Originally Posted by
isitme 
I have this same problem, but in a slightly different arena. My ABF does most of his drinking away from the home. So my counting obsession.. I always document what time he came home.
It seems to me like some sort of validation (like what you were talking about) that yes, her really is gone all the time, yes he doesn't associate with me when he gets home. Like one day I'll see some overwhelming number there making it ok for me to leave. Last time I counted them all it was something like 25/35 days he was home past 10pm. I've still been keeping track, but haven't totaled in a while.
I too keep telling myself to stop. What difference does it make, it won't change anything. Yet I keep on. I've also started documenting fights that REALLY bother me. Not just the little ones. I thought they were kind of far in between.. but was amazed to see that the last bad ones were 3 in one month. Might not seem like a tremendous number. But it certainly takes more than a week or two to get over one of these puppies, before having to deal with another one.
I see my day coming, yet I always second guess it. The real timer will begin in 4 days when our second child enters the world. I almost can't wait to see what happens.
Oh my,
at first I didn't think I had anything in common with this thread, I was always pretty detached from the number of drinks she had HOWEVER then I read
this and it was like DING DING DING uh oh
I also would "journal" and "document" the "atrocities" and "her behaviors" in order to "convict her" and "build a case against her"
Nobody cared, I'd spend all this time trying to convince those around me of "what she had done" and "how she had wronged me", and the truth is, they all already knew what she was like, they had heard PLENTY over the course of 1.5 years, truthfully they were sick to death of the subject, and they kept saying stupid things like "so what are
YOU going to do about it" and "why do
you keep going back to her?"
What finally got through to me, and I tried everything, (if you go to the ghetto at 2AM, don't be mad if you get beaten up and robbed, just stay out of the ghetto), I mean I tried ALL kinds of tricks, metaphors, etc
What finally worked for me, was when I was doing my best Clarence Darrow "speech from the dock" to "convict" this "awful person" to my new spomsor, he finally said "
STOP!This Shyte's gotta stop!!!! I want you to write that down, then list
why this shytes gotta stop."
I had broken up with her about a week before, so it wasn't about her, she wasn't doing anything "to" me any more....so I didn't have that to fall back on, I couldn't point the finger at her
any more SHE was gone...but there I was looping over and over and over "what she had done" "how she was wrong" "how she had hurt me" blah blah blah, speed addicts aint got NOTHING on my mind, my hamster in his little wheel was
TIRED.
I realized how trapped I was by my obsessions...it was debilitating, it was awful, it made me helpless, it made me a victim, it made me angry, I mean just sitting there "picking at the scab" hour after hour, day after day, what kind of life is that????
For some reason that worked for me
you know what?
This shyte stopped :bounce