Finally Going No Contact
So after a few recent encounters and anxiety-provoking conversations with my XAH, I have finally seen the light and decided to go No Contact with my ex.
I was becoming majorly triggered because I know he is running out of the divorce settlement money I gave him, like down to his last few hundred running out, and is soon to be homeless. He had told me he needed my help getting to a few job interviews, and like a fool I wanted to believe and thought I could help. Plus I just really wanted to relieve my anxiety, which was at sky-high levels because what I had always feared the most (that he would become a homeless bum) seemed likely to come to pass, and I figured it was again my job to try and "save him" from himself and his own bad decisions.
Boy, what a cluster **** did that turn out to be. He basically wanted me to have sex with him, and when I refused, turned really mean. But even that wasn't enough to deter Codie Me (because what I wanted to tell him was that even though I was in a relationship now, if he would just sober up and stay sober for a year and get in AA, I would give him another chance--not even because I wanted to really, but I got myself in such a state thinking about his problems and dire situation that I convinced myself that it was OK if I sacrificed my happiness in order to "help him out"). I still had to call back the next day to say, "If you still want me to drive you to your job interviews, I will". Somehow he interpreted that as, "I have agreed to have sex with you", so I eventually got smart enough to shut off the phone and then hide it so I wouldn't even have to deal with the stress of seeing how many times he had tried to call me/text me.
I still feel very anxious and crappy, but not enough to want to sacrifice the small bit of piece of mind I've gotten from just not listening anymore. Plus, my therapists wisdom is I think finally getting through. He has said to me all along that the truly loving act is to NOT HELP. NOT CALL. Let him fully know that his choices have brought him to this. That he is not mentally ********, and can damn well figure out on his own how to get out of this hole. Someone posted recently on another thread that the Codie can be so, so selfish in that he/she will persist in "trying to help" or "enabling" to relieve his/her own anxiety that he/she will get in the way of the A's bottom to such a degree that he/she may never get it, true recovery that is.
I'm starting to believe that that is true. But I also know that some of them do never get it, so I'm trying to not fool myself into believing that me getting out of his way guarantees a happy outcome. More than likely, it will not. But I do know that with me meddling, he's never gotten well and stayed well ever. If we always do what we've always done, we'll always get what we've always got.