Trying_in_Texas

SO TRUE - totally pointless.

I just recently started talking to my ex-ABF about a month or so before he went into in-patient treatment. He has been there for almost a month now. He only gets to write at this point, and actually it's been very, very good for me. I don't get to sit around and wonder if he's texted, called, etc... I get letters, but the mail only comes and goes on certain days, you know... so I inadvertently dropped any expectations I might have of how much he should do... and now I'm not even that worried about what he should say, what's going on, and so forth.

I realized that when we first started seeing each other again, I feld a little "slide"... back into, "Oh, has he called?" "What is he doing?" "Where is he?" You get the picture. But I had been apart from him for over a year and dated another guy fairly seriously, and realized during that time that I hated that needy quality in myself. I put a stop to that with some good old-fashioned conscious thinking, and then it was like, "Oh, nice - he called!" instead of any other response, which put us both much more at ease. Now I write him when I want to tell him something, and I'm happy when he writes me (which is almost every day). But my day's not ruined when I don't get a letter in the mailbox. I can't let something like that bring me down anymore!

I hate to be repetitive, but I learned a lot of this type of stuff at Alanon...

I feel for you, but I promise, you can't, can't, CAN'T be satisfied with your life if your happiness or unhappiness for the minute, hour, or day is determined by another person's actions, because you can't have any control over that. It's a losing game.