Thanks for the tips regarding sponsors. It's been one of the bigger lingering questions in my mind. I know I need and want one. I didn't know how to ask, how soon to ask, who to ask, what to look for, etc.
schnappi, I'm glad you told me that your sponsor is a double-winner. A couple fellas in 1 of my meetings are the same and I like their alanon approach with me and I like their tips and tricks from the AA side. I've felt the same way about many of the members here who are double-winners. I've been mentally ranking people but the fact is, I've only been to some of these meetings twice. I'm trying to look for someone with a similar situation but ahead of me by 10 or more years. Shoot, I'm still trying to memorize their names, let alone their situation.
As c&c mentioned about my history, I've been in this similar spot before. I just didn't go to alanon and the AW didn't go to AA. This time around, things are different. As firesprite pointed out to me, it's hard to know that we're both working on a related subject but our needs are totally different.
So, no. I don't really have high expectations of her and no, I wasn't expecting anything to improve after 2.5 weeks. That's just the timeline of when things came to a head. I knew I couldn't make a meeting until today so I came here to post about it. That was my next best action and talking about it with you all, got me to today. I'm very excited for my meeting and I'm very thankful to everyone for helping me make it here. Not that I was going to die but, my anger was getting the better of me.
I do have high expectations for myself and my family and I do intend to hold people accountable to that part, primarily myself. I was getting into the habit of always working on a massive project on the weekend so I didn't have to engage with the AW. I spent time with my boy and tried teaching him things like my dad did for me, but he's still a little guy and only good for 10-30 minutes before he's on to something else. I realized that I needed to make better memories with him. Fun memories. So I started a weekend family day where I wouldn't work on a project but rather do things with my boy and the AW. I could see that our marriage was in shambles and knew that I needed to do what I could for my son to get a fun weekend with his mommy and daddy. The mommy part is optional. What I didn't see coming was the AW making plans with the boy, without me on the day that I said would be family day. I can say no to her but I can't say no to my son who's totally pumped to go swimming with his buddy from preschool that he hasn't seen all summer. No way would I crush that.
That said, I understand that it's not all under my control, nor should it be, nor do I want it to be. I've been working on a controllable boundary for that one that leaves the AW out of the equation should she make a different choice. I'm just waiting for things to cool down a bit in my own head.