Serotonin

I recently went on a bit of a rant in another topic regarding myself as a loser POS and vented my frustration regarding my personal flaws and my messed up family dynamics, especially with my family.

Trust is a huge issue for me. I have thought about it and honestly I trust nobody, not even myself.

I have been working on my relationship with my sons mom. We separated for a while and she moved from my place to a family friends a few months after our son was born. Since having our son she has gotten help for bipolar disorder and is doing much better. It took me a long time to forgive her for all the lying she did during the first year of our relationship. Recently I found out she has been lying to me about having contact with a former friend of hers. This friend stole from me on multiple occasions and was caught red handed. After I busted her stealing very valuable jewelry from the people my sons mom was living with my sons mom supposedly ended the friendship. Well come to find out they have been talking and seeing each other for the past 9 months.

Now I am back to not trusting her, just as I was starting to again. Her family dynamics are full of manipulation and I think she was raised to believe this is normal and not a big deal.

I have done my share of lying to hide the amount of drinking I've done. So am I a hypocrite for feeling betrayed.

I did explain to her that she can speak to and spend time with whoever she wants. I don't control her. So long as our son is in no danger I have to let her make her own choices.

Any advice?

GracieLou

You are correct. She does have the right to make her own decisions.

Your lying has nothing to do with her lying. If you have both lied then you have but that does not make it “even”.

Not sure if you are in AA or another recovery program but one of the ideas in recovery is to make amends. You need to clear your side of the street. Do not cross over to her side and point fingers. Keep your fingers pointed at you and you only.

I know it can be hard, I thought of tit for tat quite often when I reviewed my own actions but that is really not the way to look at it. That makes it easier but not honest. I needed to look at me, my actions and my amends only.

As long as this friend is in no way interfering with your child then you really have no say. Let it go and move on with your recovery plan.

Try and remember that forgiveness is for you more then the other person. It allows you to move on and move forward.

Serotonin

GracieLou, thanks.

It's confusing for me. I want to protect her from bad people, but she is and adult. She is not my child, although we share a child.

Are amends something that take time or do I just have to let go? To me it seems trust takes time to rebuild and one second to ruin.
At the same time I don't know that I'm worthy of forgiveness for my mistakes. Maybe I'm screwed up codependently?

zjw

You cant make her problem your problem you got enough of your own issues.

I realize you want to make things nice between you to maybe patch things up or be on good terms for your sons sake etc.. But there is no reason you cant do this at arms length distance. IE talk with her do what you feel you need to do but keep your emotions and your give a $hit level at a distance and keep your guard up to protect yourself first. If at any point and time you feel like its too much to handle take a step back get some air decide if you want to persue the situation some more.

I have to take breaks with stuff like that pace myself not try and tackle it all at once and try and protect myself. If i where to jump in with both feed i might collapse and go buy some booze in order to cope.

It took a lot of time for me to become the drunken mess i was it took some time for me to untangle that mess too nothing ever gets resolved over night.

I used to be told all the time "dont sweat the small stuff" "dont let it get to you" I hated hearing that sorta stuff. but there is a degree of truth to it. sometimes you just gotta let $hit go you can always come back to it if you want too but if its driven you too nuts just drop it for now.

GracieLou

I understand but you are correct, she is an adult. You are not responsible for her, only for your child. If the situation involves the child then you have to right and the responsibility to speak up but if not then you have to practice the Serenity prayer...Accept the things I cannot change.


Making an amends is more then just saying I am sorry. It is saying I am sorry for the things I have personally done to someone and how can I make it better.

So if you apologize for lying then it should be followed up with the promise to never lie again and to not lie again.

Amends takes time because you need to sort out what you have done wrong. Then you take that list and decide who and what you need to make amends for and how you can make it right. In some cases making an amends can hurt the person more then just leaving it alone and making a living amends rather than a verbal one.

You also have to be sober long enough and be healthy enough in that sobriety to be able to handle some one telling you they do not accept your amends. It happens and that needs to be prepared for.

We can all say we will never lie again to someone but as an alcoholic I found that harder to do then I thought and I was not one to lie on a regular basis. I never hid my booze, I never snuck out to get booze, I never pretended I wasn’t drinking etc. so I did not have those types of behavior hard wired into my brain. Many do, even after quitting, they still continue to lie because it has become second nature. They honestly do not know how to be honest.

IMO you do not seem to have that problem but it still takes time to prepare to not only make an amends but to keep it. Trust does take time and the worse thing someone can do is to shatter it again after making amends.

Another one does not hold much water after the first promise is broken.