Maybe I wasn’t too clear. I know Lil is quite well differentiated. I mean that her BF is not, and does not seem to want to rush the process either. He is the one feeling left out, moping about, feeling helpless, drifting with no purpose. I agree that it is truly HIS problem. But his attitude is affecting Lil nonetheless. So what can she do?
She can do nothing and wait for him to pull himself up on his own, usually after hitting rock bottom as the AA 12 steps recommends. During this time she might grow depressed and upset (understandably) waiting for him to come around. Or she can do something to make him feel inspired enough to help himself. That is re-enmeshing to be sure. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t. But I think it might be worth a try if the current method is not moving along fast enough for her.
I also think this requires firm boundaries to prevent her (and you) from slipping into enabler mode. Carrot and stick.
Quote: I also think this requires firm boundaries to prevent her (and you) from slipping into enabler mode. Carrot and stick.
Well, Amen to that. I have this whole debate going on with myself about boundaries because I feel like there are some boundaries that aren't really boundaries because they are unenforceable. My thought at the moment is that anything that you expect anyone else to do to "take care" of you falls in this category. However, I feel like the kind of boundaries I need to work on that are enforcable are boundaries that allow me to take care of myself without interference. For instance, I need to figure out how to not let the fact that my H went off to work in a huff upset me to the extent that I spend two hours posting here instead of working on my backlog of rare book descriptions or just relaxing and reading a new novel. If I can figure out how to effect these sorts of boundaries then I can't possibly resent his behavior.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
If I can figure out how to effect these sorts of boundaries then I can't possibly resent his behavior.
But that is also a point I have been trying to get across. No matter how much you try with differentiation or boundaries, someone you care for will ALWAYS be able to affect you, either good or bad. Don’t fight what can’t be fought. You two are married. You have a certain amount of care for one another. Therefore you WILL be enmeshed to some level.
Trying to break this linkage is fruitless IMO. If you ever succeed in doing so, then I think there is no longer a relationship but just parallel lives, like roommates. So what is the answer?
Age 58 here and believe me, it's no different from being in your 40's.
Re my bf's reaction: here are the details. (Hijack ahead.) About 7-8 weeks ago, my bf said a former work colleague had called him up about something and in passing, bf had mentioned that he had stopped drinking. This guy told him about an AA meeting on Tuesdays in town that is very good. (All are NOT created equal.) So bf got really excited and happy and said he had been looking for a good AA meeting and was planning to go to this one and his friend J who is also a recovering A had been looking for one, too, and they were going to go together. I was also very happy, because I know a good AA/alanon meeting is a very worthwhile thing.
So I didn't say any more at the time. But when next Tuesday rolled around, he didn't go. Then the next Tuesday rolled around and I asked him if he was planning on going, reminding him of how excited he was when he found out about it. He bit my head off in the usual way that he does several times a day and said "NO! I wasn't planning on it!"
A month or so goes by and he doesn't go. Meanwhile he skips a couple of C sessions, spending the day instead in his shorts surfing the web (NO he's not looking at other women-- I'm positive of that.) As I see him personally deteriorating, my anxiety level goes up. Where I normally take a xanax two or three times a year for panic attacks, lately I've been taking them every three days or so. I'm also thinking of killing myself more than I have in recent years. Of course, I'm not going to do it, but thinking about it can't be a good sign.
Finally two weeks ago at the C session that we go to together, I asked him in front of the C to commit to going to the meeting at least once just to see if he liked it. He got very huffy, and asked me "what will YOU get out of it?" I said that when his life is better, MY life is better. Also that it concerns me that the only people he has regular interaction with is me, his mom, and the C, and that's not enough of a cross-section of humanity to maintain his balance. (I said it better than that.) Now that the girls are away at college, the rhythm of seeing them every other week that balanced our life and pulled us back to reality is missing. Very grudgingly he agreed to go.
The next Tuesday came and he didn't go. I didn't say anything.
This past Tuesday came, and I said, "I know you hate for me to bring this up, but were you planning on going to that meeting?"
