Another thing that I don't think I've talked a lot about here is the strange combination of feeling strong and feeling victimized that I had.
I honestly looked down on people who left their spouses, because clearly, they didn't have my strength of character or love their spouses like I did. At the same time, I felt helpless and like a victim of whatever whim AXH whipped up in the moment.
For me, the no-nonsense advice I got here and in Al-Anon changed that. It was hard to keep seeing myself as a victim when -- as people pointed out to me -- I kept putting myself in the same situation over and over. And as his alcoholism progressed, my strength and love died and I realized that we weren't as terminally unique as I had first thought.
SR, and Al-Anon, has taught me to be an active agent in my life. There's one heckuvalot I have no influence or control over, but I do have influence and control over my attitudes and my choices, and I have a responsibility to handle those wisely. I no longer feel like a victim -- although I can slide back into that when I feel treated unfairly -- but I also no longer feel superior to other people the way I used to.
I think for me, the "superior" feeling was a way of denying how much pain I was really in. A way of denying that my husband was as much of an alcoholic as the panhandlers downtown. A way of denying that I had changed and compromised who I was in order to stay in the marriage, and a way of denying that my kids were suffering. I really somewhere DID think that I was better than others, and therefore, I would be able to handle all of this just fine.
I still go back and revisit how I felt back then, because... because in so many ways, life is more complex when I can't see it as black and white as I did then. But I've learned to be more honest with myself about my feelings. And feelings are icky and uncomfortable and unruly little bastards. But they're real now.