CatFry

I am working step 4, put a good 10 hours into it, and have barely started my list.

I am in the middle of divorcing my husband. It is very hard not to talk badly of him. He is a drunk with no remorse. Really, in all fairness, our biggest difference is that I am a drunk with remorse.

I know I really messed up by marrying him. I messed up both of our lives. I likely enabled him. I let my pride believe I could withstand his illness and guide him to a better life. I did this vainly, and in spite of the fact I was not getting better. After leaving him, I hear through common friends that all he does is drink, get high, and gamble. This made me feel really guilty. The guilt was holding me back from being better. Now that I am letting go of the guilt, trying to own my part in our calamity, I fear I may be becoming prideful in my abilities to move on . . .

Where is the balance? Any suggestions?

sugarbear1

Finish your fourth step. Get to the 5th step. Then 6 & 7. Then, just maybe, do a specific 4th-7th on your soon to be ex, your perspective may change!

Tommyh

like sugarbear said,keep on your stepwork
it will sort itself out during the process

tomsteve

the balance comes from working the steps and T.I.M.E.

CatFry

What isn't failing to amaze me is how messed up I am.

DayTrader

Step 4 takes us into a deeper understanding of step 1. It's common to get pretty bummed at yourself as you uncover more "crap." That's normal. Don't forget step 2 though - that a power greater than you can fix all that junk that's messed up.

It helps me to think of being a little kid. Parents tell you to clean up your toys......but you don't want to, right? What if your parents said, "Round up all your old toys, the ones you don't like, and we'll go get new ones." We'd be rushing to get it finished, wouldn't we? That's how inventory can be. Finding all the stuff out about ourselves that we don't like hurts our ego, our false pride, because we envisioned ourselves as better than that. What we're really doing though, is finding all the "old toys" and we're gonna turn 'em in for new ones.

Try not to let 4 turn into a "self-judgement" step. I've done that plenty and it's a real bummer. When I can look at it like going through my closet to find the clothes I don't like, give those clothes to God, and then get new clothes........it can make it a whole lot more enjoyable.

CatFry

Thanks. That is helpful insight. I feel like very time I begin to get somewhere with 4, I wind back up at 3.

Thumpers

It's helped me to see how I contributed to my resentments in Step 4 and hurts I gave in the relationship, and then even more with Step 9 making amends for my own part. A lot of resentments fade away by then, Step 9 promises really do start to pan out.

CatFry

Thanks everyone. I am in a hard spot, trying to figure out how to be sober and single all at once. I think I need to take it a bit easy on myself, but that has always been hard to do and is probably why I drank sooooo much.