He was Mr. Cheerful-Thanks-for-Reminding-Me, called his friend, and they went. HE LOVED IT! It'a an all-male meeting. He said the guys there are SO solid and so supportive. It was one of the most uplifting and positive experiences he has had and his friend J loved it, too.
I was very happy about this. I didn't ask him a lot about the meeting. I want him to have positive spiritual and personal experiences that have nothing to do with me and that I'm not part of. Since he's not working (he's doing a bunch of computer stuff for his mom at the bar), it's SOOOO important to have contact with other people. And having found this solid group of men in recovery for him to be around and learn from -- and the fact that he was receptive to it and liked it-- well, I felt very happy.
Yesterday we went to the C, and bf brought up the meeting. The C was familiar with the meeting and said he had taken several men to it. The regulars there (about 20-30 men) are in solid recovery. BF said one guy came in who had been in the group a long time ago, and had gone back to drinking, but now was back on the wagon and back at the group. The C asked how the group received him, and bf said, "They embraced him and loved him! They were so welcoming-- it was fantastic."
Listening to this, I felt so happy, warm and fuzzy happy-- happy that he had found this group, gone to it, liked it, found men to admire and look up to. Then I chimed in with something along the lines of, "It means so much to me that you can have this positive thing going on that's just for YOU-- it's not for me, not for your mom, not for the kids, not for the house-- it's not a chore-- it's purely for your own spiritual good! And the fact that J wants to go with you-- you can mutually support each other. PLUS the fact that, even though they pass the hat, it's basically FREE! By that I mean, if some day you don't have any cash on you, you can still go!"
At some point, he just shut me up. "Okay, okay, I WENT to the damn meeting! Geez..." And he didn't say it in an exasperated-affectionate way. He said it in that very typical sarcastic put-down get off my back way.
I turned to the C and said, "What did I just do to get that reaction?"
The C said, "Well, you were feeling happy and celebratory and your bf didn't react well to that."
I said, "Yes, I was so happy. Happy for him. Happy that he had a positive experience. And I was expressing that happiness and noting other positive things. And he just shut me down."
The C said something like, "Well, it's not all black and white." Then me made a little face at me like the kind of face you make at a child who is being difficult. "Now, you'll get over it. It wasn't that bad." No, that one reaction wasn't that bad, but that is TYPICAL of the way bf treats me! This is why I request kindness and civility from him; because he cannot seem to be kind and civil. I didn't say this, because I was too hurt and mad at the time by the C's dismissal of my feelings.
Then the C turned to bf, and said, "SO, what else has been going on?"
I said, "I've had about enough of this," got up and walked out.
So my happiness, as cobra incorrectly inferred, was not over something happy that happened to me while bf is down; it was about something happy that he did for himself that I figure will make his life better and so will make my life better through the trickle-down effect.
But instead my happiness and my expression of that was discounted by bf AND by the C. I was given that "oh she's so emotional, one of those woman-things" bullsh!t reaction.
And by God, it hurt! It hurt to be dissed that way. What really hurt was for the C to see exactly what happened, namely, that I was celebrating, and that my bf did not react in a kind and civil way, and then for the C to diss me!
I want my bf to treat me with kindness and civility. He seems incapable of that. The C told him last time that since he's been sober ~ three years, that right now he's at the emotional level of a three-year old.
Quote: Trying to break this linkage is fruitless IMO. If you ever succeed in doing so, then I think there is no longer a relationship but just parallel lives, like roommates. So what is the answer?
I think you do need to break the linkage to the extent necessary to take care of yourself but you should attch or "re-attach" somewhere. Ideally both members of a relationship would feel like they would be okay on their own, they don't need each other but they very much want each other. So the attachment or "re-attachment" should not be about meeting each others basic security needs. That is why anyone who is trying to meet their basic security needs through sex is doomed to be miserably HD. Also anyone who is trying to get their basic security needs met through a relationship before they can be sexual is doomed to be LD. That is why people flip-flop in their drives a la Schnarch's Siamese-twin syndrome. If they can't get their security needs met with one strategem they try the other. In a way that is what you were doing when you told your wife she should get a boob job. You were using the LD strategem of sexual invalidation to try and get your "soothing" needs met. However, you did this in a semi-purposeful, self-aware manner so you weren't really flipping over to LD just playing with it.
