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Old 01-03-2012, 09:13 PM
  # 17 (permalink)  
mattmathews
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Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Litchfield Park, AZ
Posts: 317
My wife's been in recovery for 21 months. I've been in Al-Anon for almost that long. Early on, I embraced the concept that my wife was sick. I also accepted that I was sick and needed healing. I didn't know how I was sick, exactly, but I accepted the concept and went from there.
As part of my program, I found a local group that taught meditation (Buddhist based). During the introductory meeting the teacher expressed the idea that we spend our lives trying to be happy by chasing things. More money, a bigger house, a newer car, a more successful husband. But that even when we achieve those things, happiness eludes us.
What I've come to believe is that I'm responsible for my own happiness (whether my wife is drinking or not). And my happiness doesn't come from the outside, it comes from the inside. It comes from my attitudes. I can, literally, choose to be happy.
When my wife went into rehab I was angry, tired, worn down, and certainly not in love. Over the past year and a half, my attitudes have changed and my relationship with my wife has changed (for the better). I couldn't have imagined the life I have now, based on the way I felt then.
So I guess my advice is this: Your husband is working on himself. You need to work on yourself. Marriage counseling may be part of that (it was for us), but you need to work on yourself. Your husband's job isn't to make you happy...you need to take responsibility for that.
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