Originally Posted by
lizatola 
You know, he actually thanked me for detaching and stepping back from him? He told me that my detachment pushed him closer and closer to his bottom and that if I had been nagging, begging, crying, etc about the drinking (like I did 15 month ago) that he would have kept it up. My pulling away and doing what was right for ME showed him that I was moving on and that made him realize he was losing me, possibly forever.
My STBXAH also thanked me for staying strong when he first started to reach out for recovery. His therapist even told me that I shouldn't go back to him right away because that my absence was his reason to be sober and to get help. He was grateful for about a week and a half. He stopped drinking and started going to a bunch of AA meetings. Then, he started questioning my behavior, telling me that I was not detaching correctly. He was no longer appreciating my boundaries, and tried to guilt-trip, shame, and manipulate me again so that I would come back to him. His gratefulness would return for maybe a week at a time. I guess he would have moments of clarity, but those were always short. He continued to be a mess of emotions and rationalizations throughout his early recovery and he couldn't understand why I could not go through that with him. Then, he decided that he didn't need AA anymore, that he wasn't getting the emotional support he needed there. He even told me his new therapist had run out of things to talk about with him, so she was willing to just let him get on with his recovery on his own. That was after almost two months of not drinking.
Even though I didn't always approve of the directions he took with his recovery, I never confronted him about it. I learned in AlAnon and on SR to leave his recovery decisions to him. I also learned that I did not have to ride that roller coaster with him. I chose to stay on solid ground and wave at him when he passed nearby.
Hugs, Lizatola.
Fathom