Lilyflower

and it was a big one.

So I had a strangely mixed weekend. Went to my mum's home on Saturday for a visit. Who was very interested in how I'm 'getting on', so I had a chat with her. Told her I've been trying to detach, and stop enabling etc. I expected her to be glad and happy that I was happy (silly me I should know my mum by now). However she reacted like she does quite often, by either pointing out all the things I'm still not dealing with and/or going over what she thinks I'm doing wrong/could be doing better. It's her way of showing how much she cares, concerns herself over me.

But I don't need to be told how she thinks I'm screwing up. I may not have come from an alcoholic home, but I'm starting to think my codie issues came through my mother to me. HP knows where she got these problems as I don't think her parents where As. Just very dysfunctional. Out of my nan, six uncles and my mum, my mother is currently in contact with no one, because she thinks they all should treat her better than they currently do. She says she never wants to see any of them again.

So this shining example of how to deal with stressful/codie relationships and situations starts telling me that she doesn't think I'm being strong or healing myself by my actions. She believes I've gone into some sort of denial. I think her words were... 'your not detaching just cutting yourself off.' Basically she believes that I am ignoring my abf's sufferings (mainly due to the episode with the hospital...


I told mum that I didn't go to the hospital with him (because I was working and also believed this may have been an attempt to stop me from seeing my friend that same evening and focus on abf). So now she just thinks that I'm turning my heart to stone. She annoys me soooo much at times. She is so codependant herself with my dad yet she always takes the higher ground like she KNOWS how I should handle things. She's trying to FIX me and I don't want her to!!!

Sorry bit of a rant there!

So anyway, earlier that day I had asked abf to do some cleaning in the house. I came home that evening to find he'd literally moved one or two things out of the living room and into the kitchen. WOW!!! I wasn't too pleased. I asked abf if we (daughter and I) could turn the channel to watch X factor, a programe we watch every weekend when he is usually working. He told me to go upstairs to watch it. So I said 'ok, but will you move your beer cans out of the room first as I won't sit up there with them.' These cans had been there for a week, maybe, because I was refusing to tidy them; even though abf hadn't drank for 3/4 days. This started his quacking, he reached across the sofa to take the remote away. I just felt like this was a way to control the situation. He wouldn't move the cans and he was holding the remote so I couldn't change channel. So i got up and turned off the TV. Needless to say this didn't help, he ended up taking the lead from the back of the TV so we couldn't watch anything and going upstairs himself! When he'd gone I went and got a spare lead. He must have heard the TV, as he came back and tried to take it back out.

I was so unsettled by the whole silly arguement/game. The next day he stayed upstairs until about 5pm. It was rediculous. Even my daughter who had no part in the whole thing was ignored for nearly the whole day. So in the evening, as he was still sober (got to praise him here, because despite the rucuss he did not go to get a beer which he would've done in the past) I went to him and told him straight...
'Today I've felt so miserable. his behaviour upsets me and I will no longer allow myself to be intimidated, manipulated and made to feel afraid, unloved and unwanted. That at times I am frightened of him because I don't know what he is capable of. That our relationship had become flat, the little cuddles and kisses have stopped and I am no longer made to feel special by him.' He told me to stop being so serious and was even smirking a bit. I know him well enough to know that he has great difficulty accepting affection, working through issues and facing up to problems, so I know his attitude was because the situation was making him feel vunerable. I told him 'I have to be serious because this is it for me. I am too tired for any of it any more. That the affection returns and the attitudes go. That if I feel I have to have this chat with him again, it'll be the end. No more 'one more chances' this is the last one. It gets better now or its over.'

I felt like the world was lifted from my shoulders when I said this. And since then (so far) he has been wonderful to me. I hope it remains this way. He had doctors appointment today, and I hope this will mean he gets access to therapy or some other kind of programme as AA never seemed to fit with him. This is it. In my mind I am thinking ahead to March/ April, when I can apply for a remortgage to sort out my debts. At this time I will be in a position, financially, to support my daughter and myself without his 'help'. Slowly I feel I am moving forward.

I am sorry this is so long, and thank you for reading through this.

Also could you please all share your thoughts with me on how I am doing? My mother's input has made me second guess myself, and I am wondering if my boundary was specific enough?/too harsh? I don't think I've ever had a boundary in my life.

Thanks for your input!!!
Lily xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

best

A boundary is only as good as your ability to hold it firm.

