ave

I wrote him a letter. Not really to send, more as a cathartic writing for myself... an exercise in letting go. It wasn't my intention, mostly I was mad and I wanted to write a nice long inventory of everything he did wrong and all the problems he needs to fix... but as I wrote I realized I need to let him discover that stuff on his own. And a wise person's words from the program came to me... and I saw that so much of what I wrote applied to me.

Writing this was for me, and I feel like it brought me to a good end point. As I wrote and blamed and shamed, I somehow wound it around and ended up taking responsibility for myself - for engaging it, and volunteering myself for more, out of (mostly self-centered) fear, which I told myself was just compassion and concern. Then ended up at the paragraph I've included at the bottom. I thought about posting the letter here, but it was really long and not particularly well-formatted - more of a somewhat structured stream of consciousness - and not that important.

What was more important was that in writing it, I realized how much I was guilty of the things I was blaming him for (the big one? pain in our relationship because of actions taken out of lack of self esteem. And not letting go of things from the past, which keep causing problems in the present. I am so guilty) I think I will print and burn it tomorrow... a ceremonial letting go and letting God. I still have a loong way to go. But I just wanted to share that experience with people who have came before me in this codie recovery business

Now I will go to bed. Thank you all for posting so much wisdom here. I am finally stating to feel like maybe I can really let this go, rather than just that I have to.




I have come to realize in writing this letter and over the past few months, that you do not know how to love me, because you do not know how to love yourself. You have been capable of great love at some moments, and I do not doubt that inside, you are a loving person who is capable of having loving relationships, but overall, you have been equally capable of great hurt and betrayal, and where I am in my recovery, I can not accept that behavior in a voluntary intimate relationship. It is not the right thing to do for myself - maybe the most loving thing I can do for me is to let go of this, because it hurts me too much, and I can't fix it.

Loving me means, among other things, sharing a HEALTHY, SUPPORTIVE, LOYAL BOND, in which we can help each other to GROW. It means TREATING ME LIKE YOU WOULD WANT TO BE TREATED!!!

Someone once said, that true love is not making each other happy... it's being happy independently, and sharing your joy with one another. I believe so much in you, Jon. I know one day you will be so happy, just by yourself, filled with love and joy and gratitude. And that is what I want to share with you. I will share your trials, your pains, but I want our love to be based on the sharing of the joy that we hold in our hearts, not in seeking joy from one another. We deserve that kind of love. We have been to hell and back. We have lived hard lives filled with pain, and we found each other on the way back. I feel like I met you on the road to salvation, but somewhere along the trip, you turned back around and drifted in the other direction. I can't make you come back to me. And I can't go down there and pull you out. But I CAN, and WILL, stay safely up here and remind you that there is hope, there is light at the top, and you will get there if you don't give up. I hope that one day you will rejoin me and we can trudge the broad highway together. I want nothing more, right now, than to love you to the best of my ability - to share a pure, joyous love with you, which will be even better than the best day we have shared so far - but that simply is not possible where we are on our respective journeys. I will never lose hope for you, but I can not keep waiting here out of fear of losing sight of you. I need to continue my spiritual growth, and I will not do that as long as I keep looking back to see how far down you have fallen. Maybe one day you will rejoin me. Maybe not. Either way I need to stop looking at the past and move forward now, but I wish you nothing but the best, and I will hold love and hope in my heart for you every step of the way.