Maybe one way to achieve this would be to try and re-attach with a spouse in some way that is less basic than security or sex. Start doing a sport together or playing music together etc. Of course, the problem with this is you aren't just casually dating your spouse. There are issues with paying the mortgage, caring for the kids and getting laid while staying monogamous to consider. (sigh).
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" - Mary Oliver
(((lil))) (btw, that's the third hug today, mojo, heather, and you. Must be the phase of the moon).
I have to head home, so I don't have the luxury of a lot of time to respond. I am concerned about you. Talking about how you're thinking more about killing yourself than you have in years, and then dismissing it with an "of course I'm not going to do it" is not a good sign indeed.
Crap. I have to go - DD5 has her first dance class tonight and I'm taking her. Just know I care, okay?
You too, Mojo. And heather, too.
Damn. What is going on around here these days, anyway?
Apologies for butting in and continuing the hijack, but I had a thought about your BF's response. Perhaps your reminders and encouragement to go to the meeting made it (in his mind) YOUR idea. Even though you went out of your way to try to explain that you thought of it being all about him, he still had it ingrained in his mind as your idea. Then when he had a good time and you expressed happiness, no matter how well worded, all he heard was "I told you so!" Do you see what I mean? Granted, that is a very immature reaction and not what you intended, but I'll admit I sometimes have to surpress feeling that way at times, and am not always successful. I'll admit if somebody suggests I go do something, and I have a great time, I will get a little annoyed if they later say "I KNEW you would like it." I don't know why I feel that way. In fact, just writing about this I have discovered something I need to change about myself.
Please quash any and all thoughts of suicide. There are far too many people that would truly miss having you around.
Chrome
"Recollect me darlin, raise me to your lips, two undernourished egos, four rotating hips"
Quote: I'll admit if somebody suggests I go do something, and I have a great time, I will get a little annoyed if they later say "I KNEW you would like it."
Yes, that is his attitude-- and it may be a factor in this scenario-- and yes it is very immature.
And especially ironic because one of the things that made me the happiest about it is that it is something he will do on his own that I will not know the content of (not supposed to talk about what goes on at AA meetings), he will do it with another male friend, and there is no DIRECT benefit to me (except the aforementioned trickle-down effect).
But even if it was a factor, there were ways of quashing me gently instead of with his usual two-by-four.
I keep going back to Paul Simon, "I know you see through me, just give me some tenderness beneath your honesty."
I'm not going to kill myself. I just consider thoughts of it to be a bad sign. As if it's the only way out. I know it's not the only way out-- it's just that that's what comes to mind (Mojo, I'm sure this is the way your H's brain operates, too.) There is absolutely NO danger of me actually doing this. I promise.
I am also sorry for your continuing frustration with your BF. I agree with Chrome on why BF reacts as he does. I think it is his mother’s voice he hears when you praise him for doing a good job and it is his anger toward her that he is really expressing.
That’s one of the issues kids have growing up under a narcissistic parent, isn’t it? On one hand there is all the control that the kid has to live under, the negative control about how s/he can’t do anything right or at least not to the satisfaction of the parent. But for the positive things that happen, like the kid achieving some recognition, prize or something, the parent wants to step in and take credit for that too! The kid has absolutely no way to win. If s/he screws up, s/he gets yelled at and blamed. If s/he does good, then s/he is not allowed to take credit for it. Lose-lose.
Maybe your BF was hearing some of those voices from his past? He did good, he went to the meeting, but he did not really do it all by himself, or at least he might think that way. He needed you to push him out there. Once you did (and I think you did the right thing to push him to go), he immediately sees you own the bragging rights to it. So he felt like you were stealing his accomplishment. Just the catch 22 type of situation you would think a damaged adult child would create for himself.
Lil, What I also see happening here is that you were looking to feel apreciated by him ( and I'm guessing a simple thank you would have done the trick), but your bf is unable to give that to you. I know this happens between me and my H; it's hard for him to acknowledge my contributions; I think it's because it produces guilt in him, like he needs to do something more for me.
Anyway, you done good; now go take care of yourself. Stay away from too many xanax ( just a poor joke).