As for your visit with mum... How she treats you should be showing you a fine example of how we try to treat others when our codie behaviors flair up. nooo let me fix that for you...do it this way.

As for boundaries... They are guides for us not others.

You do this or say this... My boundary would be... I will not let what you do bother me.
You talk mean sprited... I will ask you to please stop or I wil remove myself from listening to you. Boundaries are controls for me... What I will do or what I am willing to accept or reject around me.
Though your mum may come on strong in telling you what to do or not do... we can all do the same in suttle ways as well. Look over your own actions and see if you may be trying to do some of the same.

Take that same courage you used to talk and set your boundary with ABF and look inside yourself to see if you may need areas to maybe change. Maybe you don't but it is always a good place to start.

denny57

It's ok to have boundaries for all areas of my life.

I no longer believe that when someone tries to make me doubt myself it is their way of showing how much they care. I was raised to believe that is the truth, but I don't accept it. My mother is much the same. I don't discuss my personal life with her and that works for me.

Once I determined that I was going to live the life I deserved, I did not and have not let anyone stand in the way. If someone makes a negative comment about how I am handling things, depending on who it is, I either change the subject to a positive one or I let them know I am comfortable with the choices I am making and would welcome their support. If they continue, I end the conversation.

Congratulations! Doesn't it feel great?

((()))

Lilyflower

Thanks Best & Denny

Best....
Thanks for explaining boundaries more to me, Its a new angle for me

''As for boundaries... They are guides for us not others.''

I hadn't thought of it that way. As for looking inside myself, I try to do that every day. I have plenty of things to improve upon, I can be a perfectionist and can get irritated when others aren't, I know I can manipulate and martyr like the best of codies, and I get way too attached to people for my own good, I have a tendancy to make my partner my world (Just to mention a few!). I am working on all these things and more. I'll never be finished working on me.

Denny,
Thanks for this, my mum upsets me so often with this type of behaviour, she has admitted to me in the past that she physically cannot hold her tongue when she thinks I ''need advice''. She knows it hurts people. She has always explained it away as being motherly concern. Its so hard to stop this with her because we have always been close, maybe too close seeing as now she cannot leave me be. I don't wish to hurt her by not sharing with her. I will have to practice this...

''If someone makes a negative comment about how I am handling things, depending on who it is, I either change the subject to a positive one or I let them know I am comfortable with the choices I am making and would welcome their support. If they continue, I end the conversation.''

Perhaps she will begin to realise...

denny57

That's great, Lily. It takes practice. Don't forget - you are being hurt, and you come first. It doesn't hurt anyone if I don't share my personal life with them. There are ways to be close to someone and still take care of yourself. I get along fine with my mom. We've even traveled together. It isn't black and white - it's about protecting myself emotionally.

((()))

DetachMe9

Glad you started this thread. I am preparing to go home after a 5-week separation from my AH, probably this weekend. Not much has changed on his end i.e. he's not returned to AA or embraced any kind of recovery, but he's not talking to me much so it's hard to tell. On MY end, however, the groundwork has been laid for some internal changes that I hope will stay put and even grow as time goes on. After I got over the fact that my leaving didn't catapult him into sobriety (who's the "little god" now, people) - I had to get real with myself and what I had been doing to me.

One of the things I did yesterday was start a list of boundaries or "rules to live by" for MYSELF. These are things I decided I'll need to be doing when I get home, so that I don't relapse into enabling/codep thoughts and behaviors. I typed them up and I plan to give him a copy tonight when I'm over visiting my cats. All of them start with "I", and none of them have anything to do with him changing himself or his behavior.

They're very personal, otherwise I'd copy them here but I'll give generic examples:
One has to do with getting adequate sleep, another with maintaining active recovery for myself and all that goes with that. Another is about exercising and not being home after work every night to eat with him. Sexuality, fidelity, TV watching, etc. My point with these is to make it clear that I won't be doing what I was doing before I left, which was mainly lots of "sacrificing" and running-around-crazy doing things I thought would please hime and therefore keep him sober. All it did was make me resentful and drunk on enabling.

I don't know if it's necessary to present all this to him on paper; the most important thing for me is whether I can follow through with doing them when I get back into that house with him. I also don't know where it will all lead, good or bad, married or divorced eventually. All I know is that I can't go back doing the same thing and expect different results. Right?

Lilyflower

Nothing changes if nothing changes....

Good Luck Detach xxxxxxxxx