Thank you, thank you, thank you! This is just what I need to hear, to read and to understand.
I have struggled so much with acceptance and it has kept me in the worst kind of limbo like TuffGirl described. One day I would be fine, the next day I was back to the struggle and it seemed the struggle was worse than the decisions I was facing.
Over the past while, I kept waffling about my return to school, the ABF's part in my life and whether the two could co-exist in my life. We reached a milestone of three years together and I started to reflect on our times together-the good and the bad.
What I finally realized (and am beginning to accept) is that I made the choice quite a while to live apart from ABF because living together in constant chaos was something I couldn't accept.
Instead of moving ahead, I was going sideways-each time the binge cycle appeared - when I was doing something for me: school, Al-Anon, volunteer work, family visits and each time, I capitulated, hoping that it was "the time" that he hit bottom and embraced recovery. It never happened and the more I hoped, the more I struggled.
When I stopped struggling and accepting what is, my decision became clearer and I made a decision that yes, I was going to return to school, consequences be damned. I enrolled for the courses I wanted and like clockwork, the inevitable happened - the binge, the blame, the anger, the lies. This time, instead of waffling, I accepted what is as opposed as to what could be.
It feels different this time around. While I do struggle, feel anger, sadness and resentment, while I have the urge to call/email or whatever, I work through it. I take the day in 15 minute chunks if necessary. I walk the dog. I go outside for a while, I read a book, I do anything to break that spell. It's like when I use the spray bottle on my dog when he barks - he gets a squirt of water to break his fixation on the cat he is barking at.
I have an Al-Ateen reading by the phone-it has to do with fishing and not taking the bait. I love to fish and I can visualize a nice fat fish looking at a juicy piece of bait and swimming by. That's me, swimming by, not getting caught by the hook, not swallowing his line and getting caught up in the chaos.
Working on acceptance has been hard but in the end, it is worth all what we struggle with because the acceptance while painful for a while, frees us from our denial and allows us to move on with the business of living.