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Old 01-31-2013, 10:34 AM
  # 3 (permalink)  
PohsFriend
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Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Real World
Posts: 729
Well... the thing is he can come back home any time but he's asking for your OK.

If I were in your shoes I'd probably make a list - here's the deal if you want me in your life and here's what happens if you can't keep your commitment. No punishment or blame, no emotion to it... just cause and effect.

When my beloved AW had a slip while pregnant I made her pretty angry - told her sponsor, let family know and quite honestly violated her boundaries and rights without hesitation because our unborn son was at risk and danger to the cubs throws my sense of fairness out the window.

The boundary we have now is that if she starts drinking she has to leave until she gets well, preferably in rehab but that would be her problem, mine would be dealing with my responsibilities and hers and caring for an infant so I would not have time to deal with her issues if she was not willing to get help. She mentioned the other day that she believed every word I said when I told her that any further slips while pregnant would mean me doing my level best to force her into a hospital until BB was born and any slips afterward while breastfeeding and I'd let her choose between rehab or me calling CPS and having her dragged out of here.

Is that me? hell no, I am a teddy bear but on that issue I wasn't screwing around.

Today? The boundary is the same - you can be part of this family or not. We love you and want you and need you but if you decide to start drinking add 'We'll miss you' to that list. If she has a drink today will I kick her out? Nah... not if she went right back to AA and called her sponsor and seemed to have learned from it but that's because her pattern has been progress. If she slipped repeatedly and did not change SOMETHING that gave me reason to believe she was seriously working on recovery then I just can't live that way...

But that's me, not you.

What can you tolerate and what can't you tolerate? What I learned here is that I had to learn to set boundaries for myself and the kids and enforce them lovingly. My wife said it was unfair to say that is she starts drinking I'd make her leave without the baby. I told her it would not be punishment - if I get a brain tumor that makes me dangerous to my infant son then it is her responsibility to intervene and protect ME from an accident that i could never forgive myself for. She doesn't love that but she does understand that.

...When I kicked her out she was back in a couple weeks, relaxed on meetings and white knuckled for a bit then got serious when she got pregnant and I barked a bit. It was after she slipped while pregnant and I did not catch her til months later that I think her recovery took off. Suddenly she was doing two meetings per day and working the steps and got hardcore on AA with no push from me.

...I think that's the key really, when his recovery is more important to him than it is to you then you are headed the right way, he can't do it for you or anyone else.
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