Originally Posted by
Suz08 
I, too, have felt as if I was abandoning a sick child rather than an adult. I had stopped to recognize the person I fell in love with. There was a complete stranger standing in front of me yet looked and sounded like my husband.
How did you detach and focus on living for you?
Detaching was hard because for so long I wanted control over the outcome.. Going to alanon helped me to realize that I had control over nothing that no matter how much I tried to love him or fix his problems he was not going to change, my life was truly unmanageable.. So I started working on me.. Made some goals, made some new friends, took up some new hobbies ( I can knit a scarf and hat now like no ones business) and basically filled my life with positive activities and surrounded myself with positive people.. I begin to notice how other husbands treated their wives and it certainly was not how my husband was treating me.. I realized that I was putting up with things that I would not put up with from a bad roommate and that's just what he was a bad roommate.. One day he shoved me and I said DONE!!! But even before that incident I was getting my ducks in a row to file for a divorce.. I had come to realize that I owed it to myself to not be in a marriage where I did all the work and all he did was lie and get high... It took me a long time to get to that place but each day got me closer and closer.. The awesome help I got here on SR helped me as well...