Choose your amends wisely

[StayinAlive]

I have been divorced from a 10 year marriage 6 years ago. It ended very abruptly and have had no communication since aside from the necessary business end of divorce at the beginning. I have always wondered what why when and where and how she is doing in general. So i thought i would dig up her email and contact her asking some questions looking for closure(whatever that means) and Apologizing for my part.

Well i should have just left well enough alone as it opened a can of bad feelings and i kind of just feel sick now. So i accomplished nothing i think it was just a stupid idea.

anyway just thought i would put that out there

[CarolD]

You might consider reading "Freedom From Bondage"
especially the last page.

[sugErspun]

?
Maybe I don't understand. Were you contacting your ex to ammends harm you had caused, or to rekindle a relationship (even 'catching up' is a form of relationship - not the purpose of making ammends).

Based on the post - it seems you may have created more harm? Any ammend I make gets passed before someone else who has no attachment to it whatsoever (typically my sponsor)...It helps to have that non-biased input.

"Apologizing for my part" - May I propose that if you only have a 'part' that means the other still has a part and you have not forgiven them? The instructions clearly state we are to only look at our own mistakes - very specific things which harmed (or so we think) others. But if 'you' still played a part, and I played a part - it's not looking at what I did, it's downplaying, justifying, holding a grudge.

I know this because I had something like that on my ammends list. An ex-girlfriend I had dated for 6 years. I specifically used the word 'part' on my ammends list - I may just as well have written it in red, my sponsor spotted it in no time and made me pull the name off.

I was instructed to rewrite inventory on her. So I did. I made direct ammends for the harm I caused her - and she no longer had a part. My troubles are of MY own making...

I don't mean to come across as critical, but I guess it's the nature of a post like that. Ammends need consideration and a little bit of 'skill' - I get that 'skill' by having someone go over it with me beforehand.

[StayinAlive]

thanks spun ya i should have put more thought into it, i basically screwed it up and it would have been better to leave it alone. I think maybe i was trying to rekindle at least some form of communication and apparently her memory's is way better than mine as far as the bad stuff. So ya in a sense my emails to her probably were minimizing"my part". I guess i really didn't realize what she had to go through and how it affected her(my depresion, anxiaty, drinking). I was always very loving and kind so i didn't understand why she had left, but understand now and was emailing her to tell her that. I just wish i never went there at all by contacting her.

not sure if that makes any sense

[StayinAlive]

Originally Posted by CarolD

You might consider reading "Freedom From Bondage"
especially the last page.

just looking for that book now, is it an aa book, would you happen to have any links or hints as to what the last page says
thanks

[CarolD]

Here is a link to the AA book
then you can read that hapter
"Freedom From Bondage"

Big Book On Line

Thanks for asking...

[lizw]

Last year I got in touch with my daughters father and arranged to meet him so my daughter could meet him and maybe they could establish a relationship. She'd never met him (well was a baby last time he saw her) and she turned 13 this year.

Orginally this guy was on my amends list. I was to make amends to him for my part of our sick relationship and sort stuff out with him regarding our daughter.

It took me nine sober years to get in touch with him, it's take this long for various reasons, but I have not made amends to him regarding our relationship.

Dunno if I ever will BUT from the little conversation we have had he certainly see's what happen between us very differently to how I see it.

He's an alcoholic. I met him the night he walked out of a treatment centre. I was 15 and he was my ticket out of home! But it sure was outta the frying pan and into the fire.

However just meeting up with him and talking made me see that he wasn't the 'horrible monster' my head swore he was and I also could see why I fell in love (if you could call it that) with him, in the first place.

Your post remind me of all this. Thanks.

[StayinAlive]

Well i have received an email today that has changed everything and was exactly what i was hoping for. I feel so much better and guess it was worth the risk despite the poor delivery. Here is some highlights emailed from my high school sweetheart and(ex) wife of 10 years

"Thanks ****!. Having this conversation HAS meant a lot. A day never goes by where I don't think about what could have been, and something that reminds me of the past, it can be painful, but at the same time very heartwarming!
Thank you for forgiving me, as well as for apologizing for your part. It DOES mean a lot....takes a huge weight off my shoulders that I have carried along for so many years. I am very sorry as well. If only one could turn the clock back.

I'm glad to hear that you're happy, too. I wish you had someone special to share your life with,,,,if you ever get to that point, don't be afraid to tell me. I'm sure I'll feel a bit of sadness at first, but I just want you to be happy. All this talk about happiness, and I am actually sitting here balling my eyes out right now......I do still have heart...."



Brings tears to my eyes and warm feelings in my heart , she is getting married this winter and i asked if i could bring a date lol(she got the joke)