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Old 08-31-2011, 01:21 PM
  # 14 (permalink)  
nodaybut2day
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Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Quebec
Posts: 2,708
*hugs* to you Yellowbird. Time to take a few deep cleansing breaths and gently remind yourself that though you are uncomfortable/sad/confused/lots of other stuff, no one ever died from being uncomfortable.

You have taken that big first step. You recognized the need to protect yourself from someone who is clearly on the path to self-destruction. This is HUGE. Many people, myself included, take a long while before realizing that they can get off the rollercoaster. Heck, some people never get off at all...Time to hug yourself (or get a hug from a friend!) and congratulate yourself for that leap.

From reading your thread and subsequent posts, I would like to gently point out that you hoped filing for legal separation would nudge your AH into getting help. It would be useful to remind yourself that *nothing* you say (or don't say), *nothing* you do (or don't do) can change your AH. Only he can decide to seek recovery, and who knows what his bottom might be. In the meantime, try to focus on yourself. Do things for yourself.

He is a grown man, and if he truly wants help, he will find it. The resources are out there and many of them are free. As for talking to his psychiatrist,...I would step away from that. It only keeps you entangled in the mess that HE created.

Trust your instinct. Your partner became VIOLENT with you. You did the right thing in getting a restraining order. In my books, violence is a relationship deal-breaker. I was married to an abusive man, and I have come to believe that it is more difficult to change abusive habits than to recover from addiction.

From where I sit, you've been given a gift from HP: the fact that your AH agreed to a one year no-contact order. I know it doesn't look or feel like a gift, perhaps because you are so used to his presence in your life, whether it's toxic or not...I would have given so much for my XAH to disappear willingly from my life in the year following our separation; that's when he got really nasty, and I could definitely have used the backing of a legally binding protective order.

Give yourself some time and start thinking about YOU instead of him. You can do this. Take it one day, or one hour, or heck one minute at a time. Post on SR a billion times if you need...that's what we're here for
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