with someone else, obvs), and with the knowledge I have now, there is no way that I would ever behave like I did again.
I don't know if you're familiar with their philosophy, but it goes along the same lines as DB philosophy: the only person's behaviour you can control is your own. So you focus very much on your own reactions, and that helps maintain a sense of who you are, of personal boundaries, of choosing what's important to you (and it gives you a sense of dignity as well).
No wonder XH said, the night he left (well, more like shouted accusingly) that I was controlling. I was. I had been trying to control his drinking (and drug use). I had hidden alcohol and drugs from him, tried to get him to come home at certain times, tried to stop him from going out...all in the hope of controlling his drinking somehow. And of course, it didn't work. I mean, he might stop for a short time (a couple of weeks, a month or so), and I mean totally stop, total abstinence. And then something, heavens knows what, would happen, and he would start drinking again. And I would start trying to stop him again. I could never understand what would make him start drinking again, there was no logic or reason to it. It was crazy making - and it drove me crazy.
Al-Anon also try to find out (or better, help you to find out for yourself), what has become/became unmanageable in your life. Well, honestly, it was like the clouds parted and the choir started singing. Seriously...when I thought about that, I realised that XH's behaviour, and how utterly unpredictable it was and how unreliable it made him as a partner, had been unmanageable for me, on top of the rubbish stuff that was happening in my own life, and the stress of it being unmanageable for me, led me to become increasingly ill. At first mentally unwell, with the stress of it all, and then increasingly physically debilitatingly ill with the stress.
It was my body telling me my life was unmanageable, my choices were unmanageable. But I didn't really get it, so I carried on, and I became more and more ill, with more and more serious stuff. Until my back gave in. But even then, I carried on.
What a martyr. And nobody likes one of those...lol!
Of course, at the time, I wouldn't have said (or known) XH was an alcoholic, or whatever you want to call him. I guess I just felt 'second best' all the time, 'second choice', to his career, or his social life, or his drinking. I was young when I met him, 27 years old. And the relationship I'd had before him was a shorter one, maybe about 6 months long, when I was 24 years old. Before that, I'd been out with someone for a couple of years when I was an undergraduate, from about 20/21 years old to 22 or 23.
I guess I didn't really have much of a sense of who I was then, or that I was important - or that I should be important to myself.
Man, I tell you, it feels really good to be able to stand this far back from it all, and see the connecting threads. Like I'm also free from it all at the same time. This truly feels like another part of my life entirely, the second part of my life. Of course, I'm still myself in lots of ways. But at the same time I've left my old self quite far behind as well.
It feels like the stuff that was weighing me down just isn't any mor
