Hi, unfortunately I don't have much to update on. We are still in limbo here. I have heard many excuses about why he doesn't have a date yet to start the program. He doesn't have long before it becomes aparrent that he is not going to take the steps to get better. What has made me stick around us the fact that he has admitted for years that he has a problem. He has tried to cut down and quit for short periods of time. He isn't one of those who denies his problems and says he isn't going to stop. But we are finally in a place where there is no excuses to deal with his problems both with alcohol and mental. At times he seems like he will leave easily, others he seems like he'll put up a fight. I'm not even sure how to go about getting him out of here. Besides, he has nowhere to go.
I have been reading and slowly taking everything in here. I want to address this post:
"Our "mistakes" before we find recovery and therapy are almost always the result of a trauma in our early childhood. We are not aware of why we feel connected to someone who is not good for us. This is because of a very common psychological syndrome called "trauma repetition." It means we hook up with abusers if we have been abused. We hook up with abandoning persons if we have been abandoned. We hook up with narcissists if we had self-absorbed parents. We hook up with dominators if we were told we could never do anything right. "
When we first got together I joined him in the drinking, did I have a Problem or was I just young and stupid? who knows. But it definitely blinded me to what was going on. I made poor choices due to my daily drinking, and staying with him and getting pregnant was one. I started to want to change before I found out I was pregnant, and of course once I got pregnant that was the end of that life. Not being drunk all the time has opened my eyes to what was going on and has made me realize what is acceptable and not in our relationship. I never had been in a relationship like this before (& never will again). My exes treated me like gold. Part of the reason I was blinded was because we were close friends before we got together for many years. I just didn't want to believe that someone who I was so close to could treat me like that. It was after we started dating that everything went down hill.
Yes, we all have issues carried over from our childhoods, but I don't have any significant traumas in my past. My parents divorced at a young age, so there was some tension growing up. I mostly lived with my mom and she has always been single. My dad dated a woman and they finally got married after 18 years. There relationship isn't perfect, but it's not toxic either. My mom was in a bad car accident when I was younger and suffered a brain injury and had to relearn how to do many things while I was growing up. I was on my own for a lot of things and had to do a lot for myself, but was never completely on my own. Both parents were also educated and hard workers (well up until the accident anyway).
I have taken many positive qualities from my upbringing which has helped me deal with everything that is going on now. I have a very low tolerance for doing things for others when they are perfectly capable. My enabling of his drinking is minimal and is getting smaller as I relearn what are acceptable boundaries and how to enforce them. He pays half the bills, cooks (well he is in culinary school, so that's a given) and cleans (although not as much as I'd like). I feel I have just about completely detached from him, perhaps too much. But he made it easy by never being around. I don't love him anymore and make no secret of it. I don't wear my engagement ring anymore and there is nothing he can say about it. I have my own life. I decided to lose weight and get physically strong this year, so I signed myself up to a gym w/ daycare & dd and I go there several times a week and did just that. I get strong enough to carry the stupid 100 lb. cement blocks that he left in our backyard to the neighbors shed. I have a career (massage therapist) that I absolutely love and am very successful at. I make good money for only part time work. But after 10 years my hands are aching and I know I can't do this forever, so I have decided to put myself through nursing school. Dd is very active and I sign her up for many activities and she also has a full life. We don't sit around and wait for him, life is moving on with or without him. I do waiver back and forth w/ this, but I feel as though I have done all I can to make this relationship work and can move on with minimal guilt. Now it is up to him to start putting in some effort.
I've been reading a lot here