This month is one year since I kicked my XA to the curb when he relapsed for the 10+ time in the 4 years we were together.
Resentment, Anger, Rage were at a boiling point and I hate to say it I honestly could have been capable of doing something that could have gotten me a lethal injection or fried in an electric chair (we now inject in my state).
Seething with unresolved anger all the time makes us unwell both physically, mentally and spiritually and because the disease is progressive and we are all suffering from the family disease of alcoholism we all get sicker.
Getting so sick... so angry... so resentful does often bring resolution because we just cannot... simply cannot take it anymore. There comes the tipping point...
But in looking back on the four years that I chose to do the alcoholic dance and he chose to manipulate and use me as his personal enabler it was my personal choices that determined my destiny.
I allowed him to behave as he did to me because I "trained" him how he was able to treat me without consequences. I had no effective boundaries.
Had I been healthy to begin with and had established healthy lifestyle boundaries I never would have gotten emeshed with such a broken, immature, selfish person in the first place. While he was sober at the time the red flags were there... plenty of them!
My point is that while resentment, anger and even rage can have a constructive result it is NOT THE BEST WAY to resolve a dysfunctional relationship with an alcoholic. Being able to rationalize, reason and see the truth with a "new pair of glasses" that recovery brings and allow these discoveries about ourselves and our significant others to calmly resolve how we will react to bad behaviors.
I did rage at times. Once I threatened to shoot him with my weapon if he picked up a drink. I meant it. That is scary. Letting our emotions take us to those dark places ... those crazy places is not good. I am capable of homicide. I know this. If I am threatened or in danger I can and will pull the trigger. On one occasion... on crazy, crazy rage filled night I had a moment.. a brief moment... where I honestly came close to putting a bullet between his eyes.
Emotions are something that our HP intends for us to use for compasses... when we are distressed we need to seek out why we are we are and how we can resolve the reasons we are stressed and distressed so we can move forward.
I am happier than I have ever been. I am wiser than I have ever been. The answers were there all the time (Just like Dorothy found out in Oz) we just don't "see" them because we want a different outcome or reality!
The answers are in us not the alcoholic. The person we are looking for is us. Learning why we chose a mate with such "holes" in their soul or severe brokenness is when we grow above the state of insanity we have been living under.
Then we choose whether we wish to stay or go. Most alcoholics don't recover... some become abstinent but it is a small minority that become the men of character, integrity, honor and devoted husbands and fathers we are dreaming we want them to be.
You have to accept who they are in the "NOW" and if who they are now causes huge rages and resentments you are shortening your life physically and harming yourself in every other way as well.
That is why Alanon and other recovery methods teach detachment.. because it is way to survive and thrive in a situation where you under tremendous stress.
I used to rage when pushed over the edge... just like dear old sociopath alcoholic ragaholic dad... I came by it honest. But it NEVER did any good for me even when I won... and yes...
He was terrified and he did not drink. Not at that moment. But he drank again...over and over. So what did my rage accomplish? Nothing.